‘Defund the Police’ Efforts Could Be Key to Defeating Democrats in Georgia Senate Runoffs
“That phrase ‘defund the police’ cost [SC Democratic Senate nominee] Jaime Harrison tremendously,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said during a recent interview.
Though Democrats like presidential nominee Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have claimed that last week’s elections gave their party a “mandate” for the country, the shellacking Democrats took in House races tells a far different story:
.@NRCC went beast mode this election cycle, with even more victories possible in the coming days. (Source: NYT: https://t.co/128aX8DhCp) pic.twitter.com/ZcFTG803cW
— Sister Toldjah Le Pew ? (@sistertoldjah) November 11, 2020
It's been a terrible day for Dems in uncalled House races: #CA21: Valadao (R) still ahead by 4,026 votes#CA25: Garcia (R) retakes lead by 159 votes#CA39: Kim (R) lead up to 4,160 votes#IA02: Miller-Meeks (R) now ahead by 40 votes#UT04: Owens (R) lead up to 1,780 votes
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 11, 2020
In Senate races, Republicans so far have mostly held the line. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was declared the winner Tuesday in his reelection fight, and Alaska’s Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was projected to be the winner of his race earlier today by Decision Desk HQ.
With those two wins added to the count, that gives Republicans a 50-48 advantage in the battle for who controls the Senate. That will leave the two Georgia Senate runoff races on Jan. 5th left to determine party control. Should incumbent Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue win, Republicans would have a 52-48 advantage.
If they don’t and the Senate ends up being tied at 50-50, it would fall to the vice president to break the tie. Assuming that happens and assuming for purposes of discussion that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are certified next month as the winners of the presidential election, that would mean Harris would get to cast the tie-breaking vote for Democrats.
So the stakes are obviously pretty high here for both parties.
While Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has already made one big mistake for his party by declaring during a Saturday “victory” party that “Now we take Georgia, then we change America!”, an even bigger issue Democrats will have to deal with in the Georgia Senate runoffs is their support for defund the police efforts.
As we previously reported, during a House Democrat caucus call last week, several Democrats on the call said being tied to the defund the police movement hurt their party on Election Day.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) was one of the more vocal members who sounded the alarm bells for Democrats on their “defund the police” rhetoric:
Spanberger tells Dems their words matter in House races: "We have to commit to not saying the words 'defund the police' ever again."
"We need to not ever use the words socialist or socialism ever again," she says. "It does matter, and we have lost good members because of that."
— Ben Siegel (@bensiegel) November 5, 2020
Members are definitely speaking up about the “defund the police” attacks and those resonating in their districts, per sources
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 5, 2020
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has been even more outspoken in discussing how the anti-police rhetoric coming from Democrats helped Republicans do better at the ballot box. During a recent Axios interview, he said in no uncertain terms that the “phrase ‘defund the police’ cost [SC Democratic Senate nominee] Jaime Harrison tremendously” in his Senate race against Sen. Lindsey Graham. Watch:
Clyburn tells @alexi : "That phrase ‘defund the police’ cost Jamie Harrison tremendously…Sloganeering kills people. Sloganeering destroys movements. Stop sloganeering.” pic.twitter.com/bQ3tokRMhC
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 10, 2020
He also talked to “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd on Sunday about other races where tying Democrats to defunding the police cost them seats:
“Well, I don’t know about all the seats. I’ve talked to the people down in South Florida. They told me that that really, really was a problem down there, but I can tell you about the 1st congressional district of South Carolina. I really believe that that’s what cost Joe Cunningham his seat, and I can also tell you about the Senate here in South Carolina,” Clyburn said.
Both the Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate runoffs have given Republicans ammunition on this front. Back in June, Sen. David Perdue’s Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff said funding for police departments should be “on the line.” Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Democratic opponent Rev. Raphael Warnock has denigrated police officers in past sermons. Watch:
FLASHBACK: Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock called police officers "gangsters and thugs" and "bullies."pic.twitter.com/VYkvkd4rSb
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 7, 2020
Failed 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who has been praised by the media and her fellow Democrats for her voter registration and GOTV efforts in the state, is helping both Warnock and Ossoff fundraise for their respective races. During a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Abrams declined to criticize the defund the police movement when asked about Clyburn’s comments. Watch:
Even Democrats are worried about how extreme Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are on the Defund the Police issue. But they aren't shying away as their chief surrogate Stacey Abrams on CNN declined to criticize their anti-police agenda. #GAsen #GApol https://t.co/FyFEe0soRv pic.twitter.com/WAqYa38rAB
— Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) November 8, 2020
And although the Schumer comments have already been used by Senate Republicans to shore up their base voters in Georgia, tying both Ossoff and Warnock to attempts to defund the police has the potential to persuade a larger cross-section of voters who in the past may not have considered voting for Republicans.
Here’s why: A comprehensive survey that was done by Gallup over the summer showed that black Americans and Hispanic Americans alike overwhelmingly supported either maintaining police presence in local neighborhoods or increasing it:
Per Gallup, it looks like the aggressive BLM/Dem-led push to defund the police is not resonating w/ most ppl. Black Americans in particular overwhelmingly support police presence in communities. Didn't see much on this from the MSM for some reason. https://t.co/2kHIuYcSM0 pic.twitter.com/3qVfCFj9i1
— Sister Toldjah Le Pew ? (@sistertoldjah) August 8, 2020
Trump and Republicans gained ground with black and Hispanic voters on Election Day, as even Democrats are admitting. Presumably, the Republicans’ emphasis on law and order over the last few months played a role in that.
Don’t be too surprised between now and the Jan. 5th Georgia Senate runoffs to see Republicans hammer home the stark contrast between their party and Democrats when it comes to supporting the police and maintaining law and order. It might just end up providing the GOP with the clear and decisive Senate election victories they seek.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
The only key here is to ensure only legally cast votes are counted!
Btw
Lindsey Graham:
“Potentially 25,000 Nursing Home Residents in Different Nursing Homes Requested Mail-in Ballots at the Exact Same Time” (VIDEO)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/lindsey-graham-potentially-25000-nursing-home-residents-different-nursing-homes-requested-mail-ballots-exact-time-video/
I think that would have won it for the GOP in the first place.
Another point that needs to be campaigned on is that both democratic socialists are BIG TIME gun grabbers. Both of them want to “ban” semi-autos and would happily support a bill to end legal concealed carry. Georgia has 979,000 people with concealed weapons licences. They need to be informed the democrats want them disarmed.
I hope they understand that is a secret ballot, not a secret vote count. Do it right this time.
The Democrat-Communist Party has been emboldened by their theft of the presidential election. Expect them to use the same vote fraud scheme on this runoff election as they did in the presidential election. I hope the Republicans are paying attention, but I suspect they are not.
Typical Democrat deodand idolatry.
Slogans don’t kill people. The policies behind the slogans kill people.
The higher the number of black voters in a district, the lower popularity of “defund the police”. It is incredibly unpopular in those precincts that account for the most number of 911 calls and those are largely poor black neighborhoods plagued by gang violence.
you are forgetting that the votes do not matter, but the vote counting does
The “defund the police” slogan even cost the Dems their leader in the lower house of Georgia’s legislature. Most of his ad dollars were spent denying he hated the police, but he lost bigly anyway.
It’s not as big as thwarting U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley’s re-election bid in 1994, but it’s something.
Wow, Trump had some insane coattails for somebody who ‘lost’.
Ryan Girdusky said on twitter a day or so after the election his Democrats sources told him they already had “hundreds” of people on the ground registering people to vote.
The issues are only going to matter if Republicans are as effective at getting new people registered and committed to vote in January as Democrats are. It needs to be all hands on deck.
Did he mention what state he’s recruiting Georgia voters from?
Defund the Democrats!