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Since the middle of December, beyond $ 400 million were spent on electoral advertising in Georgia. The huge investment is justified by what is at stake. On the ballot for the two senatorial seats of the State, on January 5 the next two years of administration are decided Biden (so until the midterm elections of 2022). If the Democrats win both challenges, they win the majority in the Senate. If Republicans were able to seize even one of the seats, they would retain control of the classroom, making it difficult to pass many of the reforms Biden is seeking. However, the battle in Georgia is also important from another point of view: in fact, it reveals the centrality that it has religion it remains in American politics.
THE CHALLENGES – Georgia law requires a candidate to get 50% + 1 of the vote to win the Senate seat. None of the challengers reached that threshold on November 3 of last year and, therefore, the vote. In the first of the two challenges, the Republican David perdue gotta deal with the democrat John ossoff. Perdue, the senator in charge of the state, is a businessman, previously under investigation by insider trading. The Justice Department has closed the investigation, but Ossoff, a 33-year-old former journalist, accuses Perdue of being a thief, a thief. To avoid embarrassing attacks, the senator did not appear for the televised debate with his rival: Ossoff was alone on stage, next to the podium left empty by Perdue. The other challenge, perhaps more politically exciting, is that among a wealthy businessman in the financial products sector, the Republican Kelly loeffler, and the democrat Raphael warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church of which he is also pastor Martin Luther King Jr.. Once again, Loeffler is the incumbent senator and the Democrat is the challenger.
In Georgia, a Democrat has not won a Senate seat in 20 years. However, the outcome of the vote is particularly uncertain this year. In the state, Biden won on November 3 by a very small margin – less than 12,000 votes. The furious campaign in the supposed rigged vote since Donald trump However, he may have convinced some of his supporters to leave the polls on January 5: why go vote when Trump has been robbed of victory? However, the importance of the stakes, control of the Senate, as opposed to a Democrat-led White House, has led to an unprecedented mobilization of Republicans – most of the dollars spent since mid-December on Election advertising has been intended to support Republican candidates and all the big names in the party, including Trump and his family, went to Georgia to campaign. Latest polls show Perdue and Loeffler have a slight advantage. The average compiled by Very clear policy He gives Perdue one point ahead of Ossoff, while Loeffler outscores Warnock by a meager 0.2%. The chances of victory for the two Democrats are once again based onyouth and black participation. From this point of view, the massive voter registration operation carried out by groups such as Georgia’s new project of Stacey Abrams. Crucial to Biden’s victory in November, this same extraordinary mobilization fuels the hopes of Warnick and Ossoff.
THE ROLE OF RELIGION – Faith continues to play an important role in American politics. Trump’s election to the Supreme Court, most recently the appointment of Amy coney barrett, were clearly motivated by the desire to reward religious conservatives for the 2016 support and to motivate them to vote in 2020. However, religious reckoning was also part of the recent democratic campaign. Joe biden me Kamala harris they made religion a central theme in many of their interventions. They talked about it in meetings, wrote it in opinion articles for religious magazines and have invested millions of dollars in religious television commercials. Me Hillary clintonIn 2016, he had deliberately eclipsed his Methodist faith, Biden chose the opposite path. His Catholicism, his education by the nuns, the reference to the Gospel as a source of inspiration clearly emerged in the electoral campaign.
Furthermore, some recent studies (source Pew Research Center) show that 71% of Democratic and independent voters belong to some religious denomination and the Biden campaign has decided not to leave Republicans, as has happened in the past, exclusive control of issues of faith. This does not concern only the most institutional sectors of the party. Even the progressive world tends to use religious symbols and references more and more frequently. The four deputies of the “Team“The most radical tip of the Democrats in Congress, they do not hide their religious affiliation. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez she is catholic, Ayanna pressley battista, Ilhan Omar me Rashida Tlaib Muslim. Recently, from the benches of the House, Ocasio-Cortez is linked to the Christian message to defend the rights of people Lgbtq. “I feel that Christ comes through these doors and says what he said thousands of years ago, and that is that we must love our neighbor and our enemy,” he said.
The centrality of religion returns to the challenges for the Georgia Senate, in an even more intense way. Dozens of religious groups participate in the electoral campaign. Pastors of Baptist and African American churches are openly campaigning for Democrats, especially the Reverend Warnock who would be the first black senator in Georgia history. “Let’s keep Georgia blue. We elected Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the United States Senate, ”the bishop said. Reginald jackson presiding over more than 400 churches African Methodist Episcopalian of the State.
What if Ossoff, who is Jewish, is supported by much of the Jewish world of Atlanta, Evangelicals and religious conservatives are campaigning for Perdue and Loeffler. Among these is the Christian Faith and Freedom Coalition, founded by the former chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia, Ralph reed, which in the state has spent 50 million for the presidential elections in November and who contributed tens of millions more for this vote. Other conservative groups involved in the campaign are the Family Research Council and the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion association which announced an investment of more than $ 4 million for the Perdue / Loeffler duo.
However, the historical parallel that tends to emerge in recent weeks in Georgia does not escape many observers. Indeed, in the alliance between the black churches and the Jewish world in favor of Warnock and Ossoff, the coalition that in the 1960s formed the backbone of the civil rights movement. Warnock, by the way, is not just Reverend King’s successor to the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Among the people he has collaborated with the most in recent years is the Atlanta synagogue rabbi who worked with King the most in the 1960s. Warnock’s reference to Reverend King, however, is clear especially from the theological point of view. As in the King tradition, and in most black churches, Warnock is also inspired by a social vision of the gospel which emphasizes not only the moment of salvation (as it happens with evangelicals) but also and above all that of public morality, justice, the improvement of the conditions of the poorest and most oppressed. For this social vision of Christianity, the Kelly Loeffler campaign called Warnock a “radical”, a “socialist” and an “extremist”. Also in this, Warnock is the heir to King, who was accused of extremism and who responded, in the Letter from Birmingham prison: “Jesus was an extremist for love, truth and goodness … and perhaps the South , the nation and the world are in desperate need of extremists. “
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