‘More Conservative Than Attila The Hun’: Kelly Loeffler’s Push To Keep Senate Seat

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Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler campaigns in Buford, Ga., telling supporters she’s 100% with President Trump.

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‘Trusted Trump defender’

«I was the only sports team owner to speak out on this particular issue,» Loeffler says. «And for that, it was suggested I should lose my team, my business, my seat in the Senate.»

Loeffler’s biggest argument is that she’s with President Trump 100%. Then, she takes aim at the other top Republican on the ballot, Congressman Doug Collins of north Georgia.

«He’s one of the most liberal republicans in the House of Representatives,» Loeffler alleges.

For his part, Collins argues he’s the «trusted Trump defender» in Congress, and uses a campaign ad to play up a Loeffler financial scandal.

«She’s desperate to hide the fact that as the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, she spent $30 million trying to buy a Senate seat,» Collins says in the ad. «After a private coronavirus briefing, she dumped millions in stock. She profited off a pandemic while too many Georgians lost everything.»

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‘Focused on the voters of Georgia’

But this is no party primary. It’s an open election with 20 candidates from all parties on the ballot in a year where Democrats have hope that Georgia is now swing state territory. Both presidential candidates have campaigned here recently, a rarity in a state where Republicans have long dominated federal races.

The GOP battle between Loeffler and Collins clears a path for the top Democrat in the Senate contest, Raphael Warnock.

«The other side is having an interesting little fight,» Warnock says. «We’ll let them take care of that, and I’ll be focused on the voters of Georgia.»

Warnock is the well-known Black pastor of Atlanta’s storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. preached.

Democrats see an opportunity to flip Georgia in part because the state has added more than a million new registered voters since 2016. And nearly two thirds of them are people of color. Now the party is trying to make sure they actually vote.

At a GOTV event last Tuesday in predominantly African-American Jonesboro, Ga., local politicians chanted «seal the deal, go vote» ahead of speeches from the rapper Common and Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff, who is challenging Republican incumbent David Perdue, and Raphael Warnock.

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Democratic Senate Candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock, center, at GOTV rally in Jonesboro, Ga., with the rapper Common.

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Republican activist Debbie Dooley says she can’t support incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and is backing U.S. Rep. Doug Collins in the crowded race.

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Republican activist Debbie Dooley says she can’t support incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and is backing U.S. Rep. Doug Collins in the crowded race.

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Rep. Doug Collins’ supporter Debbie Dooley says if he doesn’t make it, and Loeffler is on the ballot, she will sit it out, and risk a Democrat winning.

«I just can’t vote for her,» says Dooley, president of the Georgia Tea Party. Dooley has come to a street corner outside Joe Biden’s rally in Atlanta to wave Trump flags at passersby.

Dooley says she’s been a Republican activist since the 1970s, but won’t vote her party at all costs.

«If she’s in the runoff, I can’t vote for a Democrat,» Dooley says. «But I just can’t vote because if you vote for the lesser of the evils, you’re still voting for evil.»

• raphael warnock
• Kelly Loeffler
• Georgia Senate
• 2020 election