United States, Joe Biden's term is in Georgia
Audio 19:30
Democratic activists in the streets of Atlanta.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
By: Anne Corpet Follow
33 mins
Joe Biden is traveling to Georgia this Tuesday, December 15 to campaign with Raphaël Warnock and David Ossof, Democratic candidates for the Senate.
The ballot to be held on January 5 is decisive: only a victory for these two candidates will allow the elected president to have a majority in the upper house, essential for the vote of the laws he intends to promulgate, and to obtain without hindrance. confirmation of appointments to the highest posts in the administration.
Georgia voted for Joe Biden in November, with a narrow lead of 12,000 votes.
The outcome of these senatorial elections remains very uncertain, and the two camps are trying to mobilize their voters, usually less inclined to vote for this type of ballot than for the presidential one.
Publicity
Christine Moore rings the bell at a neighbor's house and takes six steps back to comply with the sanitary instructions.
"
Some open their doors, others don't, if they don't open, I ring the bell again and leave leaflets on the doorknob,
" explains the 50-year-old, who is trying to mobilize voters for the senatorial elections of the 5th January 2021. In the garden of this beautiful house in Johns Creek, an affluent suburb of northern Atlanta, a sign with the names of the Democratic candidates announces the political color of the owners.
“
We are going to ring the bell with the people who are registered on the electoral roll as Democrats to make sure they get to the polls.
Participation will be essential to win,
”explains Christine.
The door opens, and Katy appears, wearing a bright blue sweater - the color of the Democratic Party - "
Sure, I'm going to vote."
I have requested a postal ballot and still have not received it, this worries me
.
"Christine provides directions, a telephone number from which the voter can get information and inquire:"
Would you be available to do some volunteer work in the campaign
?
"
"
We have developed a taste for victory
"
Christine Moore is not directly affiliated with the Democratic Party.
She is part of a group of women, called the "Progressives of Johns Creek" formed in late 2016. A dozen of them discuss this Sunday in the veranda of Deborah Powell.
“
We gathered here in the living room after the announcement of Donald Trump's victory, we drank a lot of wine, expressed our frustrations, we were in disbelief at the result.
But at the end of the evening we decided to get involved,
”says Deborah,“
and what we found was that there were a lot more Democrats in Johns Creek than we could ever have been able to. imagine.
"
The first times that I voted here, except in the presidential elections, there was not even a Democrat on the ballots, there was no candidate for the local polls
"
adds Katy Corral, a Canadian installed for twenty years in this suburb of Atlanta,
“
the party assumed that everyone here was Republican.
Today, our city has become a contested ground
”.
A Democratic activist tries to rally voters on the sidewalks of Atlanta.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
Another independent group, made up of Asian Americans, also got involved in mobilizing Democratic voters in Johns Creek, and one of them, Michelle Au, of Chinese origin, was elected to the Senate of Georgia.
“It's time for women and minorities to be represented in our state,
” smiles Deborah Powell, “
we started to win, and we got a taste for victory
.”
In the November presidential election, Joe Biden edged his opponent by twelve points at Johns Creek, while four years ago Donald Trump had won by three points.
Georgia's first black senator
?
Stacey Abrams was the first to pull Georgia's Democratic voters out of their torpor.
The African American, who narrowly failed to become the state's first black governor in 2018, patiently collected the state's demographics, and compared it with voter registers.
Through its Fair Fight association, it has succeeded in mobilizing residents excluded from the lists or never registered, from minorities or from deprived areas and likely to vote Democrats.
"
It's a job that she carried out for years and which ended up paying
" testifies Andra Gillespie, professor of political science at Emery University of Atlanta
"
In addition to widening the electoral base of the Democrats, she ran effective campaigns to get people to vote.
Combined with the demographic evolution of the State, this strategy has triggered an irreversible dynamic.
People realized that Georgia was not doomed to remain in the fold of the Republican Party
.
"
Young African Americans in front of Stacey Abrams' portrait.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
The Ebenezer church where Martin Luther King preached is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
More than fifty years after the assassination of the famous civil rights activist, Raphaël Warnock, the pastor who officiates in his Baptist church, is running for the Senate for the Democratic Party.
Election signs in favor of the Reverend are visible in most of the shop windows adjoining the place of worship.
"
If the pastor is elected, it will be Georgia's first black senator, but he is close to the people, not just African Americans,
" said Jerry Clarck, who waits patiently while he waits his turn at a nearby barbershop
. also like the other Democratic candidate, David Ossof, and I think both can win.
These senatorials are so important.
The country, and even the world, is watching Georgia.
Those who really love this state and this nation are going to stand up and do the right thing.
Further in downtown Atlanta we find the supporters of Reverend Warnock and David Ossof at a crossroads: they wave signs on the sidewalk and mount motorists to music.
“
This ballot is as important as the presidential one
!
"
Chants Liza dancing on the floor.
Accusations of fraud sow doubt within the Republican camp
But for many Republicans, the presidential election is not over.
This Sunday, December 6, a group of supporters of Donald Trump gathered in Atlanta in front of the state parliament for a prayer at the call of the movement "Stop the steal" (cease the flight).
A few individuals came armed.
Everyone believes that there was massive fraud during the presidential election and that Donald Trump must, can stay in the White House.
Eddy Tuck, dressed from head to toe in the colors of the star-spangled banner, drove from Valdosta, in the south of the state, where he attended a meeting of the president the day before.
“
It was like a winning rally.
Losers don't party like that.
They are not celebrating.
We continue to fight, there are several options for President Trump to stay in the White House,
”assures the activist, who also attended the meeting held the previous week north of Atlanta, during which Sydney Powell, former lawyer for the president, asked voters to boycott the ballot box on January 5 to show their distrust of an electoral system that she considers corrupt.
“
She was wrong,
” Eddy says, “
it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We will all vote for our two senators from Georgia.
And while we are not happy with what is going on, we are truly united.
"
A supporter of Donald Trump came armed to denounce fraud during the presidential election.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
However, in the small crowd which shouts its anger or prays in front of the capitol, one finds admirers of the president who gave up going to the polls for these senatorials.
"
What's the point of voting if there is cheating
?"
"Asks Christian,"
I know a lot of people who will not move if these voting machines are not replaced by a system which depends on the Ministry of the Interior.
Private companies should not interfere in elections.
In the crowd
,
Eric Warren, who presents himself as a member of the "Red Tsunami" organization (the color of the Republican Party) has a petition signed calling for the resignation of the governor and the secretary of state of Georgia, two guilty Republicans in his eyes to have certified three times the victory of Joe Biden in this state.
“
I am not deluding myself, there is little chance that we will succeed, but the Republican Party will have to purify itself.
There must be order, we cannot keep elected officials who validate electoral fraud
"he
explains."
The judges are corrupt like the Democratic Party and many Republicans.
We're not going to fall into line, these Republicans are going to have to join our party, Trump's party, America's party first
!
Exclaims Kay, a Texan who came to Georgia to campaign for the two outgoing Republican senators.
“
I know, it's contradictory,
” she admits, “
but if we lose these two seats it's over forever.
If the theft of the election is confirmed, if Joe Biden comes to the presidency and we lose the Senate, we're screwed.
This America will be over.
We will become a socialist country, and then a communist country, like Venezuela.
"
The fear of communism continues to hit the mark and unite the Republican camp.
It was instrumentalized by Donald Trump during his campaign, and during the debate which opposed him Sunday, December 6 to Democrat Raphael Warnock, Senator Kelly Loeffler did not fail to wave the red rag.
“
The Democrats want to radically change this country and their agent of change is the radical liberal Raphael Warnock
!
»She hammered several times.
Asked about the suspicions of insider trading to which she is the subject for having mass sold shares of hotel chains at the end of January 2020 after attending a briefing on the coronavirus as part of her duties, she even retaliated: "
What is at stake in this election is the American dream.
This is what is under attack
!
The other Republican candidate, Senator David Perdue, did not see fit to debate David Ossof: he chose to ignore his opponent rather than confront him.
Coleman Williamson, social media manager for Young Republicans in Atlanta, is showing measured confidence in the Jan.5 election.
"
The speech on the boycott of the senatorial elections is an emotional reaction to the outcome of the presidential election, but it is not generalized
" he believes, "
the legacy of Donald Trump risks being destroyed if the Democrats resume Senate control, and people will come back to the party.
Historically, our older voters are also more reliable than those on the Democratic side.
"
Demonstration by supporters of Donald Trump in front of the Atlanta Capitol.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
"Every voter counts"
On Monday, December 7, the last day of registration on the electoral roll, the activists of the
New Georgia Project
set up their tables in front of a high school in southern Atlanta.
The association, launched in 2014, boasts of having registered nearly half a million new voters in the State's one-hundred-fifty-nine counties.
Nagie Kanard, an African-American who runs operations, helps a young man just over 18 with the formalities.
"
Each voter counts
" explains the young woman, "it
is estimated that twenty to twenty-two thousand young people who did not have the right to vote for the presidential election will be able to slip a ballot into the ballot box during the senatorial elections.
We are specifically targeting this community.
We want to make sure that our voices are heard for this essential ballot
”.
It was also to young people that Raphael Warnock addressed a few hours later in a park in eastern Atlanta.
“
Keep organizing, keep fighting
!
»Launches the democratic candidate to young activists before evoking his commitment to more social justice.
The pastor candidate is accompanied by Julian Castro, housing secretary under Barack Obama, who came from Texas to mobilize the Latino community, to whom he speaks directly in Spanish.
Because to win in Georgia, the Democratic candidates for the Senate need all minorities.
"
In the 2000s, we saw an increase in the number of African-Americans
,
who today form 30% of the electorate,
" underlines Andra Gillespie, who studies the gradual reduction of the gaps between Democrats and Republicans in his state, “
and in the last decade we have seen an increase in the Asian and Latino population.
They are not very numerous, they only make up 6% of the population.
But if we add these votes to that of blacks and the 20-30% of the progressive white population, they can lead to a Democratic victory
”.
Provided, of course, that they go to the polls in large numbers on January 5.
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