Senate Battleground: Democratic Debate Tonight as Georgia Senate Races Grow Even More Competitive

Recent Victories Across the South Alongside Sky High Voter Registration Numbers and Solid Polling Show GOP Struggling to Hold Georgia and its Two Senate Seats

ATLANTA — As all eyes turn to Georgia ahead of the fifth Democratic debate tonight, the state has never been more clearly a battleground in the next election, with competitive races up and down the ballot including two Senate races that put the path to a Democratic Senate majority straight through Georgia.

“From recent Democratic victories across the South to hundreds of thousands of newly registered Georgians ready to head to the polls, the news for Republicans keeps getting worse and worse as they struggle to hold on to Georgia’s Senate seats,” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “Tonight’s debate is just the latest evidence of Georgia’s status as a critical battleground state, and Georgia Democrats are in a strong position to win both Senate races next November.”

Georgia is the only state with double-header Senate races in 2020 — and the state’s increasingly favorable terrain for Democrats has only gotten better ahead of tonight’s debate:

• Voter registrations have skyrocketed since the 2018 elections with more than 300,000 Georgians newly registered to vote in 2019 alone, far exceeding the slim margin of 55,000 votes in Georgia’s highly close and contested governor’s race and mostly coming from “urban counties where Abrams outpaced Kemp and Clinton led Trump.” Of those newly registered voters, 47% are people of color and 45% are under the age of 30, according to Fair Fight.

• Polling already shows that Georgia voters are ready to support Democratic candidates for Senate, backing up projections that rank incumbent Senator David Perdue as one of the top vulnerable Republican incumbents this cycle — including new rankings from Politico this morning.

• News reports consistently cite Georgia with its two Senate races as a crucial battleground that’s “in play for Democrats in 2020” because the state’s partisan makeup has become fundamentally competitive.

• Recent election results in Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana show that Republicans are still struggling with key suburban swing voters — the same voters who helped deliver huge gains for Democrats in 2018. From the AJC: “When the suburbs of Cincinnati and Lexington, Richmond and Alexandria, and now Baton Rouge and New Orleans all turn blue within weeks of each other, it portends 2020 trouble for Republicans in metro Atlanta’s northern arc.”

• And with “2020 trouble for Republicans” in the suburbs, Georgia’s population gains could be devastating for the GOP. Georgia has already grown by about 1 million since 2010, and critically, according to Bloomberg: “Much of [Georgia’s growth] was driven by growth in the Atlanta metropolitan area, adding swaths of voters who powered Democrats to gains in the State Legislature last fall.”

Across the board, all signs point to Democratic wins in Georgia this cycle as the state continues to trend blue. With two Senate races and a host of competitive seats all the way down the ballot, it’s increasingly clear that the state is ready to deliver major victories for Democrats in 2020 as Republicans continue to struggle with voters tired of their unpopular and out-of-touch agenda.

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