The Daily Beast: “Nasty Feud” Between Loeffler and Collins Creates a “Path for a Democrat to Beat Them Both”

Both Republican candidates are stuck in “scorched-earth brawl” after months of infighting as Democrats out-poll each in head-to-head match-ups

ATLANTA — A new report from The Daily Beast breaks down the dire straits Georgia Republicans find themselves in only 4 days out from November 3rd. Both unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler and self-proclaimed top Trump ally Congressman Doug Collins are still locked in a “scorched-earth brawl” that has “scrambled delicate political loyalties in Georgia” and “potentially cleared a path for a Democrat to beat them both.”

This latest report of the extreme Republican infighting comes as new polling shows a nearly double-digit lead for a Democrat against both Republican candidates in head-to-head match-ups and underwater favorability ratings for Loeffler and Collins. And political prognosticators have responded to these developments as well by shifting the race toward Democrats in the final week of the fall campaign.

Read more about “race-to-the-right bloodbath” between Loeffler and Collins:

The Daily Beast: Bizarro GOP Implosion Could Give Georgia Democrats a U.S. Senator

• When two prominent Georgia Republicans decided to run for the same U.S. Senate seat this year, Republicans didn’t expect a kind, gentle contest.

• But many also didn’t anticipate what the race ultimately became: a bitterly personal, scorched-earth brawl between Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins that has frayed friendships, scrambled delicate political loyalties in Georgia, and split high-profile Washington Republicans, including President Donald Trump himself. 

• Even worse for the Georgia GOP, the infighting has potentially cleared a path for a Democrat to beat them both.

• The two have attacked each other on every possible front. Loeffler has painted Collins as a self-interested swamp creature who secretly loves liberals and is squishy on the things conservatives care about. Collins has done the exact same thing, adding in a dash of corruption, owing to revelations of Loeffler’s stock sell-offs around private COVID-19 briefings.

• There’s growing concern within the party that whoever does may be too defined by their race-to-the-right bloodbath in the jungle primary to credibly appeal to the political center of this purple state.

• Debbie Dooley, who co-founded the Atlanta Tea Party, is an outspoken Collins supporter, and frames the race as a choice between the conservative grassroots, represented by her candidate, and the corrupt Republican elite, represented by Loeffler.

• “I’m a lifelong Republican activist since 1976, and I just cannot support Kelly Loeffler. I’ll have the red flu and sit at home if she’s the nominee,” she said. “If you’re voting with lesser of two evils, you’re still voting for evil.”

• That sort of intense intra-party acrimony has split Georgia Republicans just as Democrats captured enough momentum to give them a shot at their first U.S. Senate victory in the state in 20 years.

• A post-Nov. 3 reset for either candidate could be hard. The Attila ads are one thing. But each has courted support from the fringe: Loeffler was endorsed this month by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a likely congressmember-to-be from Georgia whose violent rhetoric and QAnon flirtations have made her radioactive in GOP circles from Georgia to D.C.

• Always a staunch conservative during his time in the U.S. House, Collins, meanwhile, all but celebrated the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month as a win for the anti-abortion cause, and has broadcast his endorsements from open QAnon supporters.

• [Loeffler’s] personal fortune, seen as an obvious political asset when Loeffler was appointed to the seat, also became a major liability. In March, The Daily Beast reported that she and Sprecher had sold off millions of dollars in stock in the wake of a closed-door Senate briefing on the coronavirus.

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