Republicans Have Growing Concerns Over Large Early Voter Turnout

The Georgia runoff Senate election is underway. Early voting ended this past week and January 5th marks the last day for voting. This election is especially important because it has the chance to give Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a majority Democrat Senate and House, making it easier for the President and Vice President to advance their agenda and hopefully turn this country around after four years of Trump.

Early voting turnout in the Georgia senate election was better than expected for newly registered Democrats. According to ABC News, more than 3 million people have already voted in the state’s election. Over 900,000 votes are by absentee mail and over 2 million were from in-person early voting. The Democrats have put more emphasis on early voting and voting by mail whereas Republicans know their base will go to the polls on election day.

“We are pleased with the level of energy and excitement, especially given how often pundits were discontinuing the likelihood of Democrats performing in a runoff,” said former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

The Republican Party has spent a record amount of money (over $250 million) on advertising in Georgia. However, the growing Democratic turnout in Georgia might derail their chances of winning. According to two different GOP operatives, Republicans need a very impressive turnout on Tuesday if they want to overcome the Democratic turnout.

“We’ve always known we need a big Election day,” said one of the operatives. “It is the same as the General (Election).”

The GOP is hoping that Trump’s visit to Georgia will help push them to secure the two Senate seats.

“(Election Day) is hugely important, said another Republican operative. “Democrats have banked a lot more of their high propensity voters early. We need our base to turn out on Election day in a big way. The President’s visit on Monday will hopefully go a long way to getting our base out.”