Republican finger-pointing for the Georgia election results began on Wednesday morning, as officials waited to see if Ossoff would win his race and hand Democrats narrow control of the U.S. Senate.
An obvious question for the GOP: Did the president’s weekslong insistence that the presidential election was rigged cause at least some disgruntled Republicans to sit out the runoffs in Georgia?
Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host in Georgia, thinks it did. In a commentary on Wednesday morning, Erickson noted that Democrats voted at rates close to their Nov. 3 turnout. Republicans didn’t.
Erickson reported that the area of North Georgia where the president rallied on Monday night turned out at a lower rate than the rest of the state. Without Trump on the ballot himself, it appears many Republican voters in Trump-friendly territory stayed home: “It turns out when the President, the congressmen, and the Georgia GOP State Chairman all tell Republicans that their votes don’t matter because the Democrats are stealing everything, those voters don’t show up.”
Ossoff’s projected win brings the political balance in the U.S. Senate to 50-50. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would break any tie. That would put Democrats at a disadvantage for passing any major legislation that would require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But it would clear the path to confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks and any judicial nominations—including Supreme Court justices.
Those votes require a simple majority.
Editor’s note: WORLD has updated this report since its initial posting.
