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GOP leaders work to lock down votes to remove Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee

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CNN
 — 

House Republican leaders have worked to lock down the votes to remove Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from the Foreign Affairs Committee after several members of their conference had signaled resistance to the move.

One of those Republicans, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, announced on Tuesday that she is now prepared to support a resolution to oust Omar, citing the addition of “due process language.”

“I appreciate Speaker McCarthy’s willingness to address legitimate concerns and add due process language to our resolution. Deliberation and debate are vital for our institution, not top-down approaches,” the congresswoman said in a statement.

Later on Tuesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy told CNN he has the votes to oust Omar from the committee. “Yes,” he said.

Spartz had previously indicated that she opposed the effort to remove three Democratic lawmakers from committees, including Omar.

Last week, Spartz said in a statement, “Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process.”

The addition of “due process” language may prove to be a sweet spot for GOP leaders and a handful of Republican members who have remained on the fence about a vote to oust Omar, who has been accused by some members of making antisemitic remarks in the past. Omar apologized in 2019 for her remarks, but she has since defended some of her criticisms of Israel and some of its American allies.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina told CNN earlier on Tuesday that she too heard there could be a due process provision included in the resolution, but she suggested she needed to see the resolution.

“Here’s the thing. This has never been done before until Democrats did it to Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Mace said. “Typically it’s the conference or the steering committee of each conference … who choose what members go on what committees. This is not a precedent we should be setting at all.”

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN Tuesday evening that he had just met with McCarthy to discuss changes made to the resolution.

“I’m glad we are focused on due process,” Gaetz said, indicating he was waiting to see the final language before taking a position.

McCarthy vowed last year that if Republicans won back the House majority, he would strip Democrats Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Omar of committee assignments, arguing that Democrats created a “new standard” when they held the majority by removing Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from committees for violent rhetoric and posts.

Congressional Democrats have reacted with outrage – arguing that Greene and Gosar’s behavior merited a major rebuke and saying the move to kick Schiff, Swalwell and Omar off committees appears to be an act of political revenge.

McCarthy has the power to unilaterally block Schiff and Swalwell from serving on the House Intelligence Committee because it is a select committee. Ousting Omar, however, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee would require a vote of the full House of Representatives.

House GOP leadership has expressed optimism they’ll have the votes to remove Omar from the committee. But with Democrats poised to oppose the move, it would only take a handful of GOP members to defect and block McCarthy from moving forward given that Republicans control a razor-thin majority in the House.

Democrats had also argued the move by the House GOP is hypocritical – pointing to the fact that embattled GOP Rep. George Santos, who is facing mounting legal issues and growing calls to resign for extensively lying about his resume and identity, had been awarded seats on two committees.

In an abrupt turn of events, however, Santos told the House GOP conference on Tuesday behind closed doors that he wants off of his two committees until his issues are resolved, three members told CNN.

The New York Republican, who has faced calls for his resignation for false statements – including regarding his professional experience, education history and identity – is a member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Committee on Small Business. Federal prosecutors are also investigating Santos’ finances. Santos declined to speak to reporters as he left the meeting.

Greene told CNN on Tuesday that it was Santos’ decision that he made on his own to “abstain” from the committees. She said he told the conference he would step aside from the committees as the GOP is trying to oust Omar from Foreign Affairs.

“He just felt like there was so much drama really over the situation, and especially what we’re doing to work to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee,” she told CNN.

Omar, Schiff and Swalwell have pushed back in reaction to McCarthy’s effort to strip them of committee seats.

“Kevin McCarthy’s purely partisan moves to strip us from our committee is not only a political stunt, but also a blow to the integrity of our democratic institution and threat to our national security,” Omar said at a recent news conference where she spoke alongside Schiff and Swalwell.

House Republicans have argued that Omar should not be on the Foreign Affairs committee in light of past statements she has made related to Israel that have sparked controversy and in some cases been criticized by members of both parties as antisemitic.

In 2019, Omar issued a public apology after she faced a backlash for tweets condemned on both sides of the aisle as antisemitic. The apology came after the Minnesota Democrat faced widespread criticism after suggesting Republican support of Israel is fueled by donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel group.

There have been other incidents as well: In 2021, a group of Jewish House Democrats accused Omar of equating the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the US. In response, Omar said that she was “in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries.”

As House Republicans move to kick Omar off the Foreign Affairs committee, the new GOP majority has granted Greene and Gosar committee assignments for the new Congress.

Greene and Gosar have faced criticism from both sides of the aisle. Last year, Republican leaders in Congress condemned both lawmakers for speaking at a White nationalist conference.

Greene spoke at the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida – an event founded by the far-right activist Nick Fuentes as an alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Gosar appeared at the America First Political Action Conference via a pre-recorded video, HuffPost reported. Gosar also attended the same conference last year.

Greene defended her appearance in a lengthy statement, dismissing the blowback as “fake divisions and disingenuous allegations” and proclaiming that she won’t “cancel” other conservatives even if she finds their statements “tasteless, misguided or even repulsive at times.”

A CNN KFile review of Gosar’s events and social media posts over the years found that the lawmaker has long associations with White nationalists, a pro-Nazi blogger and far-right fringe players. A spokesperson for Gosar declined to comment on specific questions about the congressman’s associates in response to the reporting.

This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.

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Paul Pelosi attacker trafficks in conspiracy theories in call to TV station after video release

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CNN
 — 

The man who attacked the husband of Nancy Pelosi in their home last year showed no remorse and continued his dangerous fixation on the former House speaker in a bizarre phone call to a San Francisco reporter on Friday, according to the Bay Area station’s reporting.

David DePape called KTVU’s Amber Lee from the San Francisco County Jail on the same day the attack footage was released, with what he called “an important message for everyone in America.”

Without mentioning Pelosi by name, DePape said he had gathered “names and addresses” of people he believed were “systematically and deliberately” destroying American freedom and liberty and said he wanted to “have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior.”

DePape added that he should have been “better prepared,” adding that he was sorry that he “didn’t get more of them.”

KTVU said their reporter was not allowed to ask follow-up questions of DePape during the phone conversation, which he allowed to be recorded.

The call came on the same day that a California court released video of the attack, audio of the 911 call and his initial police interview after the arrest in which he echoed right-wing extremist views, including MAGA tropes that underscored how he was influenced by dangerous rhetoric and conspiracies.

DePape also told a San Francisco police officer in October that the reason he went to the Pelosis’ San Francisco home was because he believed that the then-speaker was “the leader of the pack” of all the politicians in Washington, DC, “lying on a consistent basis.”

In laying out his reasons for enacting the attack, DePape epitomizes how dangerous unsubstantiated political rhetoric that enters the mainstream has contributed to political violence nationwide.

US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said earlier this month that threats against members of Congress is “still too high” even though threat investigations dropped in 2022 for the first time in five years. Federal law enforcement agencies have consistently warned about the increasing threat of politically motivated violence after rioters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, raising specific concerns about the likelihood that online calls for violence result in real-world attacks.

DePape claimed in his October interview that Democrats, led by Pelosi, spied on former President Donald Trump in a way that was worse than Watergate, when then-President Richard Nixon was forced to resign after it was discovered his administration tried to cover up a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

“When Trump came into office, what they did went so far beyond spying on a rival campaign. It is just crazy,” DePape said in an audio recording of his interview with a San Francisco police officer in October.

Without evidence, DePape claimed that Democrats were on an “endless f**king crime spree” when it came to Trump.

“Not only were they spying on a rival campaign, they were submitting fake evidence to spy on a rival campaign, covering it up, persecuting the rival campaign,” DePape said of what he believed Democrats were doing to Trump.

DePape said that these actions originated with Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully ran against Trump in 2016, and that all Democrats are “criminals.” But he zeroed in on Pelosi as the one who “ran with the lying.”

DePape is facing both state and federal charges related to the attack. He has pleaded not guilty.

The video and audio were released by a court Friday, over the objections of DePape’s attorneys who argued it would “irreparably damage” his right to a fair trial. Media outlets, including CNN, pressed the court to release the information.

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Solomon Peña: Failed GOP candidate arrested on suspicion of orchestrating shootings at homes of Democrats in New Mexico, police say

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CNN
 — 

A Republican former candidate for New Mexico’s legislature who police say claimed election fraud after his defeat has been arrested on suspicion of orchestrating recent shootings that damaged homes of Democratic elected leaders in the state, police said.

Solomon Peña, who lost his 2022 run for state House District 14, was arrested Monday by Albuquerque police, accused of paying and conspiring with four men to shoot at the homes of two state legislators and two county commissioners, authorities said.

“It is believed he is the mastermind” behind the shootings that happened in December and early January, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a news conference.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s campaign website for comment and has been unable to identify his attorney.

Before the shootings, Peña in November – after losing the election – had approached one of the legislators and some county commissioners at their homes with paperwork that he said indicated fraud was involved in the elections, police said.

An investigation confirmed “these shootings were indeed politically motivated,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Monday.

“At the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence,” said Keller, a Democrat. “We know we don’t always agree with our elected officials, but that should never, ever lead to violence.”

The stewing of doubt about election veracity, principally among Republicans and usually without proof, has exploded nationwide since then-President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid and began propagating falsehoods the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The claims have stoked anger – and unapologetic threats of violence – against public officials down to the local level.

Peña will face charges related to four shootings: a December 4 incident at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa; a December 8 shooting at the home of incoming state House Speaker Javier Martinez; a December 11 shooting at the home of then-Bernalillo Commissioner Debbie O’Malley; and a January 3 shooting at the home of state Sen. Linda Lopez, police said in a news release.

In the latest shooting, police found evidence “Peña himself went on this shooting and actually pulled the trigger on at least one of the firearms that was used,” Albuquerque police Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said. But an AR handgun he tried to use malfunctioned, and more than a dozen rounds were fired by another shooter from a separate handgun, a police news release reads.

The department is still investigating whether those suspected of carrying out the shootings were “even aware of who these targets were or if they were just conducting shootings,” Hartsock added.

“Nobody was injured in the shootings, which resulted in damage to four homes,” an Albuquerque police news release said.

Barboa, whose home investigators say was the site of the first shooting, is grateful for an arrest in the case, she told “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday.

“I’m relieved to hear that people won’t be targeted in this way by him any longer,” she said.

During the fall campaign, Peña’s opponent, Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia, sued to have Peña removed from the ballot, arguing Peña’s status as an ex-felon should prevent him from being able to run for public office in the state, CNN affiliate KOAT reported. Peña served nearly seven years in prison after a 2008 conviction for stealing a large volume of goods in a “smash and grab scheme,” the KOAT report said.

“You can’t hide from your own history,” Peña told the outlet in September. “I had nothing more than a desire to improve my lot in life.”

A district court judge ruled Peña was allowed to run in the election, according to KOAT. He lost his race to Garcia, 26% to 74%, yet a week later tweeted that he “never conceded” the race and was researching his options.

“After the election in November, Solomon Peña reached out and contracted someone for an amount of cash money to commit at least two of these shootings. The addresses of the shootings were communicated over phone,” Hartsock said Monday, citing the investigation. “Within hours, in one case, the shooting took place at the lawmaker’s home.”

Firearm evidence, surveillance video, cell phone and electronic records and witnesses in and around the conspiracy aided the investigation and helped officials connect five people to this conspiracy, Hartsock said.

Detectives served search warrants Monday at Peña’s apartment and the home of two men allegedly paid by Peña, police said in the news release, adding Peña did not speak with detectives.

Officers arrested Peña on suspicion of “helping orchestrate and participate in these four shootings, either at his request or he conducted them personally, himself,” Hartsock added.

Police last week announced they had a suspect in custody and had obtained a firearm connected to one of the shootings at the homes of elected officials. A car driven at one of the shooting scenes was registered to Peña, the department said.

Authorities had earlier said they were investigating two other reports of gunfire since December – near the campaign office of the state attorney general, and near a law office of a state senator. Detectives no longer believe those two incidents are connected to the other four, police said Monday.

O’Malley, the then-county commissioner whose home police say was shot at in December, is pleased an arrest has been made, she said.

“I am very relieved – and so is my family. I’m very appreciative of the work the police did,” O’Malley told CNN on Monday evening. O’Malley and her husband had been sleeping on December 11 when more than a dozen shots were fired at her home in Albuquerque, she said.

Barboa discovered the gunshots at her home after returning from Christmas shopping, she said.

“It was terrifying. My house had four shots through the front door and windows, where just hours before my grandbaby and I were playing in the living room,” Barboa said in a statement. “Processing this attack continues to be incredibly heavy, especially knowing that other women and people of color elected officials, with children and grandbabies, were targeted.”

Martinez, the incoming state House speaker whose home also was shot at, is grateful a suspect is in custody, he told CNN in a statement. “We have seen far too much political violence lately and all of these events are powerful reminders that stirring up fear, heightening tensions, and stoking hatred can have devastating consequences,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Debbie O’Malley’s first name.



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Missouri lawmakers adopt stricter dress code for women in state House

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Washington
CNN
 — 

Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives this week adopted a stricter dress code for women as part of a new rules package, and now requires them to cover their shoulders by wearing a jacket like a blazer, cardigan or knit blazer.

The addition, which was proposed by Republican state Rep. Ann Kelley, sparked outrage from some Democrats who said the change was sexist because the dress code for men was not altered.

Men in the Missouri House of Representatives are required to wear a jacket, shirt and a tie. The previous dress code for women required “dresses or skirts or slacks worn with a blazer or sweater and appropriate dress shoes or boots.”

Kelley, speaking on the House floor, said she felt compelled to offer the change that “cleans up some of the language … by mirroring the language in the gentleman’s dress code.”

“Men are required to wear a jacket, a shirt and a tie, correct? And if they walked in here without a tie, they would get gaveled down in a heartbeat. If they walked in without a jacket, they would get gaveled down in a heartbeat. So, we are so interested in being equal,” Kelley said on Wednesday during the floor debate.

Women hold less than a third of the seats in the Missouri House, which is made up of 116 men and 43 women, according to the state House site.

The dress code amendment was passed in a voice vote and the rules package was later adopted by the GOP-controlled legislature in a 105-51 vote, but not without pushback and debate from House Democrats.

“Do you know what it feels like to have a bunch of men in this room looking at your top trying to determine if it’s appropriate or not?” Democratic state Rep. Ashley Aune proclaimed from the House floor.

Republicans altered their amendment to include cardigans after Democratic state Rep. Raychel Proudie criticized the impact requiring blazers could have on pregnant women.

Democratic state Rep. Peter Merideth refused to vote on the amendment, telling his colleagues on the floor, “I don’t think I’m qualified to say what’s appropriate or not appropriate for women and I think that is a really dangerous road for us all to go down.”

“Y’all had a conniption fit the last two years when we talked about maybe, maybe wearing masks in a pandemic to keep each other safer. How dare the government tell you what you have to wear over your face? Well, I know some governments require women to wear things over their face, but here, oh, it’s OK because we’re just talking about how many layers they have to have over their shoulders,” Merideth added.

In the US Congress, up until 2017, reporters and lawmakers were required to wear dresses and blouses with sleeves if they wanted to enter the House chamber. A group of bipartisan female lawmakers protested over their “right to bare arms,” prompting then-Speaker Paul Ryan’s office to concede that the dress code “could stand to be a bit modernized.” The US Senate later amended its rules as well, The New York Times reported.

Aune told CNN Friday afternoon the change signals that Republicans in the state aren’t focused on “important issues.”

“In 2019 House Republicans passed the abortion ban that went into effect this summer after the Dobbs decision came down, fully restricting a women’s right to choose in this state, and on day one in our legislature they’re doubling down on controlling women,” she said on “CNN Newsroom.”

“It’s wild to me. I think it’s sending a message that the Republican Party, the Missouri GOP, doesn’t have the best interest in mind and (is) not focused on the important issues.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Lawmakers should prepare for one-week funding stopgap as negotiations continue, Schumer says

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CNN
 — 

The House and Senate are expected to pass a short-term extension to avert a shutdown, which would give negotiators more time to try to secure a broader full-year funding deal.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday that senators should be prepared to take “quick action” on a one-week extension to give lawmakers more time to negotiate.

Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor that he anticipates “quick action” on a stopgap funding bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR for short, “so we can give appropriators more time to finish a full funding bill before the holidays.”

Budget negotiators must reach an agreement before their deadline or punt the decision to next year, when House Republicans take over. That could complicate the government’s ability to avert a shutdown as it would mean newly empowered House Republicans need to agree with 60 senators and Democratic President Joe Biden.

The other major legislative item lawmakers are working to wrap up before the end of the year is the National Defense Authorization Act, the massive annual must-pass defense policy bill. The NDAA is expected to get a vote in the Senate this week and be approved with bipartisan support.

The House has already approved the measure so once the Senate votes to pass it, the bill can go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

The approaching deadline for government funding had members of Congress and their staffers from both parties, as well as Biden administration officials, continuing to slog through negotiations over the weekend to try to get to an agreement on a spending package.

“This is the time of the year when there’s no weekends for folks who work on appropriations,” one administration official closely involved in the talks told CNN.

Over the weekend, both Democrats and Republicans were sharing with one another their “bottom lines” on various fronts, and the White House remained publicly optimistic that an agreement could be reached on an omnibus: “There is absolutely still a path and time for a deal.”

Administration officials continue to maintain that they do not see any real likelihood of a government shutdown.

Congressional aides acknowledged to CNN that the weekend talks went better than days prior, which is why Democrats have announced they will not introduce their own Democratic-only omnibus plan on Monday. Republicans on Capitol Hill had been reading a threat for Democrats to introduce their own bills as a messaging exercise that would only further divide negotiators, and by avoiding that messaging exercise, Republicans see a sign that Democrats are serious about trying to get to yes.

For now, a bipartisan deal on government funding remains elusive. Lawmakers have not yet been able to reach a negotiated agreement for a comprehensive, full-year funding package – known on Capitol Hill as an omnibus – amid a dispute between the two parties over how much money should be spent on non-defense, domestic priorities. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters the two sides are roughly $26 billion apart.

Republicans are critical of recent domestic spending by Democrats and argue that measures Democrats have passed while they have been in control both chambers of Congress, like the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill and the sweeping health care and climate bill, are wasteful and will worsen inflation. Democrats counter by saying those measures were necessary to help the country recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic as well as to tackle other critical priorities. And Democrats said that money to respond to Covid, health care and climate should not mean there should be less money next year for government operations and non-defense, domestic spending.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that Democrats must drop their demands for additional spending on domestic programs in order to get a broad government funding bill passed before the holidays or risk passing a short-term bill into early next year after Republicans take control of the House and would be poised to demand even lower funding levels.

“Our Democratic colleagues have already spent two years massively – massively – increasing domestic spending using party line reconciliation bills outside the normal appropriations process,” McConnell said on the floor. “Clearly, our colleagues cannot now demand even more, more domestic spending than President Biden even requested in exchange for funding the United States military.”

“If House and Senate Democratic colleagues can accept these realities in the very near future, we may still have a shot at assembling a full-year funding bill that will give our military commanders the certainty they need to invest, plan and stay competitive with rivals like China. If our Democratic colleagues can’t accept those realities, the option will be a short term bipartisan funding bill into early next year,” McConnell said.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, outlined the argument for his party in his own floor remarks on Thursday. Republicans, Leahy said, are “demanding steep cuts to programs the American people rely on.”

Referring to Democratic-passed legislation that Republicans have criticized, Leahy said, “Those bills were meant to get us out of the pandemic, get the nation healthy, and get our economy back on track, and I believe they are accomplishing that goal. They were not meant to fund the basic functions of the American government in fiscal year 2023.”

While lawmakers continue to negotiate, the federal government has begun the process of preparing for a potential shutdown, participating in the mandatory but standard process of releasing shutdown guidance to agencies ahead of Friday’s funding deadline.

Officials have emphasized that there is no real likelihood of a government shutdown, but the standard procedure laying out the steps toward bringing non-essential government functions to a halt is underway.

“One week prior to the expiration of appropriations bills, regardless of whether the enactment of appropriations appears imminent, OMB will communicate with agency senior officials to remind agencies of their responsibilities to review and update orderly shutdown plans, and will share a draft communication template to notify employees of the status of appropriations,” a document from the Office of Management and Budget stated.

That standard guidance was circulated last Friday, marking seven days before a shutdown could occur absent Congressional action.

Every department and agency has its own set of plans and procedures. Those plans include information on how many employees would get furloughed, what employees are essential and would work without pay (for example, air traffic controllers, Secret Service agents, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory staff), how long it would take to wind down operations in the hours before a shutdown, and what activities would come to a halt.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent

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CNN
 — 

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.

“I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.

“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments – a signal that she doesn’t plan to upend the Senate composition, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer controls committee rosters for Democrats.

“When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”

But Sinema’s decision to become a political independent makes official what’s long been an independent streak for the Arizona senator, who began her political career as a member of the Green Party before being elected as a Democrat to the US House in 2012 and US Senate in 2018. Sinema has prided herself on being a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, and her new nonpartisan affiliation will further free her to embrace an against-the-grain status in the Senate, though it raises new questions about how she – and Senate Democrats – will approach her reelection in 2024 with liberals already mulling a challenge.

Sinema wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic released Friday explaining her decision, noting that her approach in the Senate has “upset partisans in both parties.”

“When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote.

“That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.”

Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and liberals in Arizona are already floating potential challengers, including Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who said earlier this year that some Democratic senators have urged him to run against Sinema.

“Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans,” Gallego said in a statement following Sinema’s announcement.

Sinema declined to address questions about her reelection bid in the interview with Tapper, saying that simply isn’t her focus right now.

She also brushed aside criticism she may face for the decision to leave the Democratic Party.

“I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” Sinema said. “What I am worried about is continuing to do what’s right for my state. And there are folks who certainly don’t like my approach, we hear about it a lot. But the proof is in the pudding.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Sinema a “key partner” following her decision and said the White House has “every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her.”

Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Sinema gave the White House a heads up that she was leaving the Democratic Party. Schumer said in a statement he also was aware of Sinema’s bombshell announcement ahead of Friday morning.

“She asked me to keep her committee assignments and I agreed,” Schumer said. “Kyrsten is independent; that’s how she’s always been. I believe she’s a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate.”

Schumer also outlined how he did not expect Sinema’s decision to impact Democrats’ plans for next year, saying in his statement, “We will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power, and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes.”

The Biden White House is offering a muted reaction Friday morning and insisting that they expect to continue having a productive working relationship with the senator.

One White House official tells CNN that the move “doesn’t change much” other than Sinema’s own reelection calculations.

“We’ve worked with her effectively on a lot of major legislation from CHIPS to the bipartisan infrastructure law,” the official said. The White House, for now, has “every reason to expect that will continue,” they added.

Sinema has long been the source of a complex convergence of possibility, frustration and confusion inside the White House.

“Rubik’s cube, I guess?” was how one former senior White House official described the Arizona senator who has played a central role in President Joe Biden’s largest legislative wins and also some of his biggest agenda disappointments.

There was no major push to get Sinema to change her mind, a White House official said, noting that it wouldn’t have made a difference.

“Nothing about the last two years indicates a major effort would’ve made helped – the exact opposite actually,” a White House official said.

The most urgent near-term effort was to quietly find out what it meant for their newly expanded Senate majority, officials said.

While there were still clear details to figure out about process, “I think people exhaled when we had a better understanding of what she meant,” one source familiar with the discussion said.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told “CNN This Morning” that “Senator Sinema has always had an independent streak,” adding that “I don’t believe this is going to shake things up quite like everyone thinks.”

She added, “Senator Sinema has been an independent in all intents and purposes.”

Sinema and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin have infuriated liberals at various points over the past two years, standing in the way of Biden’s agenda at a time when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House.

Sinema and Manchin used their sway in the current 50-50 Senate – where any single Democrat could derail a bill – to influence a host of legislation, especially the massive $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill that Biden proposed last year. Sinema’s objections to increasing the corporate tax rate during the initial round of negotiations over the legislation last year particularly rankled liberals.

While Sinema was blindsided by the surprise deal that Manchin cut with Schumer in July on major health care and energy legislation, she ultimately backed the smaller spending package that Biden signed into law before the election.

Both Manchin and Sinema also opposed changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules despite pressure from their Senate colleagues and Biden to change them. After a vote against filibuster changes in January, the Arizona Democratic Party’s executive board censured Sinema.

Sinema has been in the middle of several significant bipartisan bills that were passed since Biden took office. She pointed to that record as evidence that her approach has been an effective one.

“I’ve been honored to lead historic efforts, from infrastructure, to gun violence prevention, to protecting religious liberty and helping LGBT families feel secure, to the CHIPs and science bill to the work we’ve done on veterans’ issues,” she told CNN. “The list is really long. And so I think that the results speak for themselves. It’s OK if some people aren’t comfortable with that approach.”

Sinema’s announcement comes just days after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection in Georgia, securing Democrats a 51st Senate seat that frees them from reliance on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.

Sinema declined to address questions about whether she would support Biden for president in 2024, and she also said she’s not thinking about whether a strong third party should emerge in the US.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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Raphael Warnock will win Georgia Senate runoff, CNN projects, in final midterm rebuke of Trump’s influence

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CNN
 — 

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will win Georgia’s Senate runoff, CNN projects, giving Democrats greater leverage in the Senate next year and delivering a critical blow to former President Donald Trump after a defeat of yet another one of his hand-picked candidates.

With Warnock’s defeat of Republican challenger Herschel Walker, Democrats will control 51 seats to the GOP’s 49.

The race closes out a difficult midterm cycle for Republicans – who won the House majority but saw their hopes for Capitol Hill dominance dashed by the troubled candidacies of some Trump-backed Senate nominees.

“There are no excuses in life and I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight,” Walker told supporters after calling Warnock.

The runoff was a final midterm test of the former president’s influence as he embarks on a third White House bid. It was also a sign that – in the wake of President Joe Biden narrowly carrying the state in 2020, combined with two Senate runoff wins that handed him a Democratic Senate in 2021 – Georgia is now definitively a purple state.

In his victory speech, Warnock alluded to the fact that the runoff was his fourth campaign in two years. “After a hard-fought campaign – or should I say campaigns – it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken.”

“I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” Warnock continued. “You have put in the hard work and here we are standing together.”

The president called Warnock after arriving back in Washington from an event in Arizona and tweeted: “Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate. Here’s to six more years.”

The recriminations arrived swiftly for the GOP late Tuesday night.

“The only way to explain this is candidate quality,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said on CNN, noting the delta between Gov. Brian Kemp’s November victory and where it appears that Walker will end up when all the votes are counted.

He said he hoped Warnock’s victory would serve as a wake-up call for the GOP. “If we don’t take our medicine here, it’s our fault. … Every Republican in this country ought to hold Donald Trump accountable for this.”

Many Republicans attributed the closeness of the race on Tuesday night to the fact that Kemp came to Walker’s rescue in the runoff after keeping his distance during last month’s general election. He not only campaigned for him but put the muscle of his own turnout operation into efforts to help the GOP Senate nominee.

Morale among Walker’s campaign staff hit an all-time low in its final days as it became clear to them their candidate would likely lose his race to Warnock, according to multiple people familiar with his campaign.

Several of Walker’s staff members became frustrated as the runoff election progressed over the last month, sensing their advice for the embattled candidate wasn’t being heeded as outside voices with little political experience were empowered.

In addition to dealing with a slew of scandals, Walker’s campaign tried to adjust his message to more closely align with the successful one Kemp ran on, but ultimately felt their candidate declined to take strategic advice, was reluctant to hit the campaign trail and largely declined media interviews in the final days.

“He’s so proud he doesn’t like taking advice,” one person familiar with the campaign told CNN, adding that he instead leaned on his wife Julie Blanchard for most decisions rather than empowering his team.

Democratic control of the Senate next year was already settled by hard-fought contests in states like Nevada, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto clung to her seat despite economic headwinds, and in Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman picked up a GOP-held seat.

The Senate has been evenly divided 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. That has given inordinate power to moderate figures like Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have often single-handedly curbed the ambitions of their party. Warnock securing a full six-year term will allow Democrats to dispense with the current power-sharing agreement with Republicans, while making it easier to advance Biden’s nominees.

Biden and his advisers have been keenly aware of what a significant difference the single extra seat can make. “It means a lot,” is how one Democrat familiar with the White House’s thinking put it very simply.

Though Warnock gained more votes than Walker in last month’s general election, he did not earn the majority needed to win outright. The ensuing runoff had attracted more than $80 million in ad spending, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact, with Democrats spending about twice as much as Republicans.

Warnock held a narrow lead over Walker in a CNN poll released last week. Walker had a negative favorability rating as voters questioned his honesty after a series of scandals. He’s denied reports that he pressured or encouraged women to have abortions, despite previously advocating for bans on the procedure without exceptions on the campaign trail. CNN’s KFile has reported that he is getting a tax break intended only for a primary residence this year on his home in the Dallas, Texas, area – while running for the seat in Georgia.

The state broke single-day early voting records last week, but the early voting period was significantly condensed from 2021. The overall number of voters decreased from roughly 3.1 million last year to about 1.87 million in 2022. Democrats were optimistic, in part, because of Black voters – who strongly favored Warnock in CNN’s poll. They accounted for nearly 32% of the turnout in early voting, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

Walker, however, was counting on robust turnout among GOP voters, who tend to vote in greater numbers on Election Day.

But Trump – who, like Biden, steered clear of the Peach State during the runoff – complicated GOP fortunes across the country this year as voters rejected many of his election-denying candidates in swing states.

Some of the earliest signs of that were in Georgia two years ago, when his efforts to raise doubts about mail-in ballots and vote counting were blamed, in part, for the GOP’s 2021 losses in twin runoffs that handed Democrats control of the Senate.

This year, the former president’s efforts to exact revenge on Kemp – who rebuffed Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election – were soundly rejected by voters in the primary. Kemp went on to handily defeat Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams last month, garnering about 200,000 more votes than Walker.

After watching losses in key states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, top Republicans are planning a more aggressive push to prop up candidates in primaries that they deem as more electable. The incoming chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, told CNN: “Clearly you want to see candidates who can win general elections and we’re gonna keep working that in.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.



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Raphael Warnock will win Georgia Senate runoff, CNN projects, in final midterm rebuke of Trump’s influence

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CNN
 — 

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will win Georgia’s Senate runoff, CNN projects, giving Democrats greater leverage in the Senate next year and delivering a critical blow to former President Donald Trump after a defeat of yet another one of his hand-picked candidates.

With Warnock’s defeat of Republican challenger Herschel Walker, Democrats will control 51 seats to the GOP’s 49.

The race closes out a difficult midterm cycle for Republicans – who won the House majority but saw their hopes for Capitol Hill dominance dashed by the troubled candidacies of some Trump-backed Senate nominees.

“There are no excuses in life and I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight,” Walker told supporters after calling Warnock.

The runoff was a final midterm test of the former president’s influence as he embarks on a third White House bid. It was also a sign that – in the wake of President Joe Biden narrowly carrying the state in 2020, combined with two Senate runoff wins that handed him a Democratic Senate in 2021 – Georgia is now definitively a purple state.

In his victory speech, Warnock alluded to the fact that the runoff was his fourth campaign in two years. “After a hard-fought campaign – or should I say campaigns – it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken.”

“I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” Warnock continued. “You have put in the hard work and here we are standing together.”

The recriminations arrived swiftly for the GOP late Tuesday night.

“The only way to explain this is candidate quality,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said on CNN, noting the delta between Gov. Brian Kemp’s November victory and where it appears that Walker will end up when all the votes are counted.

He said he hoped Warnock’s victory would serve as a wake-up call for the GOP. “If we don’t take our medicine here, it’s our fault. … Every Republican in this country ought to hold Donald Trump accountable for this.”

Many Republicans attributed the closeness of the race on Tuesday night to the fact that Kemp came to Walker’s rescue in the runoff after keeping his distance during last month’s general election. He not only campaigned for him but put the muscle of his own turnout operation into efforts to help the GOP Senate nominee.

Democratic control of the Senate next year was already settled by hard-fought contests in states like Nevada, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto clung to her seat despite economic headwinds, and in Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman picked up a GOP-held seat.

The Senate has been evenly divided 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. That has given inordinate power to moderate figures like Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have often single-handedly curbed the ambitions of their party. Warnock securing a full six-year term will allow Democrats to dispense with the current power-sharing agreement with Republicans, while making it easier to advance Biden’s nominees.

Though Warnock gained more votes than Walker in last month’s general election, he did not earn the majority needed to win outright. The ensuing runoff had attracted more than $80 million in ad spending, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact, with Democrats spending about twice as much as Republicans.

Warnock held a narrow lead over Walker in a CNN poll released last week. Walker had a negative favorability rating as voters questioned his honesty after a series of scandals. He’s denied reports that he pressured or encouraged women to have abortions, despite previously advocating for bans on the procedure without exceptions on the campaign trail. CNN’s KFile has reported that he is getting a tax break intended only for a primary residence this year on his home in the Dallas, Texas, area – while running for the seat in Georgia.

The state broke single-day early voting records last week, but the early voting period was significantly condensed from 2021. The overall number of voters decreased from roughly 3.1 million last year to about 1.87 million in 2022. Democrats were optimistic, in part, because of Black voters – who strongly favored Warnock in CNN’s poll. They accounted for nearly 32% of the turnout in early voting, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

Walker, however, was counting on robust turnout among GOP voters, who tend to vote in greater numbers on Election Day.

But Trump – who, like Biden, steered clear of the Peach State during the runoff – complicated GOP fortunes across the country this year as voters rejected many of his election-denying candidates in swing states.

Some of the earliest signs of that were in Georgia two years ago, when his efforts to raise doubts about mail-in ballots and vote counting were blamed, in part, for the GOP’s 2021 losses in twin runoffs that handed Democrats control of the Senate.

This year, the former president’s efforts to exact revenge on Kemp – who rebuffed Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election – were soundly rejected by voters in the primary. Kemp went on to handily defeat Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams last month, garnering about 200,000 more votes than Walker.

After watching losses in key states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, top Republicans are planning a more aggressive push to prop up candidates in primaries that they deem as more electable. The incoming chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, told CNN: “Clearly you want to see candidates who can win general elections and we’re gonna keep working that in.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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5 things to watch in Tuesday’s Georgia Senate race

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CNN
 — 

The final drama of the 2022 midterm elections is coming to a head in Georgia on Tuesday, as Peach State voters – for the second time in as many years – cast ballots in a high-stakes US Senate runoff.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was the leading vote-getter in the November general election, over Republican nominee Herschel Walker, but he fell short of the majority need to win the race outright.

Now it’s a one-on-one contest and both parties have gone all-in to boost their ranks in the Democratic-controlled Senate and send a message ahead of the 2024 presidential election, when Georgia could again be a decisive swing state. The spending by campaigns and aligned outside groups has been stratospheric and turnout, despite the state’s new election laws allowing for fewer days of early voting, was robust ahead of Tuesday’s election.

As voting ends in Georgia one last time this year, here are five things to watch for during and immediately after the runoff.

For the past few weeks, Georgia Republican election officials have been crowing about early in-person voting turnout. On Friday, the state broke its single-day record, again, when more than 350,000 people went to the polls to cast ballots before Election Day.

But these numbers, and the narrative around them, might ultimately be misleading. Though several days last week ended with historically high single-day tallies, the overall number of early voters – as compared to the 2021 election – actually went down, from roughly 3.1 million last year to about 1.87 million during this year’s condensed early voting period. (In the general election this year, about 2.5 million voted before Election Day.)

The reason is simple: Under Georgia’s controversial voting law, passed in the months after last year’s runoffs, the time between the general election and the runoff was reduced from nine weeks to four. The compressed timeframe also meant fewer days of early voting and less time for voters to return mail-in ballots.

Given the obvious interest in the race, it’s a question of whether voters accustomed to voting before Election Day will show up Tuesday, and how that shift in behavior might affect wait times and counting of the votes. Difficulties at polling places are more likely to pop up in urban centers, where Warnock is hoping to run up the score against Walker.

In the 2020 cycle, Democrats had to sweep both Senate runoffs in Georgia to secure the 50-50 split in the Senate that, thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ status as the tie-breaking vote, would give them control.

This time, Democrats have already retained control, with 50 seats clinched last month and Georgia representing a potential 51st.

But the stakes remain high: A Warnock victory would give Democrats the majority outright, rather than requiring the power-sharing agreement that is now in place. And that outright majority would come with significant benefits for the party. Democrats would have the majority on committees, allowing them to advance President Joe Biden’s nominees more easily.

For example: The Senate Judiciary Committee, with its 22 members, would shift from a split of 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans to 12 Democrats and 10 Republicans. That would remove a GOP procedural mechanism to slow down the confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees.

It’s why advertising spending in the runoff has surpassed $80 million, according to a CNN analysis of data from ad tracking firm AdImpact. Democrats have outspent Republicans so far, by about $55.1 million to $25.8 million.

Walker coasted to the Republican nomination in Georgia in large part because of the support of former President Donald Trump.

But Trump’s endorsement – while powerful enough to catapult his preferred contenders to the nominations in Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere – turned out to be an anchor in competitive statewide races this year.

Trump-backed candidates such as venture capitalist Blake Masters in Arizona, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and former state attorney general Adam Laxalt in Nevada fumbled winnable races, while venture capitalist J.D. Vance, who eked out a victory in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary thanks to Trump’s last-minute endorsement, survived a much tougher-than-expected contest with Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.

A loss by Walker could further erode Republicans’ confidence in Trump’s ability to pick winners. It would also demonstrate what every national election since 2016 has shown: In many places, a close connection with Trump is a political liability.

As the 2024 Republican presidential primary begins to take shape, Trump – who hosted a tele-rally for Walker on Monday night – is already facing potential intra-party rivals emboldened by 2022’s results. A Walker loss would amplify calls for the party to turn elsewhere for leadership.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp kept his distance from Walker as he coasted to reelection in a rematch with Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. Since his victory, though, Kemp has much more fully embraced his party’s Senate nominee – despite the governor’s bad blood with Trump.

Kemp has appeared with Walker at rallies. He has cut television ads for the former University of Georgia football star. And he has loaned the get-out-the-vote operation that helped propel him to victory to a Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell-aligned super PAC, seeking to help Walker with the ground game his campaign lacked.

If Walker wins, it will be Kemp’s direct involvement in helping to convince the suburbanites who split their tickets in November, rather than Trump’s occasional support from a distance, that played the most important role.

With states like Florida and Ohio turning a deeper shade of red, Democrats are desperate to broaden their national playing field. And Georgia appears to be their prime target following the 2020 election, when Biden won the presidency and Warnock and Jon Ossoff flipped the state’s Senate seats. Biden even suggested moving up its presidential primary to fourth on the calendar in his recent letter to the Democratic National Committee.

That theory – or hope – faces a significant test on Tuesday.

With Kemp emerging as Walker’s surrogate of choice during the homestretch, the results of the runoff could be viewed at litmus test for Georgia Democrats. Specifically, whether the state has emerged as a true toss-up.

If Warnock wins despite Kemp’s willingness to lend his personal popularity and turnout apparatus to Walker, Democrats might actually be on to something. Though many in both parties would agree Walker has been a less-than-stellar nominee, he now has the firm, outspoken support of the state and national GOP behind him. If that’s not enough to put him over the top, Republicans’ problems in Georgia are likely down to something more lasting than “candidate quality” issues.

On the flip side, a Walker victory would – for many of the same reasons – point precisely in the opposite direction. Georgia Republicans this year notched a clean sweep of statewide positions, with the exception, so far, of the US Senate seat still up for grabs. If Walker wins, despite all the concerns around his campaign, it will underscore the GOP’s abiding strength in the Peach State – as long as Trump is out of sight and mind.

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Raphael Warnock: Sky-high Black turnout fueled his previous win. Will Georgia do it again?

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Atlanta
CNN
 — 

Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young rode his scooter alongside Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, Martin Luther King III and a fervent crowd of marchers on a recent Sunday through a southwest Atlanta neighborhood. The group stopped at an early polling location to vote, forming a line with some waiting as long as one hour to cast their ballots.

At the age of 90, Young says he is selective about public appearances but felt the “Souls to the Polls” event was one where he could motivate Black voters in Tuesday’s hotly contested US Senate runoff between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker – a historic matchup between two Black men.

Community leaders and political observers say the Black vote has consistently played a pivotal role in high-stakes races for Democrats, including in 2021, when Warnock defeated then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a runoff. Black voters likely to cast a ballot are near unanimous in their support for the Democrat (96% Warnock to 3% Walker), according to a CNN poll released last week that showed Warnock with a narrow lead.

A second runoff victory for Warnock could once again hinge on Black voter turnout in a consequential race. If Warnock wins, it would give Democrats a clean Senate majority – one that doesn’t rely on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote and allows Majority Leader Chuck Schumer more control of key committees and some slack in potentially divisive judicial and administrative confirmation fights.

Voting, Young said, is the “path to prosperity” for the Black community. He noted that Atlanta’s mass transit system and economic growth have been made possible by voters.

“Where we have voted we have prospered,” Young said.

The rally led by Young, King and Warnock seems to have set the tone for many Black voters in Georgia. Early voting surged across the state last week with long lines reported across the greater Atlanta area. As of Sunday, more than 1.85 million votes had already been cast, with Black voters accounting for nearly 32% of the turnout, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. The early voting period, which was significantly condensed from 2021, ended on Friday.

Billy Honor, director of organizing for the New Georgia Project Action Fund, said the Black turnout so far looks promising for Democrats.

“When we get Black voter turnout in any election statewide that’s between 31 and 33%, that’s usually good for Democrats,” Honor said. “If it’s between 27 and 30%, that’s usually good for Republicans.”

Honor added: “This has an impact on elections because we know that if you’re a Democratic candidate, the coalition you have to put together is a certain amount of college-educated White folks, a certain amount of women overall, as many young people as you can get to turn out – and Black voters. That’s the coalition. (Former president) Barack Obama was able to smash that coalition in 2008 in ways we hadn’t seen.”

Young said he believes that Black voters are more likely to show up for runoff elections, which historically have lower turnout than general elections, when the candidate is likeable and relatable.

Warnock is a beloved figure in Atlanta’s Black community who pastored the church once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He grew up in public housing and relied on student loans to get through college.

Young said Warnock’s story is inspiring.

“He is an exciting personality, he’s a great preacher,” Young said. “He speaks from his heart and he speaks about how he and his family have come up in the deep South and developed a wonderful life.”

Young said some Black voters may also be voting against Walker, who has made a series of public gaffes, has no political experience and has a history of accusations of violent and threatening behavior.

Last week’s CNN poll showed that Walker faces widespread questions about his honesty and suffers from a negative favorability rating, while nearly half of those who back him say their vote is more about opposition to Warnock than support for Walker.

Views of Warnock tilt narrowly positive, with 50% of likely voters holding a favorable opinion, 45% unfavorable, while far more likely Georgia voters have a negative view of Walker (52%) than a positive one (39%).

Still, Walker is famous as a Heisman Trophy-winning football star from the University of Georgia. And among the majority of likely voters in the CNN poll who said issues are a more important factor to their vote than character or integrity, 64% favor Walker.

He campaigned on Sunday with, among others, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of just three Black senators currently serving in the chamber. Scott tried to tie Warnock to President Joe Biden – who, like former President Donald Trump, has steered clear of the Peach State – and reminded voters in Loganville of the GOP’s losses in the 2021 runoffs.

At the event, which began with prayers in Creole, Spanish and Swahili from speakers with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Walker encouraged getting out to vote more than he typically does.

“If you don’t have a friend, make a friend and get them out to vote,” Walker said.

Some Black voters said they were excited to show up last week and cast their early votes in the runoff race.

Travie Leslie said she feels it is her “civic duty” to vote after all the work civil rights leaders in Atlanta did to ensure Black people had the right to vote. Leslie she does not mind standing in line or voting in multiple elections to ensure that a quality candidate gets in office.

“I will come 12 times if I must and I encourage other people to do the same thing,” Leslie said Thursday while at the Metropolitan Library polling location in Atlanta. “Just stay dedicated to this because it truly is the best time to be a part of the decision making particularly for Georgia.”

Martin Luther King III credited grassroots organizations for registering more Black and brown voters since 2020, when Biden carried the state, and mobilizing Georgians to participate in elections.

Their work has led to the long lines of voters in midterm and runoff races, King said.

King said he believes Warnock also appeals to Black voters in a way that Walker does not.

“Rev. Warnock distinguishes himself quite well,” King said. “He stayed above the fray and defined what he has done.”

The Black vote, he said, is likely to make a difference in which candidate wins the runoff.

“Black voters, if we come out in massive numbers, then I believe that on December 6 we (Democrats) are going to have a massive victory,” King said.

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