Why Kelly Loeffler's attack ads on Raphael Warnock may backfire
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) "has run the most negative campaign in Georgia history," her Democratic challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock, said at a recent campaign rally, reports HuffPost. Loeffler and Republican groups backing her campaign, HuffPost notes, have run various attacks on Warnock in the lead up to Tuesday's Senate runoff, which include labeling him a Marxist and suggesting he's covered up child abuse. But the ads may not be riling up Loeffler's supporters as much as they are boosting Democratic turnout, especially among Black voters.
"The attack ads, the portrayal of Rev. Warnock using historically racist tropes in the ads is insulting," Gwen Mills, the secretary-treasurer of the labor union Unite Here, told HuffPost. "But it's also invigorating in the sense that people aren't going to stand for this. We've heard it a lot."
That backlash in addition to a few other key factors seem to be paying off for Democrats. Tom Bonier, the CEO of the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, said Black voters have "been leading the way in increasing Black turnout," and 40 percent of the 102,000 people who cast ballots during early voting in the runoff after sitting out the general election are Black. Read more at HuffPost.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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