Can Georgia's Jon Ossoff Finish the Job This November?

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(The Nation) Georgia Democratic Senate challenger Jon Ossoff raised a whopping $21 million in the third quarter, but arguably two of his biggest in-kind contributions came from his opponent, Senator David Perdue. In late July, Perdue released an ad that enlarged the nose of Ossoff, who is Jewish, and linked him to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and big money, which many people understandably saw as anti-Semitic. (Perdue’s campaign first denied the alteration, then blamed it on a vendor.) Then, last week, he mocked Kamala Harris’s name while introducing Donald Trump at a Macon rally—“KAH’-mah-lah? Kah-MAH’-lah? Kamala-mala-mala? I don’t know. Whatever,” he joked, to the crowd’s cheers. The nationwide backlash helped raise Ossoff almost $2 million in two days.

“Senator Perdue’s intentionally disrespectful mispronunciation of Senator Harris’s name is a bigoted and racist tactic straight from President Trump’s handbook,” said Georgia Democratic Party chair Nikema Williams. “He owes Georgians an apology for his offensive display.” Of course, he did not apologize; staffers insisted he meant nothing by it. As if after almost four years in the Senate together, he couldn’t pronounce her name.

Right now all respected polling aggregators list the race as a toss-up, an astonishing setback for Perdue, who beat Democrat Michelle Nunn 53-45 in 2014 and was leading until recently. But Perdue, the outsourcing business leader who styled himself as an outsider, became a Trump worshipper in 2017—and his fortunes have declined in Georgia with the president’s. Barely a week ago, rallying with Ivanka Trump, he claimed that Trump’s leadership on coronavirus “saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” adding, “Democrats will never give us credit for that.” Meanwhile, his ads declare him to be dedicated to police reform and protecting Georgians with preexisting conditions; with Trump sinking in Georgia, he is clearly playing both sides. It’s not working. ..............(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jon-ossoff-georgia-senate/