10 Reasons Why Democrats Still Need to Win Georgia

With the overwhelming support of Gen-Z voters and grassroots partners, together we defied the odds – and most political predictions – and stopped the red wave in its tracks. But what we absolutely need now is to continue supporting Georgia grassroots organizers so we can win in the senate runoff. 

The historically red state is strategically important on a multitude of levels – winning in Georgia would break senate deadlocks, accelerate the legislative process and ensure critical confirmations of judges, including Supreme Court Justices. This is why MVP is calling all hands on deck to support our grassroots partners. A win for Raphael Warnock is bigger than a single election. Re-electing Senator Warnock would build progressive momentum for the decade – and for generations to come. 

Some may question why this runoff is so important when we’ve won a 50-50 Senate, but we know that if we want to ensure that we have the power to swiftly pass progressive legislation, we must also win Georgia. Here’s 10 reasons why:

1) Save the Senate from the 50-50 power sharing arrangement — With 51 votes, Dems will have a one-vote advantage on every Senate committee. This will allow for a faster, less cumbersome process for confirming judges, cabinet members, and passing legislation. In the Senate calendar, wasted time has a huge cost.

2) Manchin and Sinema — If we lose Georgia, we’ll be dependent on Manchin and Sinema to pass anything. Remember that? And, now without the House, we have fewer chances when it comes to passing good legislation that is inclusive and helpful of the American people.

3) The 2024 Senate map is VERY tough for Democrats — A Warnock victory means we are in a better position for 2024 when the last three remaining red state Democratic senators are up for re-election: Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Jon Tester in Montana, and Manchin in West Virginia. These will be tough seats to hold. That’s why we need to go into 2024 with as much cushion as possible. The Senate map is biased towards Republicans – more than most people realize. We could easily lose the Senate for a decade – and then we’ll never replace the Supreme Court. Unfortunately now we need to fight for every Senate seat like it’s a presidential swing state. 

4) In case anyone gets sick — Right now we have zero room for error. New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan had a stroke last year. Fetterman had one this year. We live in dangerous times, and if even one Democratic senator is incapacitated for any reason, we would lose the majority. It’s a miracle we survived the past two years without a Senate catastrophe. We need Georgia to keep our majority in the Senate safe!

5) Raphael Warnock is awesome — He’s not just any ol’ Senator. He is one of the only Democratic Senators from the Deep South – and one of only two Black Democrats in the Senate. He is a champion for voting rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, clean energy, and basically everything we care about. Supporting Warnock and other progressive leaders of color is crucial to our vision of a racially-just and functioning democracy. Warnock is a rising star and a decent human being. We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t work hard to support him.

6) Herschel Walker is a MAGA clone propping up Trumpism — That’s the last thing we need in the Senate right now. Enough said.

7) Georgia organizers are awesome – We’ve been working closely with Georgia folks on the ground, and boy, are they awesome. They’re sophisticated, strategic, serious about winning, organized, and inspiringly collaborative. They’re doing an incredible job managing a high stakes operation to deploy tens of millions of dollars to reach six million Georgia voters in a few weeks. We could not be more impressed. They’ve been preparing for months. Unlike TV ads, every investment in Georgia organizers grows their power to transform their communities over the long-term.

8) You can’t invest too much in Georgia organizers — Best case scenario, we’re extremely successful and send more money to Georgia organizers than they can spend before December 6th. The worst thing that would happen is that they would go into the 2024 cycle with money in the bank. Oh wait – that’s a good thing. They’re going to need to fight lots of bad legislation in 2023 (including anti-voting legislation) and win both the senate and presidential race again in 2024.

9) Donald Trump plans to run for President in 2024 — In 2020, young people and voters who care about protecting our democracy helped push Trump out of office – but we knew then that we wouldn’t be seeing the last of him or the MAGA supporters who the former president encouraged to storm our country’s Capitol on January 6, 2022. By investing big, and investing now in our grassroots partners and their innovative efforts to turn out progressive voters, we can make sure Trump doesn’t make his way back to the White House – or even worse, his more charismatic and despotic clone, Ron DeSantis. The antidote to right-wing manipulation and disinformation is investing deeply in organizing to win hearts and local communities.

10) Last, but not least: runoff elections have a racist history, and our Georgia partners are protecting BIPOC votes — The runoff in itself is a racist tool that was by design intentionally created to dilute the power of Black voters. It originates from the South’s racist Jim Crow history. We need to change the course of history, along with so many discriminatory policies and practices designed to disenfranchise Black voters and others from BIPOC backgrounds. Winning Georgia is a matter of racial and social justice.

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