By James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats call in their biggest star, Barack Obama, on Friday in the hopes that the former president can excite voters in Georgia and help the party hold onto a critical U.S. Senate seat.
Obama, a two-term Democrat who left office in 2017, will stump in Atlanta for Senator Raphael Warnock, who faces Donald Trump-backed Republican challenger Herschel Walker, and Stacey Abrams, who is running against Republican Governor Brian Kemp.
Polls show the race between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker to be tight, while Abrams has consistently trailed Kemp in that race.
Georgia is top takeover target for Republicans, who need to pick up just one seat to gain control of the Senate. The historically conservative state elected both Warnock and Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff two years ago, suggesting the stirrings of a political realignment.
Still, Republicans remain confident they can unseat Warnock, a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the former church of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Walker, a one-time football star at the University of Georgia, has remained competitive in the race despite a series of controversies surrounding his personal life. Two women have claimed that Walker pressured them to have abortions during their relationships, allegations he has denied.
Walker opposes abortion but has been inconsistent regarding whether it should be allowed in cases of rape or incest or to safeguard the health of the mother. Warnock supports abortion rights.
Obama’s appearance is the start of a five-state tour that will take him to the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. That last appearance, on the Saturday before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, will be joint with President Joe Biden, who has held back from campaigning in some key battlegrounds as he struggles with low public approval ratings.
Georgia has seen a record-breaking number of early voters, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. More than 1.1 million residents have already voted as of Thursday, far ahead of the total (730,706) at this point in 2018, the year of the last midterm election.
A surge of Black voters helped power Warnock’s victory two years ago, and he will need them again to win, said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
“African-American voters are going to be crucial Democrats’ chances,” Gillespie said. “Bringing in President Obama helps to underscore the importance of African-American vote, while also exciting other voters.”
After his stop in Atlanta, Obama will move on to campaign in other battlegrounds in Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all home to competitive Senate races, in the days before the election.
Beyond Georgia, Republicans have focused their efforts on flipping a Democratic Senate seat in Arizona or Nevada.
Republicans are also expected to win enough seats to take over the U.S. House of Representatives. Controlling both chambers will enable them to stonewall Biden’s agenda, block his executive branch nominees and launch investigations of his administration.
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone)
