Sen. Kelly Loeffler is running for a full term to the US Senate in a November 3 jungle special election.
The candidates:
Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman and political newcomer, was appointed to the seat by Gov. Brian Kemp to replace former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned from office in December 2019 before the end of his term over his declining health.
Loeffler is competing in a November 3 jungle special election to elect a Senator to serve out the rest of Isakson’s term until 2022.
In the election, candidates from all parties are competing on the same ballot. If no candidate earns a majority of the vote, the special election will go to a January 5 runoff between the top two highest-performing candidates.
Kemp reportedly selected Loeffler for the position based on the level of personal wealth she could contribute to her own campaign (she and her husband, Intercontinental Exchange and New York Stock Exchange chairman Jeff Sprecher, are together worth an estimated $500 million), and her potential to win over suburban female voters.
On the Republican side, her main opponent is Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee who served as a staunch and impassioned defender of President Donald Trump during his impeachment hearings.
Collins, who represented a seat in rural Georgia, is seizing on Loeffler's various controversies to attack her as an out-of-touch multi-millionaire.
The Democratic field includes Ebenezer Baptist Church pastor Raphael Warnock, the frontrunner of the field who was backed early on by the DSCC, the Senate Democrats' campaign arm, educator and entrepreneur Matt Lieberman, and former State Senator Ed Tarver.
Loeffler's time in the Senate, however, has been somewhat marked by controversy. Just a few months into her term, a number of news reports raised scrutiny around her stock trades, and whether they were influenced by information she gleaned in closed-door COVID-19 briefings.
Loeffler and her team consistently denied that there was any improper motive behind her trades, maintaining that her and Sprecher's trades were solely handled by third-party advisors, and she was never formally found to have engaged in any wrongdoing. In April, she announced that she and Sprecher would liquidate their holdings of individual stocks and only invest in mutual and exchange-traded funds.
And in the aftermath of the protests against racism and police brutality in July, Loeffler became engaged in a public dispute with the WNBA team she co-owns, the Atlanta Dream, over their public support of the Black Lives Matter movement, doubling down on attacking the movement as anti-police and "Marxist" and accusing the team of trying to "cancel" her.
In recent days several of the team's members have publicly protested against Loeffler by wearing shirts reading "Vote Warnock," referring to Loeffler's main Democratic opponent, on the court and on social media. In the wake of the public show of dissent, Warnock's campaign said they received over $183,000 in new donations and gained 3,500 new donors.
The stakes:
In addition to winning back the White House, regaining control of the US Senate for the first time since 2015 is a top priority for Democrats and would be a major accomplishment towards either delivering on a future president Joe Biden's policy goals or thwarting President Donald Trump's second-term agenda.
Currently, the US Senate is made up of 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and two independents that caucus with Democrats, winning that Democrats need to win back a net total of four seats to have a 51-seat majority (if Biden wins, his vice president would also serve as president of the Senate and would be a tie-breaker vote).
Georgia is rapidly trending from red to purple, thanks to its fast-growing Atlanta metro area, presenting a prime opportunity for Democrats.
Not only are both presidential candidates investing in the state, but Democrats are making a play to unseat Sen. David Perdue in Georgia's other US Senate election, where Jon Ossoff is the Democratic nominee, and looking to flip the open seat in Georgia's 7th congressional district.
But because of the dynamics of the special jungle election, the Democrats in the race all risk the possibility of being locked out altogether from the field if Loeffler and Collins secure the top two spots.
The money race: Loeffler leads the rest of the field by a significant margin in fundraising thanks to her high levels of personal wealth, raising $17 million so far this cycle and reporting over $10 million in spending and $7 million in cash on hand, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Warnock is the second-highest fundraiser in the field, bringing in $4.3 million this cycle, spending $1.4 million, and recently reporting $2.8 million in cash on hand. He has also notably outraised both Collins and Loeffler in 2020's first and second fundraising quarters, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Warnock's financial resources have also allowed him to go up on the air with TV ads, unlike his Democratic opponents.
What the polling says: Most of the recent polls of the special election have shown Collins leading the field with Loeffler in second place and the three Democrats behind them.
The most recent poll of the race conducted by Monmouth University had some good news for Loeffler, however, showing her leading with 26% of the vote with Collins at 20%, Liberman at 14%, and Warnock at 9%. A previous poll conducted by Public Policy Polling in late June had Collins at 23%, Loeffler at 21%, Warnock at 20%, and Liberman at 11%.
What experts say: The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections rate this race as lean Republican while and Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics rates it as likely Republican.