Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock will face each other again in a debate Sunday, and this time, they\u2019ll have a national audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Georgia\u2019s two high-stakes U.S. Senate runoff races on Jan. 5 will decide which party controls the upper chamber. A pair of wins for Democrats would split control 50-50, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris<\/a> a tie-breaking vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polls continue to show a competitive fight in both races, although a new 11 Alive\/SurveyUSA poll<\/a> shows Warnock with a slightly greater advantage at 52% to Loeffler\u2019s 45%. Democrat Jon Ossoff<\/a> is locked in a near tie with Sen. David Perdue<\/a>, with 50% of respondents saying they favored Ossoff and 48% backing Perdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The candidates will debate each other the day after President Donald Trump<\/a> visits Valdosta for a rally meant to fire up the base with just a week or so left until early voting begins. Former President Barack Obama is set to headline a virtual rally for Ossoff and Warnock Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ossoff, however, will appear alone at the debate. Perdue declined the Atlanta<\/a> Press Club\u2019s invitation to participate, and it is the organization\u2019s policy to not let one candidate\u2019s absence derail the debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perdue will be represented Sunday with an empty podium. In an op-ed this week<\/a>, Maria Saporta, who chairs the press club\u2019s Loudermilk-Young Debate Series committee, offers background on its longstanding empty podium rule (and laments Perdue\u2019s decision).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a rule that is evenly applied. Republican Angela Stanton-King appeared alone in a virtual District 5 congressional debate<\/a> after Democrat and Congresswoman-elect Nikema Williams declined to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat is not our preference,\u201d the press club said in a press release. \u201cThe Atlanta Press Club works hard to provide a platform for all candidates running for public office. We believe it is an essential part of the democratic process for voters to have an opportunity to hear an exchange of ideas from the candidates so they can be better informed when they cast their ballots. In that spirit, we hope Sen. Perdue will change his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ossoff and Perdue debated each other twice leading up to the Nov. 3 election. The two first squared off in a spirited showing<\/a> on a virtual October APC debate, which can be viewed here<\/a>. They clashed again in late October during a socially distanced in-person debate on WTOC-TV, available on demand here<\/a>. Perdue pulled out of a third WSB-TV debate set to be held just days before the election<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe people of Georgia deserve an open debate,\u201d Ossoff told reporters last month. \u201cThey deserve to hear from their senator. And if Sen. Perdue doesn\u2019t want to answer questions in public or debate his opponent, that\u2019s fine. He just shouldn\u2019t run for re-election to the United States Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perdue\u2019s campaign manager, Ben Fry, said this last month: \u201cWe\u2019ve already had two debates in this election. We\u2019re going to take our message about what\u2019s at stake if Democrats have total control of Congress directly to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perdue participated in a townhall Thursday hosted by the Laura Ingraham on Fox News that was shot in Atlanta with a small, socially distanced audience. He\u2019s set to appear alongside Trump at the Valdosta rally Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c(Trump is) excited about coming down and he\u2019s going to deliver this message and that is, \u2018Look, we\u2019ve got to protect what we did for four years under this administration\u2019 \u2013 if in fact the result is not in his favor \u2013 \u2018We\u2019ve got to protect it. And the way we do that is to get Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue re-elected.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The debates will air live on Georgia Public Broadcasting TV and can also be watched on GPB.org<\/a> and the press club\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>. National news networks like CNN, Fox News and CSPAN also plan to carry it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ossoff-Perdue program will start at 5 p.m.; Loeffler and Warnock will debate for an hour starting at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock are set to face each other again in a debate Sunday. GOP Sen. David Perdue has so far declined to debate his Democratic runoff opponent Jon Ossoff Clockwise from upper left: Loeffler, Warnock, Perdue and Ossoff. Georgia Recorder staff photos<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock will face each other again in a debate Sunday, and this time, they\u2019ll have a national audience. Georgia\u2019s two high-stakes U.S. Senate runoff races on Jan. 5 will decide which party controls the upper chamber. A pair of wins for Democrats would split control 50-50, giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8898,8514,8782,8644,8645,8646,8474],"class_list":["post-19705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-debate","tag-election","tag-georgia","tag-kelly-loeffler","tag-raphael-warnock","tag-senate","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}