Republican strategists worry that disaffected Trump voters will stay home, but those who spoke with NR are all the more motivated.
Atlanta — Michael Edens can see it in his mind: tractors, cattle trailers, Harley Davidsons and hot rods – really, any wheeled vehicle he can tie an American flag to – parading across the Interstate 85 overpass on Sunday afternoon, a show of force in his rural Georgia town.
It will be a parade, he said, to celebrate America, “the greatest nation that’s ever existed.”
Edens, 53, a heavy machinery mechanic who wears a big, black cowboy hat and quotes liberally from the Bible, believes that now is the time for Republicans like him in rural Georgia to stand up and fight. With the rally and parade he’s organizing on Sunday afternoon in his hometown of Carnesville, Edens hopes to encourage his neighbors to speak up for President Donald Trump, and to go out to vote for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Tuesday’s runoff elections.
And with the parade of farm vehicles stretching across the interstate, he wants to “catch the attention of everybody from California to New York State, right here in Carnesville, Georgia, so they know when they come into the rural areas how the rural people feel.”
If they want to win on Tuesday – and if Republicans want any chance of maintaining control of the Senate – Loeffler and Perdue need passionate supporters like Edens to help them get out the vote in places like Carnesville, a blue-collar town of about 600 people at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Carnesville is the kind of place where tractor dealers outnumber big-box stores, and where truckers hauling lumber or crates of chickens rumble through don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it downtowns.
And it’s the kind of place where almost everyone you meet is a Republican.
In Franklin County, where Carnesville is located, 84 percent of voters pulled the lever for Trump in November, one of the highest rates in Georgia, according to the secretary of state’s office.
While the Atlanta suburbs may be the battlegrounds in the runoffs, to win Loeffler and Perdue need to run up the score in places like Franklin County. If their opponents, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both come out on top Tuesday, Democrats will take control of the Senate.
Northeast Georgia could prove particularly crucial for Loeffler, because she didn’t win there in November’s 20-candidate race.
Most of Northeast Georgia is part of the state’s ninth congressional district, a region of poultry farms and mountain tourism represented by Representative Doug Collins. He was Loeffler’s primary Republican opponent in the November election, and he won big in Northeast Georgia.
In Franklin County, more than 58 percent of voters cast their ballots for Collins, the highest in the state. Loeffler only received 21 percent of the vote in Franklin.
Likewise, in neighboring Stephens County, Collins received 57 percent of the vote to Loeffler’s 18 percent. Collins received more than 50 percent of the vote in nine counties, all of which are part of his Northeast Georgia district.
Loeffler’s challenge is not only to win the backing of Collins’ voters, but to generate enough enthusiasm – or instill enough fear of a Democratic Senate majority – to get them to show up Tuesday. Collins immediately threw his support to Loeffler after she bested him in November.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, was not well known to most voters when Governor Brian Kemp appointed her to the Senate in December 2019 (Trump urged Kemp to pick Collins). Kemp gambled that with her business success and her roots on an Illinois farm, Loeffler could win in the more moderate suburbs and maintain support in the state’s more populist rural regions. Loeffler has made several campaign stops in Northeast Georgia over the last year, and she believes voters there know what she stands for.
“There’s no part of the state that we’re leaving untouched,” she said.
Edens said he supported Collins in November because he was “genuine.” He has questions about Loeffler’s “genuineness,” he said, but he voted for her in the runoff anyway. He thinks most of Carnesville will too. “They’re fired up,” Edens said of the town’s Republicans.
A bigger concern among Republican strategists is not whether Collins voters will ultimately back Loeffler, but whether a large number of them will skip voting all together because of concerns about election fraud drummed up by Trump and some of his conspiratorial supporters.
There is a general consensus among Franklin County Republicans that November’s presidential election results were at least questionable, if not entirely fraudulent. Edens said it was “obvious” that Trump won Georgia, even though official results show him down by about 12,000 votes to President-elect Joe Biden. “By midnight it was blatantly clear he had a landslide going,” Edens said. “Within two hours, all that changed. What’s up with that?”
While Edens cast a ballot in the runoff, and expects most other Franklin County Republicans to do the same, Republican operatives are worried too many people will stay home.
“I’m very concerned,” said Chip Lake, a Republican strategist who was part of the Collins campaign. “On a scale of one to ten, a twelve. That’s the only way I think we lose these races is that dynamic playing out.”
Worries about Election Fraud
While election leaders in Georgia and across the country insist that November’s presidential election was the most secure in American history, Republicans in Franklin County and in other parts of Northeast Georgia don’t believe them.
They cite conspiracies that Dominion voting machines changed Trump votes to Biden. They allege that thousands of dead people voted, that ballots for Biden were shipped in from out of state, or pulled out and counted after poll watchers were told to go home for the night.
“Well, hell, Ray Charles could see that damned stuff was messed up,” said Clyde Dowell, 72, an Army veteran and a trucker who was eating breakfast Wednesday at Echo South Restaurant & Buffet, a truck stop diner at the I-85 interchange in Carnesville.
“I think the election was stolen and I don’t see why our Republicans are not fighting for it,” said Randy Peeples, 58, who works at a hardware store in Lavonia, another Franklin County town.
Terry Rogers, a state representative in nearby Habersham and White counties – also part of Georgia’s ninth congressional district – said he’s “getting eaten alive” by people calling, asking what can be done to reverse November’s presidential election results.
“I’ve been averaging close to over 1,100, 1,200 emails a day from people, not just in Georgia, but from all across the United States,” Rogers said. “Originally it started out from people in Georgia and the district, but now it’s gone nationwide.”
Atlanta attorney L. Lin Wood, a Trump supporter and leading disseminator of conspiracies surrounding the presidential election, has been targeting people like these Republicans in rural Georgia and urging them to boycott January’s runoffs. Trump has told supporters to ignore Wood’s boycott suggestion while endorsing election conspiracy-mongering.
Rogers said there probably are things the state’s general assembly can do with signature-verification requirements and absentee-ballot security to improve Georgia’s elections, but those changes will come down the line. The most important thing at the moment is for Republicans all across Georgia to get out to the polls.
“We have been actively out here working and explaining to people, OK, you may not like this, but the actuality of it is you play the ball that’s in front of you. And the ball in front of us right now is to make certain that we keep control of the U.S. Senate, and the way you do that is you turn out and you vote,” Rogers said. “I think that message is getting out there, and it’s starting to resonate with people.”
Although virtually all of the Northeast Georgia Republicans who spoke to National Review for this story expressed at least some concern that the November election was rigged, none said they intended to sit out the runoffs, as Wood has urged them to do. Many said they believe the January election will be more secure just because so many people will be on the lookout for cheating.
Jeff Dove, 53, a salesman at the Lavonia hardware store, said he worries the runoffs may be rigged. “Oh yeah. If they can steal the other one, they can steal this one,” he said.
He believes Democrats from other states moved to Georgia to tilt the runoff in their party’s favor. Still, he intends to vote for the Republicans on Tuesday. He is worried other local Republicans will skip voting, but he doesn’t actually know anyone boycotting the election.
“I haven’t heard nobody say, but I’m sure there is,” Dove said.
William Josh Faircloth, 21, who voted early for Loeffler and Perdue on Wednesday, said he has some concerns about election fraud, but he doesn’t “necessarily know if all the crazy conspiracies are accurate.” He said that at one point after the November election he was so dispirited that he considered skipping the runoffs, because “if it’s rigged there’s no point in it.” But he changed his mind.
“You have to fight for it. You have to at least try,” he said. ”You can’t just give up.”
Kelly Crunkleton, 29, who owns a clothing embroidery and custom apparel shop in Carnesville, said she’s definitely heard people in town – “Facebook friends, people that I know” – threatening to skip the runoff. She said she has a family member who has vowed to “never vote again, it was all rigged, the Chinese bought it. All different stuff.”
She’s not sure how much of it is bluster. “Some of those people around here that I think talk like that, I don’t even know that they voted to begin with,” Crunkleton said.
The town can’t afford another COVID-19 lockdown, said Crunkleton, whose shop is already next to two empty storefronts. She knows a lot of people in Carnesville fear that electing Democrats could lead to another lockdown. She doesn’t think many people in Carnesville will risk sitting out the election because they’ve been “done wrong.”
Supporting Loeffler and Perdue
Like most people in Franklin County, Crunkleton supported Collins in November. She’s not exactly sure why, just that her parents support Collins and so do most people in town.
She has concerns about Loeffler, primarily due to Loeffler being one of the wealthiest members of Congress. “I don’t think Kelly’s very approachable. I don’t think she’s relatable,” she said.
But Crunkleton said she intends to vote for both Loeffler and Perdue on Tuesday.
“She wasn’t my first pick,” Crunkleton said of Loeffler. “But I will stay Republican.”
A lot of people in Franklin County and other parts of Northeast Georgia said the same, citing Loeffler’s and Perdue’s Christian values, pro-life views, and support for gun rights.
“I think the folks that voted for Doug Collins that come out and vote will vote for Kelly Loeffler,” said John Hylton, the former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party who has been keeping close tabs on the runoffs. “It’s just making sure we get them out there to vote. That’s the key.”
Republicans are hoping a last-minute rally with Trump on Monday will help get voters out.
Lake, the Republican strategist, said he’s been impressed with Loeffler’s and Perdue’s voter turnout operation. “This is get-out-the-vote on steroids,” he said.
Loeffler said that combined, she and Perdue have more than 1,000 paid field team workers, and about 40,000 volunteers. She said it is “really a presidential-quality ground game.”
“We’re knocking on tens of thousands of doors a day,” she said in an interview with National Review. “Texts, calls, emails, mail – that direct touch – and making sure that voter by voter, that they’re getting to the polls and we’re contacting them until they get to the polls”
Rogers, the state representative, said he believes Loeffler has worked hard to win support in the ninth congressional district.
“She’s spent time in the district,” he said. “She’s come out here and she’s talked with people. And I think people understand that she’s out here working, she’s working like crazy.”
Driving around Franklin County, there was a surprising dearth of campaign signs for the Senate candidates, Republican and Democrat (there are still plenty of Trump signs and flags flying).
Boyd Sewell, who has both a Loeffler and Perdue sign at the end of his driveway, said the lack of signs shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of support. Loeffler’s signs have just been hard to get.
Sewell said he and his family supported Loeffler in November as well. While Loeffler can appear overly scripted during interviews, he said she’s “much more spirited and inspired in person.”
“I went to a rally for Kelly two weeks ago,” he said. “It was a large turnout. I would say she has strong support, in my opinion.”
Hylton said he suspects turnout will drop from November’s general election, as turnout generally does in runoffs. But he’s optimistic it won’t drop much. Franklin County was averaging about 300 early voters a day, he said, which is a good sign.
Although he’s heard rumors that people may skip the election, he said he hasn’t talked to anyone who actually plans to. He said it’s critical that rural Republicans show up, because people are heading to the polls in big numbers in Atlanta and Athens to vote for the Democrats.
“If the ninth district doesn’t show up,” he said, “we will be in trouble.”