Looking at the future of politics, New Yorkers have Georgia on their minds

“Now we take Georgia, then we change America!” Schumer, a New York Democrat, told a crowd in Brooklyn on the day that Democrat Joe Biden was declared the presidential winner.

But ever since, Republicans have been working full time to try to ensure an alternate defining truth: They're seeking to seal victories for two incumbent GOP senators from Georgia whose fate in two Jan. 5 runoff elections will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Senate in 2021.

A Republican win in at least one of those races would give Republicans control and make it much harder for Biden to enact his agenda, which is why Vice President Mike Pence is urging Georgia Republicans to turn out to the polls in droves.

"If you don't vote, there could be nothing to stop Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi from cutting our military, raising taxes and passing the agenda of the radical left," Pence said at a rally in Savannah in early December.

Whether you want change or not, one thing is for certain. Rarely has there been a date outside of the month of November that held as much at stake for American politics – and New York – as Jan. 5, 2021.

The vote in Georgia that day will determine whether Schumer, New York's senior senator, will serve as majority leader or minority leader for the next two years. What's more, it may well determine whether Congress comes to the rescue of fiscally beleaguered states and municipalities, and whether Biden can enact ambitious plans for rebuilding America's infrastructure, controlling climate change and more.

Not surprisingly, then, New York politicians have infused themselves into the Georgia races as if they were their own, phone banking and fundraising and otherwise coming to the aid of their favored candidates.

In the Peach State, meanwhile, voters are looking on at two races that are, according to the Cook Political Report, "the very definition of a toss-up."

The stakes

America's voters, and particularly Georgia's, created the high-stakes runoffs on Election Day.

The finally tally that day left Republicans with 50 senators and the Democrats with 48 in their caucus. But both incumbent senators in Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, fell short of the state's unique requirement that statewide winners must garner at least 50% of the vote. That forced Loeffler into a head-to-head contest against Rev. Raphael Warnock, and Perdue into a clash with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Moreover, it left control of the Senate hanging in the balance. If the two Democrats win, the Senate will be split 50-50 – a situation that, under the Constitution, allows the vice president to break tie votes. That means the effective 51st vote in the Senate would belong to the Democrat who will be sworn in as vice president on Jan. 20: Kamala Harris.

With Democrats in charge, the man who's blocked their legislative dreams for years – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – would be demoted to minority leader, handing Schumer the Senate's top job. 

That's a prospect that thrills Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, also a New York Democrat.

"If we can make Senator Schumer the majority leader, everything would change immediately, and we'd actually be able to govern, legislate and help our state more effectively," she said.

Bills that Gillibrand has been pushing for upwards of a decade – such as a measure creating paid family leave – would finally have a clearer path to daylight, as would state and local aid amid the coronavirus crisis, she said.

With the pandemic blowing a multibillion-dollar hole in the state budget as well as gaps in the spending plans of cities and towns, layoffs and tax increases might be inevitable without aid from Washington. And while McConnell's Senate has refused to help, a Senate led by Schumer surely would, said Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

"You know, the destiny of New York right now is going to come down to who wins those runoff races in early January," she said.

The destiny of the nation depends on the two Georgia Senate races, too, which is why Republicans are fighting so hard to win them. Nicholas A. Langworthy, the New York GOP chairman, said Schumer inadvertently helped energize Republicans in Georgia and nationwide who saw his promise to "change America" not as a promise, but as a threat.

"There's a lot of people who like America just the way it is," he said.

Biden and the Democrats are promising something dramatically different than Donald Trump's America. Biden has promised a more centralized fight against the pandemic, a more compassionate approach to immigration, and aggressive efforts to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and combat climate change – which, to Republicans, means more government and more taxes.

Biden's agenda may well hinge on the two Georgia Senate races, said Anthony H. Gioia, a longtime GOP fundraiser from Buffalo.

"Depending on Georgia, either the Democrats control everything, or they don't," Gioia said. "Other than that, it's not an important election."

The politicking

Evidence of the Georgia races' overwhelming importance can be found on the Twitter page of Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner. He has tweeted eight times in recent weeks to try to get Western New York Democrats involved by phone banking or donating money in the Georgia races.

Even more evidence could be found in the records of the Georgia Battleground Fund, the Republican fundraising committee that New York Republicans backed in what Langworthy described as a six-figure fundraiser on Dec. 3.

Obviously, interest in the races is running high on both sides of the political aisle in both New York and Georgia.

On the Democratic side, the Senate Majority PAC – which is allied with Schumer – and other Democratic campaign committees have already spent more than $36 million on the races. Gillibrand said she's been fundraising for the Democratic candidates, and Hochul said the two races have energized Democrats across the state.

"I've had many Zoom calls with Democrats in Brooklyn and Manhattan and all over" about the Georgia races, Hochul said. "Everybody is activated to help in Georgia. I'll be getting off a call, and people will say they have to get back to their calls, their social media outreach, to people in Georgia."

Republicans are no less energized. About 25 New York Republicans joined the video call fundraiser that Langworthy, Gioia and Wellsville GOP fundraiser Charles Joyce put together last month, which featured McConnell as the guest speaker. In addition, Langworthy said GOP activists from across the state have been phone banking and texting to help in Georgia.

"We're putting New York boots on the ground virtually at this point, but I trust we're going to send in some bodies there as well," Langworthy said shortly before Christmas.

Any New Yorker traveling to Georgia this weekend will find two tense, tight races. Quality polls have been scarce in the two races, but as of Thursday FiveThirtyEight.com average of polls found Warnock with a 1.9 point lead over Loeffler and Ossoff ahead of Perdue by 1 point.

“The data revealed there is little crossover support, which suggests one party should win both seats," said Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson College Polling, whose mid-December polls found the two Republicans with slight leads.

More recent surveys have shown the two Democrats ahead in a rapidly urbanizing state that Biden won in November. But Democratic wins in the Senate contests would run counter to the history of Georgia runoffs, which Republicans have reliably won in recent years.

It appears that both races will hinge on turnout, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.

"Most voters in Georgia have made up their mind about who they're going to vote for, and there are very few undecided voters," Gillespie said.

Democrats are trying to juice up their turnout by stressing questionable stock trades that have haunted both Perdue, who's ending his first term, and Loeffler, a businesswoman appointed to her seat by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp a year ago.

Republicans, meanwhile, call Ossoff, a former congressional staffer, a socialist and Warnock, the pastor of the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King once preached, a radical.

"There's definitely a lot of ads," said Usha Rodrigues, a law professor at the University of Georgia.

That's because ad spending in the two races has already topped $540 million.

In other words, both parties are spending money in the two races as if the future of the U.S. Senate depends on them.