Pence heading to Georgia to help Republicans as Senate control hangs in balance

Democrats must win both Georgia Senate runoff elections to retake control of chamber

Vice President Mike Pence is hitting the campaign trail in Georgia on behalf of GOP incumbent Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are in January runoff elections that will decide which party controls the US Senate.

Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff, who faces Mr Perdue, and Raphael Warnock, who faces Ms Loeffler, must both win on the 5 January runoff for Democrats to reclaim a Senate majority.

Republicans are hellbent on preventing that outcome, arguing that a GOP majority in the Senate is the only thing standing in the way of President-elect Joe Biden ramming his liberal agenda through Congress, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats kept their majority in the 2020 election.

Mr Pence will be in Georgia for a bus tour on Friday making that pitch, the White House announced on Wednesday.

The vice president’s one-day blitz through the Peach State will include two stops: Canton, in the south-central part of the state, and Gainesville, roughly an hour northeast of Atlanta.

Donald Trump appears to have lost to Mr Biden in Georgia by less than a percentage point, although the margin was so close that state officials were still working through a recount of those results on Wednesday.

Despite the outgoing president’s loss, his ability to gin up support among the conservative base of the Georgia Republican party is seen as essential to helping Mr Perdue secure re-election and Ms Loeffler to win her first election after she was appointed to the seat to replace ex-GOP Senator Johnny Isakson earlier this year.

Both parties are pouring millions of dollars into the January runoff races with control of the Senate on the line.

Mr Trump’s refusal to admit he lost his own race in Georgia — as well as the overall US presidential election — has complicated the political messaging for the incumbent GOP senators, who have been forced to side with him questioning the integrity of the election process in the Peach State.

Last week, they issued a statement echoing Mr Trump’s rhetoric and calling on Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign amid baseless voter fraud accusations. The senators’ statement did not cite any individual pieces of evidence that Mr Raffensperger had run an election lacking in integrity.

Mr Raffensperger has told reporters he has been receiving pressure from Republican lawmakers such as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to toss some votes without proof of fraud.

The secretary of state has also been receiving death threats towards himself and his family, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.