Georgia run-offs: Democratic odd couple carry Joe Biden's hopes of Senate control on their shoulders

The sky was pure blue and the trees heavy with Spanish moss on Sunday lunchtime when Jon Ossoff took the microphone in a park on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia.

“Y’all, Tuesday is it,” said the 33-year-old Democratic candidate for the US Senate, tie-less in a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Tuesday is everything.”

Around 200 supporters had turned out, above expectations. Some muttered “yes sir” and “preach it” as Mr Ossoff’s stump speech outlined what was on the line.

“The whole country is watching us right now,” he said. “The whole country is watching Georgia to see what kind of a statement we’re going to make about the values that we stand for, about what's in our hearts as a state and as a people.”

He was not wrong. Across the rest of America, the US election - which happened two months ago - is already fading into the past along with the rest of 2020. But not in Georgia.

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Thanks to the quirks of the state’s electoral system, the occupants of its two US Senate seats will be decided on Tuesday after ‘run-offs’ were ordered when no candidate got more than 50 per cent of the vote in November.

Hanging in the balance is not just state power, however, but control of the Senate. Currently the Republicans hold 50 seats and the Democrats 48 with these two races outstanding.

Win both and the Democrats pull equal, with Kamala Harris, the incoming US vice president, casting the deciding vote - allowing them to control proceedings. Lose just one and the Republicans keep their majority and ability to veto measures.

US president-elect Joe Biden’s legislative agenda is on the line.

Those watching Mr Ossoff in the Savannah sun were pulling out all the stops to flip the seats in the Democrats' favour. Sam Gostomski, a 24-year-old volunteer checking the temperatures of attendees as a coronavirus safety precaution, had travelled all the way from Austin to help out.

He was among a group of 25 young Texans who upped sticks to Georgia on Boxing Day to knock doors and help run events. Most had worked on the Biden campaign and saw the state as unfinished business.

“All of that work doesn’t mean as much if we don’t take the Senate and get some reforms passed,” Mr Gostomski said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say this is the most important race in America right now."

Mr Ossoff is a documentary filmmaker who shot to prominence in 2017 by almost winning a House of Representatives seat in Georgia and packs his speeches with lofty appeals to the greater good.

He has a youthful exuberance similar to Beto O'Rourke, the ex-Texas congressman who ran for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

The Democrat seeking the other Georgia seat, Rev Raphael Warnock, is quite different. A 51-year-old African-American, he was the pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church - famous for once being Martin Luther King's congregation - before turning to politics.

Rev Warnock’s addresses have the ring of the pulpit. Speaking at a drive-in rally also in Savannah on Sunday - his hometown - he referenced his spiritual upbringing while taking aim at his Republican opponent Kelly Loeffler, 50.

“She’s been busy, as we say in church, calling me everything but a child of God. Lying on me, misrepresenting my record. We say in church, scandalising my name,” Rev Warnock said.

“But that’s alright. My mumma told me that it’s not what they call you, it’s what you answer to. And in just a few days she can call me Senator Raphael Warnock.”

They make an odd couple, these two politicians who carry Mr Biden's hopes of passing bold new left-wing laws. “My brother from another mother” is how Rev Warnock refers to Mr Ossoff. They also represent two cornerstones of the Democratic Party's support base: young progressives and African-Americans.

To win, supporters and politicians on both sides agree, the Democrats need vast turnout. They did just that in November, registering scores of new voters - many African-American - and making Mr Biden the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Georgia since 1992.

The signs are encouraging. Early voting, which tends to favour the Left, has been high. Polling averages suggest both Democrats lead by around two percentage points.

Donations have poured into the state, with Mr Ossoff and Rev Warnock each raising more than $100 million, making them the best-funded Senate candidates in US history - though their rivals are close behind.

But Republicans, who have dominated politics in the southern state for decades, remain hopeful. They believe the chance to rob Mr Biden of Senate power will reinvigorate conservatives eager to block progressive causes.

Ms Loeffler, who is married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and estimated to be the richest US senator, dubbed her opponent Rev Warnock a “radical liberal” 13 times during a recent debate, summarising the key Republican attack line.

Campaign adverts have dredged up controversial comments Rev Warnock made while preaching, framing him as anti-America. He in turn released a smiley ad of himself walking a puppy and while wearing a gilet to allay fears. It has been viewed 6 million times online.

Mr Ossoff’s opponent, the 71-year-old incumbent Republican David Perdue, took a different track. He has attempted to ignore his young opponent, even refusing to debate him - leaving the Democrat free to answer questions next to an empty podium.

The election's biggest unknown factor comes thanks to Donald Trump, who like Mr Biden turned out to campaign in the state on Monday. His repeated insistence without evidence that mass fraud robbed him of election victory threatens to deter Republicans from voting.

Furthermore he has gone to war with leading Georgia Republicans who have refused to meddle with vote counts to overturn Mr Biden’s win, most recently calling the Georgia secretary of state for an hour to demand action. The leaked audio triggered a new scandal.

The political danger was evident on Sunday afternoon as around 50 Republicans gathered amid $50 cushions and wooden carved crosses at a boutique furniture store in downtown Savannah for a pre-vote pep talk.

Tim Scott, the Republican senator from nearby South Carolina, praised the virtues of a sign he had seen in the Peach State which declared “pick peaches, not socialism”, hammering home the party’s main message while not mentioning claims of voter fraud.

Both for some attendees that issue was front and centre. Melynda Loomis, the 52-year-old treasurer of the local Republican branch wearing a bright red MAGA face mask and a "Trump Deplorable" badge, expressed concern. “I’m terrified,” she said of the outcome of Tuesday's vote.

Asked if the result will be close, she echoed Mr Trump’s unproven allegations: “It won’t be if you could only count the humans that are alive, but there are all the ballots from dead people.”

Ms Loomis went one step further - she knows Republicans who will not vote in the run-off after losing faith with US democracy. “They don’t believe it anymore and that’s sad," she said. "They don’t think their vote counts."

If many others follow suit, Mr Trump’s last month in office could deliver a final irony: in pursuing claims of election fraud so relentlessly he could hand the Senate to the man who defeated him.