Top conservative group says ground game in Georgia runoffs could be 'the difference maker'

Exclusive - The political arm of Americans for Prosperity, the powerful conservative and libertarian political advocacy group, is putting on a full-court press to get out the vote in Georgia’s twin Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections, which will determine if the Republicans retain their Senate majority or if the Democrats control both houses of Congress as well as the White House.

While pro-GOP super PACs and other outside groups have shelled out big bucks to flood the airwaves on behalf of Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Americans for Prosperity Action is knocking on doors across the state to make sure conservative voters will cast ballots in the runoff and to try and persuade swing voters.

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AFP Action, sharing their battle plan first with Fox News, says that it's sent 200 of its best field staff from across the country to Georgia, and that it's already made roughly 2 million phone calls or door knocks to reach voters. The group adds that it's spent approximately $5 million so far on direct mail and digital ads.

“I think the ground game is absolutely the difference maker. The side that does the best job of maximizing every last vote I believe will win this campaign,” longtime AFP president Tim Phillips told Fox News.

Phillips, who two decades ago steered a successful public affairs and political consulting firm that was based in Georgia, is back in the Peach State, leading his troops during the runoff campaign.

“We’ve got 200 of our best field staff from across the country – these are full time field organizers – joining our Georgia team, which is a permanent staff and volunteers. And we’re knocking on a million doors,” he shared.

Phillips emphasized that voters on both sides are energized, saying, “What will tell the tale is which side can get the largest number of its people to actually vote.”

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Voter turnout normally drops in runoff elections. But Phillips stressed that he believes “the turnout is going to be astronomical … you can feel the electricity. ... My gut is this will be historic turnout for a runoff.”

And he predicted that he wouldn’t be “surprised if turnout blows past 4.5 million,” which would be close to the record-breaking 4.9 million Georgians who voted in last month’s election.

AFP Action’s efforts in the Georgia runoffs are an extension of its work during the general election, when it spent roughly $50 million to get out the vote in seven Senate races and two dozen House contests.

The balance of power for the next Senate coming out of last month’s elections is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. This means Democrats must win both of Georgia’s runoffs to make it a 50-50 Senate. If that occurs, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote, giving her party a razor-thin majority in the chamber.

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In Georgia, where state law dictates a runoff if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote, Perdue narrowly missed avoiding a runoff, winning 49.75% of the vote. Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff trailed by roughly 87,000 votes.

In the other race, Loeffler captured nearly 26% of the vote in a whopping 20-candidate special election to fill the final two years of the term of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson. Loeffler was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp after Isakson stepped down to due health reasons. Her opponent in the runoff, Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock, won nearly 33% of the vote in the special election.

Perdue was one of the seven GOP senators AFP Action supported in the general election. With multiple conservative candidates, the group stayed neutral in the special election. Their efforts in the runoff are on behalf of Perdue, but they explain that their work also benefits Loeffler, since it’s rare that there will be make ticket-splitting voters.

“There will be an incredibly low – below a percentage point – number of voters who will split tickets, because the runoffs have become so nationalized,” Phillips noted.

He explained that one of the two groups his team are targeting are people who live in the exurbs and small towns across the state. He said they’re “folks who are aligned with us but we’re worried they may not be absolutely sure they’re going to turnout. There’s a lot of presidential only voters who vote every four years. We’re worried about disillusionment, discouragement, over how the presidential election has turned out."

President Trump was narrowly edged by President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia, as Biden became the first Democrat in a quarter century to win the state in the White House race. But Trump has charged that there was massive voter fraud in Georgia and has heavily criticized Kemp and the state’s Republican secretary of state for certifying the results.

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The other group lives in the suburbs. “These are folks who are absolutely going to vote. They vote every time there’s an election. We believe they’re swing  voters, people who genuinely up in the air on this race and they are primarily college educated, white collar suburban voters.” Phillips noted. “There it’s a persuasion ballot. Some of them are not fans of the president … but they’re worried about one party having complete control. ... With these folks the message is definitely nationalized … we don’t want to see this swing towards socialism.”