Pence returns to Georgia on Friday; Obama stars in new Ossoff TV ad

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Trump to visit Georgia Saturday ahead of crucial Senate runoffs

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Vice President Mike Pence will return to Georgia on Friday to hit the campaign trail in the state’s twin Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections, where the Republicans' Senate majority is at stake.

The vice president will team up at a “Defend the Majority Rally” in the coastal city of Savannah with Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the GOP candidates in the runoffs.

PENCE EMPHASIZES SENATE GOP MAJORITY 'GOES STRAIGHT THROUGH...GEORGIA'

It’s Pence’s second trip to campaign in Georgia. He made stops on a bus tour with with Perdue and Loeffler in the northern Georgia cities of Canton and Gainesville on Nov. 20.

Vice President Mike Pence and Kelly Loeffler wave to the crowd during a Defend the Majority Rally, Friday, Nov. 20, 2020 in Canton, Ga. U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler waves behind Pence. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

"We need the great state of Georgia to defend the majority and the road to a Senate Republican majority goes straight through the state of Georgia,” he told the crowd in Canton.

Pence’s visit on Friday comes one day before President Trump is scheduled to parachute into Georgia to campaign on behalf of Perdue and Loeffler.

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The current balance of power for the next Senate coming out of this month’s elections is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. That means, Democrats must win both of Georgia’s runoff elections 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.

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. Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock won nearly 33% of the vote.

Former President Barack Obama is starring in the Ossoff campaign’s latest TV commercial. The former president touts that Ossoff “has dedicated is career to fighting injustice” and will push to pass a new Voting Rights Act if elected.

The ad uses clips from Obama at a Nov. 2 rally in Atlanta, where the former president joined Ossoff and Warnock and also campaigned on behalf of Joe Biden. The president-elect narrowly edged Trump in Georgia, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state in a White House race in more than a quarter century.

Hoping to prevent a drop off in turnout among Democratic voters – and especially Black voters – in the Jan. 5 runoff elections, Obama emphasizes in the spot that "if we vote like our lives depend on it, because they do, we will elect Jon Ossoff to the United States Senate.”

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The Ossoff campaign says the commercial will start running  statewide on Tuesday as part of their seven-figure weekly ad buy.