Biden to campaign in Georgia for Democrats in Senate runoffs

President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign said early Thursday that he will travel to Georgia next week to support two Democrats in the state’s Senate runoffs.

Biden will campaign on Tuesday in Atlanta on behalf of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, as well as other Democrats in the next month’s runoffs.

Additional details were not provided.

Ossoff is facing off against Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) in one of the runoffs on Jan. 5, while Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) is slated to go up against Warnock in the other race. The races were sent to runoffs after neither candidate in either election secured a majority of the vote in November.

If Ossoff and Warnock oust Georgia’s two Republican senators, it would effectively give Democrats a controlling vote in the upper chamber, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote once she takes office in January.

Otherwise, Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would retain control of the Senate, which would likely make achieving the approval of Biden’s Cabinet picks and agenda more difficult.

Republicans are also pulling out all the stops for the Georgia runoff election, sending President Trump and Vice President Pence to campaign for the incumbent senators.

Biden’s incoming White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, told NBC News’s “Meet the Press” last month that the president-elect and vice president-elect would campaign in Georgia for the Democratic candidates.

“It’s obviously important to win those seats in Georgia,” he said.

If “we have more people who support the kinds of things that Joe Biden supports, I think we’re going to have … a better government,” he added.

Except for a trip to Philadelphia on Veterans Day, Biden has not left Delaware since being declared president-elect on Nov. 7.

He became the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992, although Trump has refused to concede and contested the results by promoting unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. Republican Georgia elections officials have denied his claims.

National Republicans have expressed concerns that Trump’s challenging of the election’s integrity will lead GOP voters to be unmotivated to participate in the runoffs.

Trump’s reelection campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said in a statement Thursday morning that Biden’s trip to Georgia “proves that Democrats are taking the Senate runoff elections seriously and so should Republicans.”

“Perdue and Loeffler have been strong allies for President Trump while their opponents represent everything liberal activists have been screaming about for four years,” he added.

— Updated at 9:57 a.m.