With “2020 Trouble for Republicans” on Horizon, Kemp Closes Applications for Increasingly At Risk Senate Seat

Recent Victories in Kentucky, Louisiana & Virginia Highlight GOP Struggles in Suburbs that Are Must-Win in Georgia 

Atlanta — Governor* Brian Kemp set an unintentionally poetic deadline for applications to the open U.S. Senate seat that is increasingly at risk, just days after another election result revealed the “trouble for Republicans” among suburban voters key to victory in 2020. 

As the AJC reported this morning: “When the suburbs of Cincinnati and Lexington, Richmond and Alexandria, and now Baton Rouge and New Orleans all turn blue within weeks of each other, it portends 2020 trouble for Republicans in metro Atlanta’s northern arc.” 

“The recent election results confirm what we’ve known: Georgia’s Senate seats are in play and voters are rejecting Republicans’ record of putting special interest donors and big corporations ahead of the needs of Georgia families,” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “Governor Kemp’s hand-selected appointee will struggle and is headed for an uphill battle to keep the seat because Georgians are ready to elect senators who will stand up for them, not Republican allies for Washington special interests.”

The deadline comes as Georgia continues to be cited as a critical battleground state this cycle and as the state’s other senator up for re-election, Senator David Perdue, continues to be ranked as a top vulnerable Republican in 2020. 

Already, polling shows that Georgia voters are ready to support Democratic candidates for Senate, following groundbreaking gains for Democratic candidates in the 2018 elections. Saddled with an out-of-touch and unpopular agenda, any Republican running in Georgia in 2020 is guaranteed to face challenging terrain and a tough cycle to win the state next November.

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