GA Senate Debate: Loeffler Won't Say Trump Lost, Warnock On Faith

ATLANTA, GA — During a Sunday evening debate with Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock, Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler repeatedly refused to say President Donald Trump had lost the Georgia election.

“It’s very clear there were issues in this election,” Loeffler said during the debate sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club. Adding that there were already “250 investigations” into the presidential election nationwide, Loeffler also repeated several times that “the president has every right to every legal recourse.”

The question came after Saturday’s rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where Trump used most of two hours meant to promote Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue instead promoting the idea that the presidential election had been “rigged” in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.

The Associated Press reports that to date out of about 50 cases brought by Trump’s campaign and his supporters, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped, and all have failed to prove election fraud. Biden won the Peach State by roughly 10,000 votes, and the measure was certified by GOP election officials after a recount.

When pressed further by Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein about whether the election had been “rigged,” Loeffler instead pivoted to urging voters to support both Republic senators to keep the GOP majority in the U.S. Senate so “we don’t go down the path of socialism.”

Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock for his part dodged answering whether he favored “packing” the U.S. Supreme Court by enlarging it to include more Democratic judges. “I’m not really focused on it,” he said, adding that Georgians were more concerned about recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

Past that, Loeffler and Warnock stuck to familiar talking points — so much so that they may as well have been quoting their TV ads.

Loeffler repeatedly called Warnock a “radical liberal,” painting him as a socialist who would defund the police and take people’s guns while working with U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Warnock responded by calling Loeffler “the wealthiest member of Congress,” portraying her as more concerned with her own wealth than the welfare of Georgians.

Both hammered on their ability to understand common Georgians and access the “American dream,” with Loeffler saying that she grew up on a farm and waited tables and Warnock emphasizing his early life in Savannah’s project homes.

The debate became most contentious over Loeffler’s claims that Warnock, a minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church, was against both God and the military because he had said during a sermon that a person can’t serve both God and the military at the same time. The quote has been widely broadcast in TV ads shown in Georgia.

Warnock answered that the quote had been taken out of context from a sermon based on the Book of Matthew. He then took it a step further and called himself a “Matthew 25 Christian” who loved his neighbor and wouldn’t “get rid of your neighbor’s healthcare, particularly in the middle of a pandemic.”

Responding twice that she was “not going to be lectured” on the Bible, Loeffler shot back at Warnock, noting his pro-choice stance and again his statement that one couldn’t serve both God and the military.

“She’s lied not only on me, but on Jesus,” Warnock said of Loeffler near the debate’s end.

The Loeffler-Warnock debate followed a semi-debate where Jon Ossoff, the other Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia, argued with an empty podium that was meant for Perdue. "This is a strange situation," Ossoff said. Perdue has repeatedly declined invitations to debate Ossoff ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election.

These are key dates in the runoff election:

• December 7: Voter registration deadline to vote in the runoff election
• December 14: Advanced in-person or early voting begins for the general election runoff
• January 5, 2021: Runoff election day