New polling suggests Jon Ossoff, who is challenging incumbent Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) in a runoff election on January 5, is starting to fall behind, due in part to an ongoing scandal involving Chinese business dealings.
Trafalgar Group, one of the most accurate polls in 2020, released a survey on Friday showing Perdue, as well as fellow Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler, each led their opponents by several percentage points. The survey found Perdue leading Ossoff by three points, 50.2% to 47.5%.
Robert Cahaly, chief pollster for Trafalgar, said on Fox News that the reason for Perdue’s growing lead came from Ossoff’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party. As The Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien reported, Ossoff’s media company, Insight TWI, received money from a media company linked to the CCP. That media company, PCCW, is 18% owned by China’s state-backed outlet China Unicom. In September, National Review reported that, “PCCW, the largest telecom agency in Hong Kong, is run by Chairman Richard Li, son of Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing. Li also serves as a councilor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. But for years, Li has spoken out against Hong Kong independence and the pro-democracy protests that have rocked the island as the Chinese Communist Party has consolidated control.”
Ossoff also accepted at least $5,000 from Al Jazeera, a media company backed by the Qatari government, over the past two years as part of his job as CEO of Insight TWI.
Ossoff failed to report the money he received from those companies on financial disclosure forms, but later amended the reports.
Perdue appeared on “The Erick Erickson Show” last Thursday to discuss the issue, saying, “We’ve got a China scandal here in my race that could make Biden and other scandals like that pale in comparison,” a reference to one of many scandals Democrat Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, faces.
Trafalgar pollster Robert Cahaly said during his Fox News appearance that Ossoff’s China problem has been made worse by recent revelations that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was close to a Chinese spy who had affairs with several other members of his party. Swalwell has denied an affair, but U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe his relationship with Chinese Ministry of State Security operative Christine Fang. Last week, 17 GOP lawmakers wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) asking her to remove Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee, The Daily Wire’s Jon Brown reported.
“We write to you today out of concern with Congressman Eric Swalwell’s reported, close contacts with a Chinese Communist Party spy recently reported by Axios,” the letter began, according to a copy obtained by The Daily Wire. “Because of Rep. Swalwell’s position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, his close interactions with Chinese intelligence services, however unintentional they may be, are an unacceptable national security risk.”