The two Democratic Senate campaigns in Georgia are warning the national party that they’re quickly running out of funds and are unable to keep up with Republican spending ahead of that state’s January runoff elections.
NBC News obtained a memo Monday claiming that “outside GOP spending” has left them struggling to keep up and money isn’t flowing in from the national party fast enough to fight what they believe is an uphill battle to flip Georgia’s two Senate seats.
“Eight days out from Election Day in Georgia’s crucial Senate runoff races, Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are ‘sounding the alarm’ about their ability to keep pace with GOP spending, calling for a ‘significant increase’ in grassroots donations to prevent running out of money,” NBC News reports.
The two campaigns authored the memo jointly, according to the outlet, and it was signed by both Jon Ossoff’s and Raphael Warnock’s campaign managers.
“To win this election in 8 days, we need to continue our historic efforts to turn out every single voter — but we won’t be able to do that if our fundraising revenue continues to fall,” the pair said.
By all accounts, Ossoff and Warnock have outraised their incumbent Republican opponents, Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Purdue, drawing significantly from a national Democratic effort to seal up the two Georgia Senate seats — an achievement that would give Democrats narrow control of the Senate, and giving Democrat Joe Biden the cooperation of both houses of Congress, which is necessary if he hopes to achieve any of his policy objectives.
In recent days, though, it seems national Democratic party leaders, like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have reportedly soured on the two Georgia races and are no longer willing to risk long-term donor relationships on two candidates who are not likely to win.
“Now, after the party performed poorly in down-ballot races, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is no longer meeting with donors,” NBC News says. “Schumer is ‘pessimistic’ about Warnock and Ossoff’s chances in Georgia next week and doesn’t want to ruin donor relationships, the source adds.”
That’s news to Schumer, according to his spokesman.
“This is absolutely not true and this anonymous ‘source’ has no idea what they’re talking about, and it’s really sad NBC published it. Schumer has diligently made calls and fundraised for both Georgia candidates and is optimistic about their chances in January,” he told NBC.
Polling site FiveThirtyEight has both races in the “toss-up” category, with Purdue narrowly leading Ossoff and Warnock narrowly leading Loeffler. Neither leading candidate, though, has more than a two-point lead on his opponent, leaving both polls within the margin of error.
The RealClearPolitics polling average has Purdue in the lead by less than one point (he lead in the same race in 2014 by nearly 8 points). The outlet, though, considers the Warnock/Loeffler matchup a “tie.”