The Republicans may have started to draw their wish list for a Republican-controlled US Senate with several polls putting them slightly in the lead in this midterm election that comes to a close tomorrow night.
However, the Democrats hope to keep the Senate, If Georgia, Iowa, and North Carolina come their way. Their chances would largely depend on convincing a surge of women and African-Americans to vote. These groups of voters are critical for Democrats in Iowa and North Carolina races.
The Republicans and Democrats spent the weekend campaigning in key states with Democratic candidate for the Senate race in Georgia, Michelle Nunn and her counterpart, David Purdue of the Republican hauling attacks at each other through speeches and television advertisements.
Perdue’s campaign has been linking President Barack Obama whose popularity wanes with Nunn’s ambition, describing her as a Washington surrogate, adding that a vote for a Republican majority in the Senate that would reverse a glut of lame duck bills.
According to Purdue, his Democratic opponent would be “a rubber stamp” for the current administration.
“It’s very simple. If you like what’s going on, vote for Michelle Nunn, because she is absolutely going to be a proxy for (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid and President Barack Obama,” Perdue said. “I don’t care what her last name is.”
But, Nunn has rejected that idea, saying she would work to support Georgians just like her father U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn did.
Nunn has equally described Purdue’s ambition as selfish. “He has mastered creating jobs in other countries,” Nunn said. “The people around him have not been served well.”
She told voters, “We have a choice between collaboration and between more partisan gridlock in Washington. And a choice of someone willing to serve all the people of this state and unite this country, and, oh yeah, of creating history.”
According to Upshot, a New York Times website with analysis and data visualisations about politics, policy and everyday life, Democratic party’s efforts to turn out the young and non-white voters who didn’t vote during the 2010 midterm elections appear to be paying off in several Senate battleground states.
According to the website, more than 20 per cent of the nearly three million votes already tabulated in Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa have come from people who did not vote in the last midterm election.
In Kentucky where the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, a Republican is leading the Democrat candidate, Ms. Lundergan Alison Grimes by five margin according to Blue Grass poll, the Kentucky-based Courier Journal wrote that Alison Grimes has filed a suit in Franklin Circuit Court alleging that the Republican Party of Kentucky is trying to suppress voter turnout in Eastern Kentucky, where it sent official-looking mailers that say "Election Violation Notice" on the envelope, and is asking for a criminal investigation into voter intimidation.
"This is clearly a scare tactic, and what they are doing to try to manipulate voters," said Jonathan Hurst, Grimes' campaign manager.
Earlier, Democratic Party’s Political Director in Kentucky, Christian Motely, it was reported that voters’ turnout will be critical to democrats win in many of the states that are competitive.
In Cobb County, known to be Republican safe haven in the State of Georgia, the Chairman of the party, Mr. Joe Dendy, dismissed allegations of shutting out voters to make Democrats loose during midterm elections.
“That is always a complaint. We want everybody to vote. Georgia has a vote ID law. We are not disenfranchising anyone. We are just trying to ensure the integrity of our voting system.
“We have identified database of people and we are updating and cleaning up through phone calls so as to know who they are and their interest. We are asking them to vote, “according to the report.
On favourable polls for the Republicans, he said, “We can’t base things on polls, because two years ago we thought Mitt Romney was going to win and we took things for granted, we didn’t do our job.”
