Clues About Post-Trump Politics Await In Georgia

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive with Sen. Kelly Loeffler, left, and Sen. David Perdue, center, to a campaign rally for Senate Republican candidatesa t Valdosta Regional Airport in Valdosta, Georgia, last month.

Evan Vucci / Associated Press

For more than four years, President Donald Trump has dominated the Republican Party and the whole of American politics. Now Georgia gets to decide what comes next.

Two Senate runoffs on Tuesday, just 15 days before Trump leaves office, will not only determine which party controls the Senate but offer the first clues about how long Trump can maintain his grip on the nation’s politics once he’s out of the White House.

Democrats are looking to prove that President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Georgia and nationally was not just a Trump backlash, but a permanent shift for a once-solidly Republican state. Their candidates, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, have pushed to solidify Democratic gains among young voters in urban areas and younger suburbanites around Atlanta, along with strong Black turnout.