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New Hanover Dems Supporting Candidates in Georgia Runoff Election

If Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win their races for U.S. Senate in their runoff elections on January 5, it will give Democrats a majority in the Senate putting incoming President Joe Biden and incoming Vice Present Kamala Harris in a much stronger position to carry out their agenda. 

You can participate in the fight from here in New Hanover County, according to Susanne Werner, 2nd Vice Chair of the New Hanover County Democratic Party, who already has joined a phone bank in support of Warnock and Ossof organized by the Democratic Volunteer Center. "It goes fast," Werner reported. "I made 48 calls in 40 minutes." Werner said the DVC, based in California, uses an automated system called CrowdCall to make calls through the computer, very similar to the one used in New Hanover County for the November election. The script is very similar to ones we used as well: basically confirming the voter will be supporting the two candidates, discussing their plan to vote, asking them to get their friends to the polls, and asking them to volunteer. 

Werner said the training sessions are in California time which is three hours earlier than our Eastern standard time. DVC will walk you through getting onto CrowdCall and through the script and then you can make calls at your convenience from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. our time. You need to sign up for only one training session and then you call on your own. They will ask you to track the number of calls you make and report it so they can use call volumes for funding their volunteer program.  To get involved, go to https://demvolctr.org/

The Georgia party has also formed  a Rescue Team to ensure that every absentee ballot is counted.  Georgia has already begun mailing absentee ballots, and the Democratic Party has set up phone banks to assist Georgia voters to cure ballot defects.  To sign up for a cure phone bank, click here.

Despite Winning Back the Presidency, Democrats Get Mixed Results in Down Ballot Races 

New Hanover County came out strong for the Biden/Harris ticket, but there were some disappointments in down ballot races. The party fielded strong candidates, and volunteers worked hard to support them, but not every campaign succeeded. The pattern was repeated across the United States where disapproval of Donald Trump didn't carry over to downballot candidates.

The New York Times noted that this was a nationwide trend: "Across the country, suburban voters’ disgust with Mr. Trump — the key to Mr. Biden’s election — did not translate into a wide rebuke of other Republicans, as Democrats had expected after the party made significant gains in suburban areas in the 2018 midterm elections. From the top of the party down to the state level, Democratic officials are awakening to the reality that voters may have delivered a one-time verdict on Mr. Trump that does not equal ongoing support for center-left policies."  See the full New York Times article here.  Even in deep blue California, which the Biden-Harris campaign won handily, the Republican party had it's best year in a decade. 

In 2022, with no one named Trump on the ballot, North Carolina results may be different, perhaps more closely resembling 2018.

Election Results for  N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Seat Still Not Final

The recount of votes in the race for Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court was not completed last week as expected. The State Board of Elections announced on Wednesday that three large counties, Forsyth, Guilford and Mecklenburg, were unable to complete their recounts as anticipated by the end of last Wednesday. As a result, they will resume recounts today for the top judicial seat in the state, according to the Associated Press. With 91 of the state’s 100 counties done recounting ballots last week, Republican Paul Newby led Democrat Cheri Beasley by more than 400 votes. The small margin is the product of nearly 5.4 million ballots cast in the race.