The historic 2020 Election did not end in November. The pivotal question of whether Democrats or Republicans would control the powerful U.S. Senate came down to two January runoff races in Georgia.
While Georgia is all the way across the country from Sacramento, that didn’t stop local students from making their influence felt in an election that could determine how successful Joe Biden would be as the new president.
Naomi Piper-Pell, a junior at Rio Americano High School, spent part of their winter break knocking on doors in Georgia to encourage people to vote.
“I flew out on Christmas and canvassed for four consecutive days in the Buckhead area. Everyone I talked to was super nice and excited and it was so inspiring to see,” they said.
For Piper-Pell, spending winter break in Georgia was worth it. January saw a high-stakes election whose outcome would determine which party would control the Senate in Washington, D.C. Democrats needed both seats to draw even with Republicans and position Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to cast any tie-breaking vote.
Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in extremely tight races on January 5. According to The Associated Press, Ossoff only earned 1.2 percent more votes than Perdue, while Warnock beat Loeffler by 2 percent. Warnock’s win makes him the first black Senator from Georgia.
With a blue Senate, the Biden Administration will find it much easier to pass legislation on progressive policies like healthcare, climate change, voting rights, police reform, and more. The Democratic wins are huge blows to Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell, who had pledged to block all Democratic bills if the Senate had stayed under Republican control.
Democrats and Republicans funnelled record-breaking contributions into the January runoff races and activated unexpected voter turnout. Part of the effort rested in attracting volunteers from across the country.
Jennifer Wood, a 2020 Coalition Sacramento phone bank leader said that lots of Sacramentans were showing up to phone bank sessions. Wood lead these events via Mobilize, an online platform that allows volunteers to organize their efforts.
“A lot of people come from all over the country to Mobilize phone banks,” she said. “I’d say 60 to 70 percent of people I saw were coming from Sacramento. People started signing up for tons of things.”
Canvassing, also known as volunteer door-knocking, is the most effective way to get out the vote, Wood explained. However, far less people have participated in door-knockings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Phone banking is the next best thing.
Youth-oriented groups like NextGen, Sunrise Movement, and New Georgia Project attracted mass amounts of teenagers and young adults, hopeful to make an impact, to their phone and text bank efforts for the runoffs.
Harper Johnston, a junior at C.K. McClatchy, banked on behalf of Democrats Warnock and Ossoff.
“Most people I talked to were going to vote and had a plan. I had a few people who were just like ‘I’m Republican. Leave me alone,’” Johnston said.
Phone banking can be slow and tedious 一 an automated system brings up call after call for volunteers, but most don’t answer or hang up quickly. In the rare case that someone does stay on the line, volunteers use a script to provide election information and partisan encouragement. But in the end, all those long hours are well-spent. Convincing just one or two people in a phone bank session to cast their vote could make the difference, especially in a close election like Georgia’s runoffs.
“I saw this as an opportunity to help what could be the most progressive administration in our history,” Johnston said.
Typically, runoffs don’t see a large turnout, but Georgia’s election was off the chart. Over 4.4 million people voted. According to news site FiveThirtyEight, that number was more than double the number that voted in Georgia’s 2008 runoff, which had previously held the highest-turnout record in Georgia runoff history.
Georgians were certainly motivated to vote, but much of the credit must go to volunteers across the nation. Even Sacramento students helped make an impact in an election on the other side of the country.
“I think when I was talking to a lot of Georgians their biggest concerns are the same as ours: healthcare and jobs. The runoffs affect Georgians the most even though it’ll affect all of us. Being able to help out another American is what it’s really all about,” Piper-Pell said.