Californians prepare to descend on Georgia to fight for Democrats in Senate races

A host of California residents and California-based political organizations are prepared to descend on Georgia to campaign for two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates whose victory would have profound implications for the direction of the country.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Democrats in the Golden State have been hounding political organizers with questions about how they can travel to Georgia to volunteer for Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Ossof is running against Republican Sen. David Perdue and Warnock is running against incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Both races went to a Jan. 5 runoff election after no candidate won a majority in the November election.

The current balance of power for the incoming Senate is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. That means that Democrats must win both of Georgia’s runoff elections to make it a 50-50 Senate, in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote, giving her party a razor-thin majority in the chamber. 

The runoff election has fired up Democrats from out of state. According to campaign finance data, more than 83% of funds for Ossof’s campaign came from outside Georgia, as did nearly 80% of funds for Warnock’s fall campaign.