Dalton is a town in northern Georgia. When you arrive, everything is metaphorically red, like Georgia itself was for decades until it voted for Biden in November.
But in Dalton, Republican is the only way to vote. I'm sitting in the Oakwood Café, considered a city institution, and the feeling is that morale isn't especially high. The fact that Trump didn't win in November has hurt his supporter's mood and confidence.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
There weren't many visitors because of COVID, I thought. "Sit where you like," the waitress tells me.
I meet one of the diners, Claire. She doesn't understand what happened to people in Atlanta.
"I vote like my grandfather, and I expect my granddaughter to do the same. But something happened in Atlanta, unless there was election fraud," she says, and adds: "I'm so exciting that Trump is coming here. We won't disappoint him because he doesn't disappoint us."
Dalton is the carpet capital of the world – it has carpet factories on every corner. The city is home to many working-class people.
A group of people who came from Chattanooga, Tennessee, is sitting in the café. They are convinced that Trump will be president again. Mostly, they don't understand how the South is losing Georgia.
A family sitting at another table is from Gainesville, and they came especially to see the president. They are dressed accordingly, in Trump campaign shirts.
"We drove two hours just to see him. We believe he'll have another four years, not in 2024, but in January," they tell me. "The media kicked him out but we, the people, will put him back," the mother says.
Her husband adds: "You're from Israel. We heard they really like him there. He's the president that brought peace."
In the parking lot, I meet Lloyd. He arrived from Pensacola, Florida – a 400-mile drive. "The God of Israel is loyal to his people and I believe there will be a miracle, and he will be president," he says. Lloyd is going on to Washington to witness the miracle that he says will happen on Wednesday, when Congress counts the electoral votes.
Two months ago, everything was almost done: Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were on the brink of victory, and almost won Georgia's two Senate seats.
The suburban story
But in this southern state, the special law does not allow a simple win – candidates must secure over 50% of the vote. Therefore, as if the law were written especially for the insane 2020 election, we find ourselves in a situation in which the second round for the state's two Senate seats will decide who controls the upper house of the US Congress – and to a large extent determine President-elect Joe Biden's ability to promote a left-wing agenda.
In general, the story of Georgia is the story of the suburbs: movement to the suburbs of America's large cities created blue, liberal bubbles in the heart of red Georgia. That was enough to give Biden a narrow win two months ago, but will the Democrats keep Georgia Democratic in Tuesday's Senate runoff? It's tough to believe. But Georgia is purple – neither red nor blue. And it could be interesting.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
If the Democrats win both seats on Tuesday, the Senate will split 50-50 and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have the deciding vote. The two seats are worth their weight in gold: President Trump and President-elect Biden both came to Georgia on Monday to hold rallies, in an attempt to decide the runoff. The Republicans have an easier job, since they only need to win one seat to maintain control of the Senate.
The media laid into the president this week because of a phone conversation he had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about finding him votes that weren't counted properly. The Democrats claimed that this was an abuse of presidential authority as bad as Watergate, but former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a resident of Georgia, defended the president and said he was simply "behaving like a president," and had a right to exercise his rights.
Gingrich and other Republicans think that the Georgia secretary of state did something unacceptable by recording the conversation, and the White House even turned the case over to the Secret Service to see if it entailed some violation of espionage laws.
Tuesday's runoff is for two seats. One race is between incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler and African-American pastor Raphael Warnock. The second race is between incumbent Senator David Perdue and Jewish candidate Jon Ossoff. The Republicans are on the defensive, like Trump in the 2020 election. A situation has been created that is fateful not only for the Senate, but for Trump's political future: on Wednesday, both houses of Congress will meet to count the votes cast by the states' electors, and when it is over, the president-elect will officially be declared.
Trump knows that this is his last chance to continue on to a second term. Trump still believes that this session can give him a victory, and he has backing from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has already enlisted more than 10 senators, and a few congressional representatives.
Trump hopes that the momentum Cruz is building up will lead to a long procedure at the end of which, neither Trump nor Biden will have 270 electors. In that case, the decision would be handed over to the House of Representatives, which would have to hold a special vote. The chances that the complicated process will go that far are slim, but Trump intends to hold a massive rally in Washington on Wednesday to pressure the Republicans to do everything they can.
