Barack Obama

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      Obama speaks out against ‘profoundly misguided’ book bans in school libraries

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      In an open letter to American librarians, Barack Obama has criticised “profoundly misguided” rightwing efforts to ban books from libraries in public schools.“Some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” the former president wrote.“It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or feature people of colour, Indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.”Obama’s letter on Monday supported Unite Against Book Bans, a campaign led by the American Library Association (ALA).Obama also appeared in a TikTok video posted by the Kankakee Public Library, from Illinois, which has found success with viral videos.The 44th president appeared at the end of the short video, which otherwise featured staff reading books subject to bans or attempted bans. Obama was shown reading and sipping from a library-branded mug. More videos are set to be released.The ALA has found that in US public schools last year, “a record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship”, often by parent-led groups, “a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021”.It adds: “Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of colour.”In his letter, Obama also cited “unfortunate instances in which books by conservative authors or books containing ‘triggering’ words or scenes have been targets for removal”.He added: “Either way, the impulse seems to be to silence, rather than engage, rebut, learn from or seek to understand views that don’t fit our own. I believe such an approach is profoundly misguided, and contrary to what has made this country great.”Obama is the author of his own bestselling books: Dreams from My Father, The Audacity of Hope and A Promised Land, the last named the first volume of his political memoirs. His wife, Michelle Obama, is the author of the hit memoir Becoming and a recent follow-up, The Light We Carry.In his letter, Obama said writers “like Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin taught me something essential about our country’s character.“Reading about people whose lives were very different from mine showed me how to step into someone else’s shoes. And the simple act of writing helped me develop my own identity – all of which would prove vital as a citizen, as a community organizer, and as president.”Regarding school book bans, the former president also said it was “important to understand that the world is watching.“If America – a nation built on freedom of expression – allows certain voices and ideas to be silenced, why should other countries go out of their way to protect them?“Ironically, it is Christian and other religious texts – the sacred texts that some calling for book bannings in this country claim to want to defend – that have often been the first target if censorship and book banning efforts in authoritarian countries.” More

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      In America’s ‘Voltage Valley’, hopes of car-making revival turn sour

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      When Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicles (EV) manufacturer in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, declared bankruptcy last month, it was the latest blow to a region that has seen decades of extravagant promises fail to deliver.The 5,000 new jobs executives vowed to create in 2020 generated fresh hope for the shuttered General Motors Lordstown plant, which once functioned as an economic engine for the area and a critical piece of the nation’s industrial heartland.Local leaders rebranded Mahoning Valley “Voltage Valley”, claiming the EV revolution would revive the region’s fortunes. Donald Trump, then the president, trumpeted a major victory. “The area was devastated when General Motors moved out,” he said. “It’s incredible what’s happened in the area. It’s booming now. It’s absolutely booming.”But Lordstown Motors’ failure and its decision to sue its major investor, the electronics giant Foxconn, over a soured investment partnership, have dented Voltage Valley’s fortunes. Years of similar failures have given some residents here “savior fatigue” and have largely given up hope that the Lordstown plant can ever be fully rebooted.“I really want the plant to do well and succeed, but we’ve experienced so many ‘Hey we’re gonna come in and save the day’ promises that never happen,” said David Green, the regional director of United Auto Workers (UAW), who started working at Lordstown in 1995.Green said he was especially skeptical of Foxconn. The company has put up nets to prevent workers fromkilling themselves at one of its Chinese plants, he said, and has failed to live up to other promises of job creation across the US: “This is the savior company? I don’t have warm feelings toward them.”Still, some local leaders are optimistic. They insist Foxconn, which is attempting to scale up autonomous tractor production at Lordstown and lure a different EV startup, will save the plant.“I think Foxconn will be successful,” said Lordstown’s mayor, Arno Hill. “They are fairly confident they are going to be here for a while.”Hill and other leaders said Lordstown Motors was not the only new employer in town. GM partnered with LG Corporation to build an EV battery plant that employs about 1,300 people next door to Lordstown, and a new TJX warehouse has hired about 1,000 workers. A new industrial park is planned in the region, as are two gas plants.The feelings of those not in the business of promoting the region are more nuanced. In nearby Warren, where many Lordstown employees have lived since GM originally opened the plant in 1966 opening, mentions of Foxconn saving Lordstown or the Mahoning Valley drew a mix of eye-rolls, scoffs and blank looks from residents in the city’s downtown.“There are words, but I have seen no action,” said Leslie Dunlap, owner of the FattyCakes Soap Company, and several other Warren businesses, as she worked at a farmers’ market. “People here have lost faith in big companies.”Warren’s fortune is tied to that of the plant – when the latter’s employment numbers dipped, “people stopped spending money here, started selling houses, walking away from properties,” Dunlap said.Residents on a recent Tuesday afternoon said they were “cautiously optimistic” about the region’s economic future. Warren’s downtown shopfronts are full. But the city also bears the scars of rust belt decline with vacant industrial buildings and blighted neighborhoods.A few miles down the road at Lordstown, the lots around the well-kept offices where a few hundred Foxconn employees work are repaved. But the rest of the 6.2m sq ft factory looks like a depressing relic. Weeds sprout from the cracked pavement of the vast, unused blacktop lots surrounding it.Lordstown employed 11,000 people at its peak, but between the mid-1990s and 2016, the workforce in Trumbull county, where Lordstown sits, dropped by 63%. Just a few thousand remained when Lordstown closed in 2018.Some still hold a shred of hope that GM will repurchase the plant – it is nextdoor to an EV battery factory, and batteries are expensive to ship. It makes sense, said Josh Ayers, the bargaining chairman for UAW 1112.“I have a pit in my stomach every time I drive past Lordstown,” he said. “Foxconn is in there but I don’t see a future for them.”Regardless of the plant’s potential, local labor leaders say they have largely moved on and trained their attention on GM’s nearby Ultium electric-vehicle plant. A small explosion, fires and chemical leaks at the plant recently injured employees who work there, for as little as $16 per hour – less than the amount the local Waffle House offers, and low enough that some employees need government assistance, Ayers noted.Some local leaders tout the region’s job openings. Ayers said they exist because turnover is high. “People used to run through walls to work at Lordstown,” he said. “Nobody is running through walls to work at Ultium.”It is not the first time that a politician’s promises have left locals disappointed.‘This plant is about to shift into high gear’As the Great Recession battered the nation in late 2009, Barack Obama traveled to General Motors’ mammoth Lordstown plant to promise laid-off autoworkers a brighter future.Obama’s 2009 GM bailout became a lifeline: ramping up production of the Chevrolet Cobalt would bring back over 1,000 workers, the president told the anxious crowd.“Because of the steps we have taken, this plant is about to shift into high gear,” Obama bellowed over loud cheers. The plan soon fizzled, however, and by 2019 GM had shed the plant’s workforce and sold it to Lordstown Motors.In 2014 Obama declared Youngstown the center for 3D-printing technology, though the industry has brought few jobs. The failure to revive the area, in part, helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.Mahoning Valley was once steel country, and residents here trace their economic troubles back to 1977’s Black Monday, when two steel plants abruptly closed and 5,000 workers lost their jobs. Since then, the promises to pull the region out of its slow tailspin have been plentiful.An eccentric businessman from nearby Youngstown briefly revived the Avanti car company until slow sales and poor management killed it by 1990, leaving its workforce jobless.A glass company that recently received tax incentives to build a large plant “never made one fuckin’ bottle”, UAW’s Green said.Perhaps most infamously, Trump, in a July 2017 Youngstown speech, promised residents auto jobs “are all coming back. Don’t move, don’t sell your house.” A year later, GM idled the plant and, as residents here are keen to highlight, it did so after receiving billions in taxpayer assistance, including $60m in state subsidies in exchange for a promise to keep the plant open through 2027.In 2019, Trump tweeted that he had been “working nicely with GM to get” the Lordstown deal done. But Lordstown Motors floundered almost from the start, suffering from scandals over inflated sales figures and battery range. By 2022, a new savior arrived: Foxconn. It agreed to buy the plant and a 55% stake in Lordstown Motors for $230m. That relationship soured, and Foxconn quit making the payments this year. The deal collapsed.In a sign of how little impact this “booming” transformation has had, the name “Foxconn” hardly registered with some Warren residents. They squinted as they tried to recall where they had heard it. Others pointed to other ventures they felt could have more impact – a proposed science-fiction museum and businesses at the farmers’ market.Outside the county courthouse, an employee who did not want their name printed said they knew of the Lordstown Motors collapse, but it was not top of mind for anyone they knew: “Lordstown is not where the money is. I don’t know where it’s at.”‘Foxconn didn’t come through’About 450 miles from Lordstown, in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, Foxconn in 2017 promised to build a hi-tech factory campus that would employ 13,000 people in exchange for $4.5bn in tax incentives. Residents were forced from their homes to make way for the factory, but very little was built.Kelly Gallaher is among those who fought the project, and she sees a replay in Lordstown as Foxconn promises big things while its deal falls apart. Mount Pleasant residents tried to warn Lordstown on social media when Foxconn showed interest in the plant, she said.“Lordstown needed a savior angel, and they weren’t in a position with any other backup choices. But it isn’t a surprise that Foxconn didn’t come through,” Gallaher said.Guy Coviello, the chief executive of the Youngstown/Warren Chamber of Commerce, dismissed such concerns. Foxconn is not asking for incentives or making big promises, he said, claiming that the problems in Wisconsin were largely “political ballyhooing”.The idea that autonomous tractors will save Lordstown is not landing with many residents. But one thing everyone around Lordstown seems to agree on is the notion that the region’s manufacturing heyday is never returning – for no other reason than automation has made it impossible. Manufacturers simply don’t need the labor force they once did.Mahoning still has much to offer. Its population loss is stabilizing, the cost of living is low, it is near other major population centers and it offers a huge workforce, Ayers said.Those selling points may bring more investment. But after so many broken promises, any floated idea is met with skepticism. Reflecting on Obama’s speech, Green said the president’s reassurance was a “great feeling that day”.“What a stark contrast to 10 years later.” More

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      in Elections

      Armed man wanted for role in Capitol attack arrested near Obama’s house

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      A man armed with explosive materials and weapons, and wanted for crimes related to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, was arrested late on Thursday in the Washington DC neighborhood where the former US president Barack Obama lives, law enforcement officials said.Taylor Taranto, 37, was spotted by law enforcement officials a few blocks from the former president’s home and fled, though he was chased by Secret Service agents. Taranto has an open warrant on charges related to the insurrection, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing case and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.They said Taranto also had made social media threats against a public figure. He was found with weapons and materials to create an explosive device, though one had not been built, one of the officials said.No one was injured. It was not clear whether the Obamas were at their home at the time of the arrest.Washington’s Metropolitan police department arrested Taranto on charges of being a fugitive from justice. The explosives team swept Taranto’s van and said there were no threats to the public.Taranto was a US navy veteran and a webmaster for the Republican party in Franklin county, in Washington state, according to the Tri-City Herald newspaper. He told the newspaper in an interview last year that he was volunteering for the Republican party.It was not clear what, exactly, Taranto is accused of doing in the 2021 riot, where supporters of then president Donald Trump smashed their way into the Capitol, beat police officers and pursued leading politicians, while also invading a congressional chamber in a vain effort to overturn Trump’s defeat at the 2020 presidential election before Joe Biden’s victory being certified by Congress.More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol attack. More than 600 of them have pleaded guilty, while approximately 100 others have been convicted after trials decided by judges or juries. More than 550 riot defendants have been sentenced, with over half imprisoned. More

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      Obama criticizes GOP hopefuls Nikki Haley and Tim Scott over racism stances

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      Barack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.In a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”.Scott is the only Black candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race and Haley is Indian American.Asked about Scott’s messaging, Obama said there was sometimes a tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over the effects of racism, arguing that candidates need to address racial disparities to be taken seriously on the subject of American unity.“There’s a long history of African American or other minority candidates within the Republican party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can make it,’” Obama told the Democratic strategist David Axelrod on the CNN-hosted Axe Files. He added that he thought Nikki Haley “has a similar approach”.Obama said that approach does not include “a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that.“If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from … getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates,” he added.That prompted a pushback from Scott, a former insurance agent, who has said “Racism is real. It is alive,” but argues that his success as a Black man is not exceptional but representative of progress.Scott responded to Obama’s comments, telling the conservative radio host Mark Levin that the president had “missed a softball moving at slow speed with a big bat”.In a Twitter post later on Thursday, Scott said: “Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power,” he wrote. “The left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth.“The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical left,” Scott continued. “We live in a country where little Black and brown boys and girls can be president of the United States. The truth is – we’ve had one and the good news is – we will have another,” he added.Separately, Nikki Haley took issue with Obama’s position.“Barack Obama set minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them,” Haley told the New York Post. “In America, hard work and personal responsibility matter. My parents didn’t raise me to think that I would forever be a victim. They raised me to know that I was responsible for my success.” More

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      ‘Trump’s not a good sport’: Chris Cillizza on presidents at play

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      From The Big Lebowski to Alice on The Brady Bunch, depictions of bowling abound in American pop culture. The sport’s real-life adherents included Richard Nixon, who installed bowling lanes in the White House and was known to play between seven to 12 games late at night. Characteristically, he played alone. This is one of many athletic accounts from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a new book, Power Players: Sports, Politics, and the American Presidency, by the longtime political journalist Chris Cillizza.Bowling solo personified “Nixon the loner”, Cillizza says. “He didn’t play tennis or golf with friends. He did enjoy bowling by himself. It’s a powerful image, a telling image.”Tricky Dick’s love of bowling also helped with a crucial voting bloc: “Nixon viewed it as the sport of the Silent Majority – white, blue-collar men who sort of made up his base. He was very aware of this.”A Washington journalist for four decades, most recently for CNN, Cillizza pitched the book as about “the sports presidents play, love, spectate, and what it tells us about who they are and how they govern. That was the germ of the idea, the seed going in.”Power Players surveys 13 presidents of the modern era, from Dwight Eisenhower to Joe Biden. Some of its narratives are well-known – think Ike’s extensive golf-playing, John F Kennedy’s touch football games or Barack Obama’s pickup basketball on the campaign trail. The book explores less-remembered sides of these stories, including a scary moment on the links for Eisenhower.While golfing in Colorado in 1955, he fielded multiple stressful phone calls from his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. After eating a hamburger with onions and getting yet another call from Dulles, Ike felt too angry to keep playing. Chest pains followed that night. The White House initially claimed indigestion but an electrocardiogram found something more serious – a heart attack. At the time, there was no 25th amendment specifying the chain of command if a president became incapacitated. Fortunately, Ike never lost consciousness during the episode.Golf was a popular sport for many presidents, as reflected in a previous book about White House athletics, First Off the Tee by Don Van Natta Jr, whom Cillizza interviewed. Yet the list of presidential pastimes is long and diverse, from Nixon’s bowling to Jimmy Carter’s fly fishing to George HW Bush’s horseshoes. Yes, horseshoes. In addition to Bush’s well-known prowess on the Yale University baseball team, he was a pretty good horseshoes player who established his own league in the White House, with a commissioner and tournaments. The White House permanent staff fielded teams; Queen Elizabeth II even gifted Bush a quartet of silver horseshoes.In the greatest-presidential-athlete discussion, Cillizza lands in Gerald Ford’s corner.“No debate, he’s the best athlete ever, I think, with [George HW] Bush a distant second, among modern presidents.”Ford sometimes lived up to the bumbling stereotypes made famous by Chevy Chase and Bob Hope – including when he accidentally hit people with golf balls. Yet he was an All-American center on the national-champion University of Michigan football team and received contract offers from two NFL squads, the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.In addition to the sports presidents play, Cillizza’s book examines how presidents use sports to connect to the public.Calling sports “a common language that lots and lots and lots of Americans speak”, Cillizza says: “I think politicians are forever trying to identify with the average person … I think sports is a way into that world for a lot of presidents.”There’s the practice of inviting championship teams to the White House, which Cillizza traces to Ronald Reagan, although instances date back decades. While not much of a sports fan, Reagan came from a sports radio background, played the legendary Gipper in the film Knute Rockne, All American and understood the importance of proximity to winners, Cillizza says.There’s also the tradition of presidential first pitches at baseball games, arguably the most iconic thrown by George W Bush at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series, in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks. Cillizza notes Dubya’s baseball pedigree as president of the Texas Rangers, and that he reportedly contemplated becoming commissioner of Major League Baseball.Of the presidents surveyed, Cillizza says George HW Bush had the most sportsmanship, thanks to early lessons about fair play from his mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, a strong tennis player herself. The least sportsmanlike, according to the author? Lyndon Johnson and Donald Trump. Cillizza cites an account of Trump’s time on the Fordham University squash team. After a loss to the Naval Academy, he drove to a department store and bought golf equipment. He and his teammates vented their frustration by hitting golf balls off a bluff into the Chesapeake Bay, then drove away, sans clubs.“That’s Trump, in a lot of ways,” Cillizza says. “He’s not a good sport who’s going to be genteel.”The author notes similar behavior throughout Trump’s career, including bombastic performances in World Wrestling Entertainment storylines and a whole recent book about his alleged cheating at golf, as well as a recent news item about the former president going to Ireland to visit one of his courses.“He hit a drive, and said Joe Biden could never do this,” Cillizza recalls. “It went 280ft right down the middle of the fairway. He talks about his virility, his health, through the lens of sports.”Not too long ago, two ex-presidents from rival parties teamed up as part of a golf foursome. George HW Bush joined the man who beat him in 1992 – Bill Clinton – en route to an unlikely friendship. Rounding out the foursome were the broadcasting legend Jim Nantz and NFL superstar Tom Brady.“It’s remarkable what sports can do to bring presidents together,” Cillizza says. “This day and age, it’s hard to consider … I don’t think Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be playing golf together anytime soon.”
      Power Players is published in the US by Twelve More

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      Obama praises woman who popularized ‘fired up’ chant during 2008 campaign

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      Obama praises woman who popularized ‘fired up’ chant during 2008 campaignFormer president releases video tribute for Edith Childs, South Carolina county councillor who is retiring after 24 yearsMarking the retirement of the woman credited with popularizing the chant “Fired up, ready to go!” that epitomized his campaigns, Barack Obama said her energy played a key role in lifting his spirits and his candidacy for president first time round.“It was early in my campaign, and I wasn’t doing that good,” Obama recalled in a video provided by the Obama Foundation, harking back to a 2007 campaign stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, on a dreary, rainy day.But the small crowd, Obama said, was transformed as Edith Childs led them in the rousing back-and-forth chant: “Fired up, ready to go!”“Leadership and power and inspiration can come from anywhere,” Obama said in the video to mark Childs’ retirement after 24 years on the Greenwood county council.“It just has to do with spirit, and nobody embodied that better than Edith.”“Fired up, ready to go!” swiftly became part of the Obama campaign’s ethos, manifested in T-shirts, signs and bumper stickers.This week, Childs told the AP she came to know the “fired up” chant from its use decades ago, the words energizing participants during National Association for the Advancement of Colored People voter registration drives.“Once we sang that song, it reminded us that, no matter what, we have to remain fired up and ready to go, and be prepared for whatever confronts you,” she said.Childs attended several events with the Obama family at the White House during his presidency, led delegates in the chant during the 2012 Democratic convention and sat with Michelle Obama at her husband’s final State of the Union address in 2016.The chant has become ingrained in South Carolina Democratic politics. Politicians, including state senator Marlon Kimpson, use it to amp up crowds across the state.In 2020, it was adopted by billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, who ran a TV ad in South Carolina and other early-voting states featuring Childs’ endorsement of his presidential campaign.Looking ahead to the 2024 campaign – and South Carolina’s new first-in-the-nation Democratic primary – Childs said she was open to connect with candidates who might seek her support, although she she wanted Democrats to be clearer about showcasing the party’s accomplishments.“When you’re fired up about something, you put more into it,” she said. “We’re going in the right direction, but we need to be more vigilant about what we’re doing.”TopicsBarack ObamaDemocratsUS politicsSouth CarolinanewsReuse this content More

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      Michelle Obama says she ‘couldn’t stand’ husband Barack for 10 years

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      Michelle Obama says she ‘couldn’t stand’ husband Barack for 10 yearsFormer first lady says caring for their young daughters put strain on their marriage in Revolt TV interview promoting latest book Former first lady Michelle Obama has said she “couldn’t stand” her husband for a decade while the couple’s children were young.In frank comments to the Black news station Revolt TV last week, Obama – one of the most popular women in America – said that raising children had put strains on her three-decade marriage to Barack Obama, the US president for two four-year terms beginning in 2009.The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama review – a guide for life from the former first ladyRead more“People think I’m being catty by saying this – it’s like, there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband,” she told a round-table forum. “And guess when it happened? When those kids were little.”Obama, 58, was speaking with Kelly Rowland, H.E.R., Winnie Harlow and Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles-Lawson, about an imbalance in her marriage to Barack Obama while his political star was ascending and she was primarily looking after their daughters, Sasha and Malia, who are now in their 20s.“And for 10 years while we’re trying to build our careers and, you know, worrying about school and who’s doing what and what, I was like, ‘Ugh, this isn’t even,’” Obama said. “And guess what? Marriage isn’t 50/50 – ever, ever.“There are times I’m 70, he’s 30. There are times he’s 60, 40, but guess what?” she continued. “Ten years – we’ve been married 30. I would take 10 bad years over 30 – it’s just how you look at it. And people give up … [saying], ‘Five years – I can’t take it.’”The former first lady is currently promoting a new book, The Light We Carry. In the discussion about the difficulties of a marriage, she said that she and her husband hadn’t discussed how much work is required and “how hard it is even when you are madly in love with the person, even when everything works out right”.When Barack Obama was elected president, the couple’s daughters were 10 and seven. In a recent extract from her book published in the Guardian, the former first lady described how she and her husband learned that for all the “dreaming, preparing and planning for family life to go perfectly … in the end, you’re pretty much just left to deal with whatever happens”.“You can establish systems and routines, anoint your various sleep, feeding and disciplinary gurus from the staggering variety that exist,” Obama wrote in the excerpt. “You can write your family bylaws and declare your religion and your philosophy out loud, but, at some point, sooner rather than later, you will almost surely be brought to your knees, realizing that despite your best and most earnest efforts, you are only marginally – and sometimes very marginally – in control.”In her latest comments, she added: “Little kids, they’re terrorists. They have demands. They don’t talk. They’re poor communicators. They cry all the time.”TopicsMichelle ObamaBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Georgia runoff: full steam ahead for Democrats as they aim to solidify Senate majority

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      Georgia runoff: full steam ahead for Democrats as they aim to solidify Senate majorityPolls suggest narrow lead for Raphael Warnock as party brings out big guns to campaign days before election A marathon election campaign will enter its final sprint on Tuesday when voters in Georgia decide the last seat in the US Senate – and shape the next phase of Joe Biden’s presidency.Opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock over his Republican challenger, former American football star Herschel Walker.Georgia candidates’ starkly divergent views on race could be key in runoffRead moreVictory for Warnock would give Democrats 51 seats in the 100-seat Senate, a stronger hand than they currently hold in an evenly split chamber where Vice-President Kamala Harris casts the tiebreaker.It is the second time in two years that a Senate race has gone to a runoff in Georgia because neither candidate secured a majority on election day. But the Peach State is showing little sign of election fatigue with officials reporting record early voting turnout.National and state Democrats are also not slowing down as they come out to support Warnock. Last week saw celebrity-led events including a concert by the Dave Matthews Band, canvassing with actresses Tessa Thompson and America Ferrera, and a rally targeting Georgia’s Asian American community featuring Jeannie Mai Jenkins and Daniel Dae Kim.Warnock, pastor of Martin Luther King’s former church, closed out the week with a rally in Atlanta led by the party’s biggest star, Barack Obama. “I’m here to tell you that we can’t let up,” the ex-president said after ascending the stage to roars and chants. “I’m here to tell you we can’t tune out. We can’t be complacent. We have to run through the tape. And I know you can do it because you did it before.”The event felt like a baptist sermon as, with nearly every sentence the former president uttered, the crowd cheered and responded with “yeah,” “alright,” and “come-on,” illustrating Georgia’s geography in the deep south squarely in the Bible Belt.Obama has been liberated, punchy and sardonic on the midterm campaign trail, eviscerating Republicans in a way that few Democrats can. He said: “Since the last time I was here, Mr Walker has been talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia. Like whether it’s better to be a vampire or a werewolf. This is a debate that I must confess I once had myself. When I was seven. Then I grew up.”He added: “In case you’re wondering, by the way, Mr Walker decided he wanted to be a werewolf. Which is great. As far as I’m concerned, he can be anything he wants to be, except for a United States senator.”As Florida turns Republican red, Georgia is emerging as one of the most critical swing states in the country. Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump there in 2020 helped propel him to the White House. Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff won Senate seats in January 2021 following a runoff, giving their party control of the chamber.Obama praised Georgians’ ability to influence the landscape of national politics, reeling off post-2020 achievements such as infrastructure spending, gun safety legislation, cuts to prescription drug prices and a record investment in clean energy. “That happened because of you, Georgia. And now we need you to do it again.”Democrats hope that Obama’s intervention will energise the party base. Ashley Davis, a student who attended the rally, said: “I’m ready. I’ve been canvassing since the start of the election, and I am phone banking too. I am feeling invigorated by that speech because it’s so true. We can’t stop because we know what’s at stake. Georgia is ready, and we have shown that we are a force to be reckoned with.”Biden, by contrast, has stayed away amid concerns that he could be a drag on Warnock. Instead he is aiming to help the campaign from afar, a strategy that proved successful in the midterms as Democrats defied expectations.On Friday the president joined a phone bank run by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Boston, Massachusetts, to help Warnock’s campaign and drew a sharp contrast with Walker. “This is not a referendum on Warnock,” he said. “This is a choice – a choice between two men … One doesn’t deserve to be in the United States Senate based on his veracity and what he said and what he hadn’t said. The other man is a really, truly decent, honourable guy.”Republicans won every other statewide Georgia race last month. Governor Brian Kemp, who won re-election, has now thrown his weight behind Walker. A strong election day turnout by the party’s voters could still push the ex-football player to victory.But Walker has proved a motivator for Democratic enthusiasm because he is endorsed by Trump, lacks political pedigree and has made a series of weird and wild statements. One flyer mailed to homes by the Democratic Party of Georgia asks: “How embarrassed would you be if Herschel Walker was your senator?”Walker’s campaign has been plagued by accusations that he abused girlfriends in the past and paid for their abortions, undermining his anti-abortion stance. Recently he has faced claims that he maintains his primary residence in Texas, not Georgia. Walker has denied the allegations.Warnock narrowly edged Walker in the 8 November election by 49.44% to 48.49%. An Emerson College Polling/ The Hill survey of Georgia voters found Warnock at 49% support and Walker at 47%, with 4% undecided.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “Warnock must have gotten some kind of momentum from November 8 because Black voters appear to be more energised and they’re not going with Herschel Walker.“Walker’s had a number of issues that he’s had to contend with since November 8 and and he hasn’t handled them well. Even with Kemp’s help, which could be considerable, ultimately voters are not voting for who the governor wants them to vote for: they’re voting for the candidate.”While Democrats have already guaranteed control of the Senate for another two years, a true majority of 51 seats would speed up the confirmation process for Biden’s administrative and judicial nominees and provide a cushion for the president should any Democrats buck the party line.In addition, Democrats would gain more seats and financial resources on Senate committees, and committee chairs would no longer need any Republican support to issue subpoenas compelling witness testimony during investigations.Biden told reporters last month: “It’s always better with 51, because we’re in a situation where you don’t have to have an even makeup of the committees. And so that’s why it’s important, mostly. But it’s just simply better. The bigger the numbers, the better.”Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “It does make a big difference because Democrats would get a majority on almost all the committees. Court appointments will go zip, zip, zip because you get access to the floor much more easily as a clear majority party in the Senate.“Also, look how many old senators there are … If there’s an open seat and people are upset at Biden, they could end up voting Republican in any purple state.”TopicsGeorgiaUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022Joe BidenBarack ObamaUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More