Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to Georgia’s U.S. Senate Runoff Election Between Rev. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Kelly Loeffler
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
Georgia — Today, Georgians voted to advance NARAL-endorsed candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock to the January 5th runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia. Warnock will face off against anti-choice, anti-freedom Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in hopes of flipping a critical seat in the U.S. Senate.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue released the following statement in response:
“We need more leaders like Rev. Raphael Warnock who will fight for reproductive freedom in the U.S. Senate, and we look forward to continuing our work to make sure he is elected in January. Abortion rights are under threat like never before thanks to anti-choice, anti-freedom Senate Republicans like Sen. Kelly Loeffler who rubber-stamped Trump’s dangerous agenda and stacked the U.S. Supreme Court with ideologues hostile to Roe. Now, we must do everything we can to make sure anti-choice politicians know there is a political price to pay for throwing women and families under the bus.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America State Campaigns Director Chrystian Woods said:
“NARAL and our 54,000 members across Georgia will continue to work alongside Rev. Raphael Warnock to flip this critical seat in the U.S. Senate. Though our fight continues, we know that Rev. Warnock has what it takes to win this race and that he will fight for the fundamental freedoms of every body in Georgia when voters send him to the Senate.”
NARAL endorsed Warnock as part of its largest-ever electoral program designed to hold senators like Kelly Loeffler accountable for rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s extreme ideological agenda. NARAL reached over 3 million voters in key states including Georgia through its historic 2020 electoral program.
Key to NARAL’s 2020 strategy was activating its more than 54,000 members statewide to reach, persuade, and mobilize Georgians motivated by Sen. Loeffler’s betrayal of their values and Trump and Republicans’ unyielding attacks on reproductive freedom.
NARAL invested seven figures in a comprehensive program to reach hundreds of thousands of voters across Georgia. The program included 316,690 peer-to-peer texts, a robust direct mail program with candidate-specific mail pieces to reach 242,010 voters—including targeted mail in 19 state House districts—influencer amplification, digital ads generating 13,483,532 impressions, and two radio ad campaigns in partnership with Higher Heights Political Fund.
Loeffler was appointed to Sen. Isakson’s seat by anti-choice, anti-freedom Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA). The very first bill Loeffler introduced as lead sponsor was an extreme measure designed to shame women and push abortion care out of reach for as many people as possible.
Georgia already has some of the most severe restrictions on reproductive freedom in the United States, which include bans on abortion throughout pregnancy, a forced 24-hour waiting period before somebody can receive abortion care, and mandatory biased counseling restrictions. These restrictions disproportionately harm BIPOC, low-income, and rural communities, and are part of a coordinated effort by the Radical Right to maintain white patriarchal control at all costs.
A new Change Research poll found that a vast majority (78%) of suburban women in Georgia oppose making abortion illegal and turning back the clock to the days before Roe vs. Wade. With Roe in the crosshairs, the stakes are high for women in Georgia, over half of whom live in counties with no abortion clinic.
Read more about NARAL’s endorsed candidates here.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters have fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom—including access to abortion, contraception, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 7 in 10 Americans who believe every person should have the freedom to make the best decision for themselves about if, when, and how to raise a family.