How Young People Are Getting Involved in the Georgia Senate Runoffs

Published: Dec. 2, 2020, 7:46 p.m.

Today's guest hosts are Edwith Theogene and Charlotte Hancock, Organizing Director and Communications Director for Generation Progress.

During today's episode, they discuss how, after over a year of campaigning and organizing, a record number of Americans turned out on or before November 3rd to cast a ballot. Although it took several (very long) days for many races to be called, the results for most of them have now been decided—with a couple of notable exceptions.

In Georgia, a battleground state that Joe Biden ultimately won in the presidential race, two different Senate races are heading for a runoff on January 5th. According to Georgia election laws, candidates needed to win 50% of the vote in the November election to avoid a runoff, which none of the candidates for Senate did.
The enormous turnout of young voters, and particularly young voters of color, in Georgia played a significant role in Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Now, Senate campaigns are working hard through the holiday season to sustain the momentum from the November election and get out the vote for the two January 5th runoff elections.

To break down the role that young voters of color played in Georgia in November and what Senate campaigns must do to earn their votes on January 5th, Edwith and Charlotte are joined by two expert guests:

●Krys White, a political consultant and the former National Black Youth Vote Manager at NextGen America, as well as a founding Member of Our Black Party & Co-founder of Black Millennials 4 Flint.

●And Dominik Whitehead, the national civic engagement director at the NAACP

Our Black Party's website is OurBlackParty.org and their Twitter handle is @OurBlackParty.  Krys's Twitter handle is @KrysWhiteSpeaks.  The website for the NAACP is NAACP.org and their Twitter handle is @NAACP.  Dominik's handle is @D_Whitehead87.

The website for "Generation Progress" is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.  Edwith Theogene's Twitter handle is @WhoIsEdwith and Charlotte Hancock's handle is @CharlatAnne.

(Image Credit: Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times)