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Campaign for Harris, Biden and the Democrats: Barack Obama mobilizes voters in Atlanta, Georgia
Photo: BRANDON BELL / REUTERS
The young black woman stepping out of the parish building of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta has a clear opinion of the president.
"I expected Joe Biden to win clearly," she says.
"I want the orange baboon out of the White House. With that you can quote me!"
But she doesn't want to give her name after all.
The Ebenezer Baptist Church is not just any church.
Martin Luther King worked and preached here as a pastor.
Raphael Warnock is the current pastor and the Democratic candidate for the Senate.
He got the most votes out of 21 candidates on Tuesday.
Because he clearly missed an absolute majority, there will be a runoff election in January.
"Which president does that?"
Amy is a reserved elderly lady who works in the church gift shop.
She would never refer to the president as an "orange baboon," but she makes no secret of the fact that she despises Donald Trump.
"He questioned the validity of the election before it was over," she says.
"Which president does that?"
Amy is not surprised that Trump wants to legally challenge the Georgia election.
"He's been saying that for months."
As she says this, votes in the state are still being counted - and with every hour that goes by, the incumbent US president's lead is shrinking.
Georgia's 16 electorates could end up going to the Democrats, it would be the first time since 1992.
Fight against voter suppression
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Georgia has a special position among the swing states that decide the outcome of the presidential election.
Almost a third of the population are African-Americans, more than in almost any other country.
Big cities like Atlanta or Savannah have black mayors.
At the same time, Georgia has so far been considered deeply conservative.
The Republicans currently provide the governor and both senators in Washington.
Trump won in 2016 by almost five percentage points.
This year, Georgia is the only state besides Arizona where the Democrats have been able to attack decades of conservative supremacy.
That also suits the black voters.
"It's a good sign that the Democrats are on an equal footing this time around," says Amy.
"It shows that we have managed to mobilize more voters than usual."
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Stacey Abrams in the election campaign: "Making sure that the massive repression of voters will not be possible"
Photo: Brynn Anderson / AP
Stacey Abrams, the most famous Democrat in the country, had previously pointed out another factor that speaks for her party this time.
Since the end of the Civil War, Georgia whites have been extremely successful in preventing blacks from voting.
In the gubernatorial election in 2018, which Abrams narrowly lost, the Republicans struck tens of thousands of voters because of the smallest irregularities from the electoral roll.
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"We made sure that the massive suppression of voters will not be possible," Abrams said on election day at a rally in front of a few dozen supporters on the outskirts of Atlanta.
"We will not let the choice be stolen again."
If Warnock wins in January, he will be the first African American Georgia will ever send to the Senate.
More conservative than Attila the Hun
For the Democrats, the close result is a sign that they have mobilized voters and prevented fraud.
The other side's explanation sounds a little different.
The Republican version of the events can be found on Kelly Loefflers' Facebook page.
Loeffler is the incumbent senator, she also made it into the runoff election in January.
She says of herself that she is "more conservative than Attila the Hun" and boasts that she voted "100 percent" for Donald Trump.
It is the story of Donald Trump that he has been repeating for months without any evidence.
If he loses, it's because of fraud.
In a Facebook comment, Sheriff Randy Shirley congratulates Kelly Loeffler on her success and assures her of the support of other colleagues - also against the "massive fraud" with postal ballots that is taking place in Georgia.
Shirley is a sheriff in Stephens County, a rural area in northeast Georgia.
He no longer wants to talk about massive election fraud on the phone.
He only referred to information from CNN and other media.
It would be "a miracle" if the outcome of the election in Georgia and the country depended on election fraud.
So the all-clear?
The sheriff doesn't want to be understood that way.
"Of course there is fraud in Fulton County," he says.
That is the case with every election.
How big is it?
"Only the people who sit in the polling stations know that."
The state remains divided
Fulton County is the county to which most of Atlanta belongs.
It's a Democratic stronghold.
In the tight election result, every vote counts.
The Senate candidates are already preparing for the runoff election.
Warnock, the successor of Martin Luther King, speaks in a statement of improving health insurance, reforming the social system and fighting against voter suppression.
Loeffler says: "Now the real war begins."
You are now up against one of the most radical Democrats in the whole country.
The second Senate race could also be extended.
Republican David Perdue and his challenger Jon Ossoff go head-to-head.
Although Perdue is slightly ahead, if he does not receive more than 50 percent of the vote, there is also a runoff here.
The election campaign between Republicans and Democrats would by no means be over - it would concentrate entirely on Georgia.
Whatever the outcome, Georgia will remain bitterly divided.
In this respect the state does not have a special position.
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