Loeffler’s attack ads have sought to portray Warnock as a dangerous anti-American, anti-police, anti-Israel “Marxist” tied to Black Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright and an infamous 2008 sermon in which he declared: “God damn America!”
Loeffler won just 25.9% of the vote last month, less than Warnock’s 32.9%, amid a 20-candidate field that included Republican Representative Doug Collins, who drew 20% support. Recent opinion polls show a close race with Loeffler and Warnock swapping small leads and her running a point behind Perdue, according to the poll tracking website, FiveThirtyEight.com.
Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman, has had to rely on advertising more heavily than Perdue to assure voters about her conservative credentials. As a result, political analysts say, she has more strongly paralleled Trump’s combative messaging style and agenda priorities, at one point describing herself as more conservative than Attila the Hun. “Most of the messages Republicans are running are scare messages,” said Charles Bullock, political science professor at the University of Georgia. “They’re appealing to fear.”