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Georgia on Their Mind
STAFFERS FOR PETER DEFAZIO WORKED DOOR TO DOOR IN GEORGIA
TO HELP DEMOCRATS WIN BACK THE U.S. SENATE
By Emily Topping
I
t had been a long few days walking
DEFAZIO STAFFERS IN GEORGIA
through the neighborhoods of Sa-
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT):
vannah, Georgia, and the miles were
CARLY GABRIELSON,
SHAYLA FREIRICH,
starting to catch up to Sierra Dam-
SKYLER CSERVAK,
eron. The field director for Oregon
NICK HASKINS,
Congressman Peter DeFazio, Dam-
SIERRA DAMERON AND
eron had traveled all the way from
BENJAMIN RANDALL
Eugene with five other Oregon organizers to
urge Georgia residents to vote in the critical
Jan. 5 Senate run-off elections.
The two Georgia races had the potential
to put the Senate back in the hands of the
Democratic Party, ensuring that incoming
President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda had
a chance of passing Congress.
By the end of their trip, the team had
covered more than 60 miles on foot and 1,800
miles by car across three separate counties.
Still, they knew they couldn’t slow down until
the polls closed on Jan. 5.
The two potential Democratic senators,
Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, would
have to fight a decades-long history of voter
suppression to mobilize Georgians, specifi-
cally Black and low-income voters, to defeat
the two Republican incumbents.
In the week before the election, Dam-
eron spent hours working her way through
a stretch of low-income neighborhoods near
Savannah, guided by an app Democratic field
organizers use to track their progress. She
population is Black, the disparities are staggering.
could see who was registered to vote, which homes had
“It was very difficult to come from Oregon, where we
already been canvassed and which might need a second
have these restrictions to keep us safe,” Dameron says,
visit to offer residents a ride to the polls. According to
“to see how these people’s lives are so affected.”
the app, the home she walked up to now housed four
Dameron says the pandemic seemed to be the number
adult residents, only one of whom had cast their ballot.
one issue concerning voters, along with wealth inequality
“Hi, ma’am,” Dameron said as the door opened. She
and disenfranchisement. Minimum wage in Georgia is
made sure to adjust her face mask and stand a few feet
$5.15 an hour, and many voters said they struggled each
apart from the entryway. After confirming that the woman
month to pay rent.
had already voted, Dameron asked her to remind the other
Oftentimes, when Dameron and her team knocked
members of the household, listing their names.
on doors, they discovered residents who were unable to
“Oh, honey,” said the older Black woman holding the
vote in the first place because of past criminal histories.
door, shaking her head. “All of them have passed away in
“I’d say a third of the people I spoke to were disen-
the last two months from COVID.” She asked Dameron
franchised, a lot of times from drug cases,” she says. In
to please update her records.
Georgia, strict drug laws mean that possession of more
Georgia has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic
than an ounce of marijuana is considered a felony. Fel-
— the state shattered its single-day record of cases on Jan.
ons are barred from voting until the completion of their
8 with nearly 13,000 new infections. The death rate in the
sentence, meaning some people Dameron spoke to, who
state is 109 per 100,000 people, compared to Oregon’s 41.
were unable to pay their legal fees from past cases, hadn’t
Part of the issue stems from a lack of statewide direc-
voted in 20 years.
tion. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp originally barred local
Carly Gabrielson, DeFazio’s campaign manager and a
municipalities from enacting mask mandates at the begin-
2013 University of Oregon graduate who joined the trip,
ning of the pandemic. Although he eventually reversed
says their main goal was not to get in the way of the work
the order in August 2020, allowing cities and counties to
that local activists have been putting in for years.
impose stricter COVID-19 safety measures if they choose,
“It was remarkable to see the broad coalition build-
private businesses and restaurants can opt out.
ing, whether in religious circles or communal circles,”
At the same time, lack of a strong federal relief program
Gabrielson says. She thanks Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s
means that many Georgians — much like residents of other
former House minority leader, for the years of grass-roots
states — have been forced to continue working. Racial
activism to get voters to the polls. “People were so excited
and class inequalities also mean that certain groups,
and determined, despite all of the barriers.”
like Black people and those below the poverty line, are
Dameron was brought to tears by the determination
at much higher risk.
of one woman, who drove more than four hours one way
Reporting from the Washington Post shows that one
from Savannah to Atlanta to pick up her daughter’s
in three Black people in the United States know someone
ballot and return it to her home county. Other voters
who’s died of COVID. In Georgia, where 32 percent of the
6
J A N U A R Y
2 1 ,
2 0 2 1
were excited to even see activists touring
their area — one woman, whose house sat at
the end of a winding, rural road, said she’d
never met a political organizer in her 20
years of living there.
“Georgia has proven that groups of
people can come together and change,”
Gabrielson says. “We’re seeing such an
incredible expansion in the South and
elsewhere with more people of color, and
more young people who realize they have
a role to play.”
Final counts as of Jan. 16 show that the
organizers’ hard work paid off: Democrat
Ossoff defeated incumbent David Perdue
by 55,232 votes, and Rev. Warnock defeated
Kelly Loeffler by 93,550. The election of
two long-shot Senate seats in Georgia, the
first Democrats elected to the Senate from
Georgia since 2000, means both houses of
the United States Congress are now blue.
Organizers in Georgia, however, did not
have much time to celebrate their incredible
victory on Jan. 5 — a day before the attack
on the U.S. Capitol building.
Gabrielson, Dameron and the rest of
their team were still in Georgia, at sepa-
rate Airbnbs and hotels, when news of the
attack broke.
“The Warnock race had just been called
and we were feeling the jubilation of that
moment, and then suddenly realized this awful event is
unfolding in D.C.,” Gabrielson says. Members of DeFazio’s
team quickly convened in one hotel room to watch the
news together.
“We were able to contact Peter. He understood that
the president’s supporters were being goaded on, and this
is incredibly dangerous,” Gabrielson says. DeFazio was
evacuated from the Capitol building and soon confirmed
to his staff that he was safe. In an interview with OPB,
DeFazio describes anticipating the chaos and going to
REI and purchasing bear spray to defend himself.
For Gabrielson, who once worked as an intern at the
U.S. House of Representatives, it felt surreal to see a place
she holds in such high regard being overrun by domestic
terrorists.
“Like a lot of folks, we were devastated and then infu-
riated,” she says. “They’re desecrating a sacred space.”
Dameron described the air in the crowded hotel room
as one of overwhelming sadness. “We were grateful that
we could be there for each other,” she says.
Since returning home from Georgia, members of De-
Fazio’s team haven’t had much opportunity to reflect on
their significant success. Political organizers are already
looking to the 2022 midterms and opportunities to rep-
licate their victories across the U.S.
In the immediate future, Gabrielson and Dameron
look forward to working with a blue Senate to achieve
Biden’s “100 days agenda,” which includes tackling the
coronavirus with the distribution of 100 million vaccines,
as well as steps to overhaul climate policy.
“We’re entering a period of reckoning and rebuilding,”
Dameron says. “I think the past four years have certainly
done a number on the fabric of our democracy, but the
individual threads are so strong.” ■
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M