ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Voters across Georgia cast their ballots Tuesday to decide which party will control the U.S. Senate. The election has dominated the airwaves in the state for weeks and both sides have launched intense operations to turn out the vote.<\/p>\n
What some Georgia voters are saying:<\/p>\n
KARI CALLAGHAN, 37<\/p>\n
Callaghan said she voted \u201call Democrat,\u201d an experience that was new for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been Republican but I\u2019ve been pretty disgusted by Trump and just the way the Republicans are working and especially the news this weekend,\u201d she said, referring to the president’s recently recorded efforts to \u201cfind\u201d enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s win in Georgia. \u201cI feel like for the Republican candidates to still stand there with Trump and campaign with Trump feels pretty rotten. This isn\u2019t the conservative values that I grew up with. This is more cronyism.”<\/p>\n
The stay-at-home Atlanta mother, who voted for Biden in November, said she wasn\u2019t bothered with the allegations from Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler that her Democratic opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, does not adequately support the military and police. But she said she became concerned when her 8-year-old daughter started parroting the claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were teaching her about all the attack ads we\u2019re getting and one day she said, \u2018Raphael Warnock is evil,\u2019 then the ad came on and she was speaking it word for word,\u201d Callaghan said. \u201cShe\u2019s our oldest one so (we’re) helping her learn what it means when people say things \u2014 that it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean things are true.”<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
JOHN BABISH, 50<\/p>\n
Babish voted for the Republican candidates because he said he is eager to maintain a balance of power in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope the Republicans win at least one seat so there\u2019s a split,\u201d said Babish, who cast his ballot in Cobb County, just north of Atlanta. \u201cI think it\u2019s better when neither party controls all three branches and can do whatever they want without any kind of check from the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Politics have become far more partisan and divided in recent years, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a kid in the Reagan years, and the story back then was that (Republican President Ronald) Reagan and (then-Democratic House Speaker Tip O\u2019Neill) could fight politically about stuff, but still go out and have a beer at the end of the day and be friends. I think we\u2019re far from that now with the leadership on both sides, and I think that\u2019s a loss \u2014 a real loss for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
CORLISS BONNER, 57<\/p>\n
Bonner, a chef, got up at the crack of dawn Tuesday and stood in line at an Atlanta church to cast a ballot for her pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock. Bonner’s been a longtime member of the church he leads, Ebenezer Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always trying to do the right thing,\u201d Bonner said. \u201cHe\u2019s not radical crazy like they\u2019re saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loeffler has run attack ads against Warnock that use clips of his sermons to back up her allegation that he is not supportive of police or the military.<\/p>\n
Bonner said those clips of Warnock have been taken out of context.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need somebody in there that\u2019s going to care for the people and not for themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I know for a fact that Pastor Warnock does that.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
WILL JAMES, 56<\/p>\n
James voted \u201cstraight GOP\u201d Tuesday morning in northwest Fulton County.<\/p>\n
Still, he added that he was concerned by Republican David Perdue’s and Sen. Kelly Loeffler\u2019s recent support of President Donald Trump\u2019s challenges of the presidential election results in Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a bad tack,\u201d said James, who works in real estate. \u201cBut it didn\u2019t really change the reasons I voted. It was as much a vote against universal power as it was for either of the candidates.<\/p>\n
James said he was worried about losing a balance of power in Washington if Democrats win control of the Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically a lock on power is my concern, lock on Supreme Court, ending filibuster. I think everyone is more power-hungry than they are concerned about the country at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
CHRIS QUIGG, 45<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want a Congress that\u2019s going to able to get something done,\u201d said Quigg, who voted at a church in Marietta, one of Atlanta\u2019s northwest suburbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would prefer to have a balance of power, but I think the last decade has showed that having a Congress that is overwhelmingly opposite of the president is counterproductive,\u201d said Quigg, who declined to say how he voted.<\/p>\n
Quigg is a paramedic, and said he thinks more could be done to fight the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need a much better plan than what we\u2019ve got right now because frankly, it\u2019s a disaster,” he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
ANGELA TRAN, 27<\/p>\n
Tran voted for Warnock and Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff at a church in downtown Atlanta. The two candidates represented the \u201clesser of the two evils,\u201d the progressive art director said.<\/p>\n
Tran said the attack ads against Warnock actually swayed her to vote for him and Ossoff.<\/p>\n
The ads are “making them seem more radical than they actually are by saying that they actually want to defund the white supremacist police system,\u201d Tran said. Neither Ossoff nor Warnock proposes \u201cdefunding the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that Tran has cast her vote, she is excited to put the contentious election behind her. \u201cI\u2019m done with these commercials,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press journalists Haleluya Hadero, Jeff Martin and Sophia Tulp contributed to this report.<\/p>\n