When Vice President Mike Pence arrives in Georgia on Friday, he'll become the fourth national Republican figure to campaign for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in nine days.
During the same period, no outside Democrat has visited the state on behalf of challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — and that's just fine with them.
The diverging approaches between the parties illustrate the initial strategic calculations they are making in the opening phase of Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff elections, following a cycle where a stable of well-funded, high-profile Democratic candidates severely underperformed.
While Republicans are embracing an all-hands-on-deck approach to rejuvenate a base still grappling with President Donald Trump's defeat in Georgia and nationwide, Democrats are so far resisting the temptation to fully nationalize races that will determine the balance of power in a closely divided Senate, instead hoping to keep the focus on the records of the GOP incumbents.
"We're not soliciting anything," said a Warnock aide, who indicated that the campaign was still evaluating the use of well-known Democrats beyond their emails for fundraising assistance.
While former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are among those urging their lists of donors to send money to Georgia, neither has immediate plans to appear in-person.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton will be in Perry, Georgia, on Thursday to rally on behalf of Perdue and Loeffler; Ossoff and Warnock will be the sole headliners at their own joint event in Jonesboro about 90 minutes away.
Teresa Pike Tomlinson, the former mayor of Columbus who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate this year, said Ossoff and Warnock are best served by modeling themselves after the understated effectiveness of former GOP Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss.
"They weren't grabbing national headlines and getting Beto O'Rourke-sized crowds, but people loved them," Tomlinson said. "It's 'who's going to bring in the riverwalk and the bike trail and take care of the local contract?' Who is going to keep the local university afloat? So you bring in somebody famous? Big deal."
Some outside groups like NextGen — which works to organize millennials and Generation Z behind liberal causes — are treading lightly and taking their cues from local Georgia groups. The organization will use 20,000 volunteers to call and text young progressives in the state about the mechanics of voting in the runoffs, but it has no plans to deploy in-person canvassers.
"We won't do anything on the ground, partly because of COVID and partly because our allies with boots on the ground are saying, 'We've got this,'" said Ben Wessel, NextGen's executive director.
On the other hand, Republicans are rolling out the welcome mat to prominent outside voices in order to keep their base animated in a race where operatives think the emphasis will be on partisan voter turnout over persuasion. In addition to Cotton, Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott appeared in the state last week.
And even though President-elect Joe Biden narrowly carried Georgia, Republicans still boast historical regional advantages. There's currently just a single Democratic senator from the five states that border Georgia: Alabama's Doug Jones, who was just defeated by a 20-point margin.
When a viral TikTok video made light of a California man impersonating a Georgian to make calls in the state, Republicans utilized it to make an issue of the coastal influence and alleged disdain.
Chambliss, the Republican senator who preceded Perdue, said that other than Biden, most Democratic figures from outside of Georgia would likely prove to be counterproductive messengers for Ossoff and Warnock, including former President Barack Obama.
"I think Obama coming in the day before the election had a positive impact for Republicans," Chambliss said. "I think it fired up the base and was one of the reasons Trump narrowed the gap. He fires the base up on the Republican side more so than Biden."
Ron Klain, Biden's incoming chief of staff, signaled the president-elect would likely campaign for the Democratic candidates, but not until the final stretch. Ossoff mentions Biden in a new TV ad as a way of showing how his candidacy could be a vehicle for breaking Washington gridlock.
But the largest shadow hanging over Republicans is what the outgoing president will do.
Trump, who has been almost entirely consumed with his campaign's far-fetched legal challenges to his own election defeat, briefly praised Perdue and Loeffler in a Tuesday evening tweet. But GOP officials don't expect Trump to get more directly involved — if he chooses to at all — until the presidential election result is finalized and his court battles are exhausted.
Chambliss indicated that Trump likely wouldn't be helpful to Perdue and Loeffler if he hasn't conceded his own defeat.
"If the president acts in a way that most defeated incumbents act, then I think he will have the opportunity to be the statesman and campaign for folks," Chambliss said. "But if he's in the middle of contesting this race down here ... I'm not sure he's going to be campaigning more or less for him, than campaigning for Sens. Perdue or Loeffler."
Pence's Friday stops will be in a pair of reliably Republican counties where Perdue topped two-thirds of the vote. He will campaign as tens of millions of dollars in mostly negative ads hit the TV airwaves.
The attacks have gotten particularly harsh in the Loeffler-Warnock contest, as Republicans have unearthed a video from a sermon where the pastor proclaims "you cannot serve God and the military."
It's the latest example they're using to portray the Baptist reverend as a radical. Cotton, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the comments were grounds for Warnock's withdrawal from the race.
Democrats view the onslaught as a sign that the GOP is worried about Loeffler's own weaknesses. Unlike the first-term Perdue, who finished nearly 87,000 votes ahead of Ossoff in the general election, Loeffler has been an appointed senator for just 11 months and has never won a statewide race.
And her tenure has been largely defined by her controversial sale of millions of dollars in stock after receiving a private briefing about the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate Ethics Committee did not find Loeffler violated any laws, but she suffered some political damage.
Perdue, meanwhile, seems content to fly under the radar. He has held just one public event since Nov. 3, participated in two Fox News interviews and declined debates with Ossoff while refusing to elaborate on his reasoning.
Democrats believe the more they can center the race around the incumbents, the better shot they have at taking the two Senate seats.
"If this is a national election based on national Republicans, I think it probably helps Republicans," said Jason Carter, the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor. "It's a purple state, but nationally it still leans Republican."
