after the electionimagecreditaudra melton for the new york timesright up to the eve of the runoff vote republicans worried about the potential fallout from mr trumps efforts to overturn his defeat particularly the revelation that he had called mr raffensperger on saturday and pressured him to find the votes that would help the president declare victory mr trumps spurious claims of fraud stoked fears among some in his own party that his supporters would take him literally and sit out the election on the grounds that their votes would not amount to much in a compromised systemeven on tuesday afternoon when his party was fervently pushing electionday turnout mr trump was calling into question the integrity of georgias election system he asserted via twitter that voting machines are not working in certain republican strongholds mr raffensperger said the issues were minor and resolved by 10 amwell before tuesday the president left the two republican senators with a tricky task arguing that republican control of the senate was crucial to constraining mr biden without conceding that mr biden had actually won the presidency which would punch a hole in mr trumps false narrativeto the end though both candidates hitched themselves to mr trump calculating that the partys rank and file would sit out the runoff if they distanced themselves in the slightestimagecrediterin schaffthe new york timesif the republican hopefuls contorted themselves to accommodate mr trumps diehard supporters and risked alienating bidenbacking suburbanites in the process the two democrats did little to defy their own partyin a state where republicans hold every statewide office mr warnock and mr ossoff ran as national democrats rather than emphasizing any differences they had with party orthodoxy in the fashion of an earlier generation of georgia democrats while resisting some of the ambitions of the far left like defunding the police the two candidates expressed support for abortion rights and gun controlrepublicans seized on these issues as well as the biographies of mr ossoff and particularly mr warnock as they argued that the two men were too liberal for georgiamr ossoff was mostly known for having run and lost in an expensive hotly contested special house election at the outset of the trump era in 2017 among mr warnocks main challenges by contrast was the length of his record as a public figure and an activist preacherafter mr warnock largely escaped criticism in the november election when ms loeffler was focused on fending off a challenge from her right he came in for particularly harsh criticismrepublicans spotlighted mr warnocks most controversial sermons and portrayed him as a critic of the military and law enforcement mr warnock sought to defuse the criticism and soften his image by airing tongueincheek commercials featuring him with a puppyimagecreditchang w leethe new york timesmr ossoff also took some hard shots at mr perdue calling him a crook over controversial stock trades the senator made while accusing him of trying to profit off the coronavirus pandemic something mr perdue deniesneither party lacked