THE BIG STORY

Democrats turn to door-knocking to win Georgia

Two Senate seats are up for grabs in Georgia’s runoff elections this January, and the stakes are high. After losing competitive races in Maine, Iowa, and the Carolinas, Democrats need to win both seats in order to secure a working majority in the Senate.

Even then, it would be a 50-50 Senate with Vice President–elect Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker.

The thing is: that majority is important to President-elect Joe Biden —it’s how he’d have a chance at passing the kind of legislation needed to achieve plans for tackling racial inequality, revving up the pandemic-struck economy, slashing climate pollution, and more.

The party is optimistic. Biden is, after all, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992. But the high stakes have also meant Democrats are resorting to a strategy they avoided during the 2020 election: good ol’ fashioned door-knocking.

Rev. Raphael Warnock greets guests during a campaign event in Atlanta, Nov. 3. Tom Williams / AP

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

15 contemporary Indigenous photographers whose work you should know

As Osage photographer Ryan RedCorn told us, “For too long the underlying strategy around the most widely published photos of Native peoples has been one of lamentation, pity, extinction, and death.”

We spoke with 15 photographers whose work aims to spread joy, truth, and love. Their work is stunning and vibrant. This one really stuck with me:

Thosh and Chelsey suspended in the air. Tomás Karmelo Amaya

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Forgive me, but I love magic!!!!! Scaachi Koul attended a Zoom magic show, and she was the most delighted she’d ever been. From the piece: “[A good magic show] demands trust in a process you can’t see, and blind faith in things much bigger than you. I’m not very religious...but watching a magic trick feels like the closest I get to believing in the unknown.”

Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News adds to her contradictions. Megan released her highly-anticipated album this week. Niela Orr writes that the rapper’s refusal to say more about her shooting and her very difficult year might be her way of modeling what she’s asked the country to do this summer: “Protect Black women.”

Alas, the Kristen Stewart lesbian rom-com is not great. Shannon Keating wrote about Happiest Season, Hulu's Christmas romantic comedy starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis: “I find the widespread insistence that Happiest Season is a charming, bubbly, feel-good romp a little jarring, when so much of it — the heart of it — is really about trauma and gay shame.”

Be gentle with yourself,

Elamin