Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both Georgia Republicans facing tight runoff elections in a week, announced on Tuesday that they supported increasing the size of individual stimulus checks to $2,000 from $600, joining a growing number of Republican senators and increasing pressure on the Senate to vote on the measure.
“I’m delighted to support the president in this $2,000,” Mr. Perdue said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday morning. “It’s the right thing to do for people in Georgia.”
The House voted on Monday evening to increase the size of the checks to $2,000, daring Senate Republicans to either approve the heftier sum or defy President Trump, whose demand for bigger checks
nearly scuttled the entire stimulus package. Mr. Trump kept up his campaign for the measure on Tuesday, demanding in a tweet “$2000 for our great people, not $600!”
Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue joined a handful of Republican senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have backed increasing the checks to $2,000. But the majority of Senate Republicans have so far remained opposed to the plan.