♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, a battle for control of congress. playing out in georgia. >> this is history in the making. and at the end of the day, it's about the people in the state showing up to vote. >> it's going to change the direction of the country. >> now the race to rock the vote. >> we are fighting very hard for this state. >> heating up and drawing famous faces. united under one common goal. >> flip the senate and get up in it. >> how the next generation plans to change the balance of power in washington. plus, path to healing. how a former figure skating olympic hopeful turned great pain in to great art. and a nation remembers, pearlharbor, 79 years later. "nightline" will be right back.

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who had will determine the control of congress? >> that is possible pt michael and edward are racing against the clock. these two georgia seniors. this is not a last minute home work assignment, it's the final sprint in the effort to register first-time voters for the up coming georgia senate run-offs. >> the younger voters are more flexible on how they vote, they are more willing to vote based on policy rather than party. >> they are serious. >> we were able to get 65,000 people registered. >> basically peer pressure, we are getting people to vote by getting one person is really good at speaking, is really popular and we are like, we really get them involved in the process. your vote matters. you can do it. and then the idea is that it snowballs. >> neither young man was old enough to cast a ballot for the presidential election in

november. but michael turned 18 ten days later. as long as he turns 18 before the run off, and the deadline was today to register. >> it was so, i had almost come to accept that i was not going to able to participate in a grand scale and the run-off was redu redempti redemption. >> i cannot go to the ballot box, i find solace in thinking that we got thousands of other students to go there on our behalf. >> both young men realize that right now, all eyes are on georgia. what's at stake here? control of congress. voters in georgia will decide if democrats end up controlling both houses. >> this is history in the making. we are watching something that can literally change the course of our nation come down to two senate seats to a run-off. at the end of the day, it's about the people in the state showing up to vote. >> right now, democrats are

assured a slim majority in the house. but in the senate the current split is 48 democratic seats to 50 republican. the run-off pits david purdue against jon ossoff, and kelly loe lo loeffler against raphael warnock. >> georgia can be a game changer. not just for president elect joe biden. but really for the country. because if the democrats won, both those senate seats in the run-off elections, that's a big if. but if they do, the biden agenda in the fullest form would be available for biden to pass. >> if it seems like everyone is paying attention, it's because they are. with virtual events hosted by president obama. >> georgia, is going to determine ultimately, a course of the biden presidency. >> and a celebrity filled

concert, appearances by justin timberlake, and more. >> the idea of flipping georgia's seats feels more possible than ever. thanks to biden's surprise win in this reliablely red state. plus concerns that president trump's lies are hurting republicans there. >> biden's victory definitely gave democrats here wings. and has caused a party fight among republicans. >> will some voters stay away because trump and his allies are saying you cannot trustee elections? don't vote at all? maybe. but my hunch is that georgia voters know this stakes in the run-off elections. donald trump knows how important it is to have a republican senate. and they will get to the voting booths. >> the republican secretary of state, recertified biden's win the today. even as he and georgia's gop

governor brian kemp continue to battle lie after lie from president trump and his supporters about the elections. >> we have never found systemic fraud, not enough to overturn the election. >> there's no doubt in your mind that he lost the election? georgia? >> sad but true, i wish he would have won. >> yet the president himself continued to lob baseless accusations of election fraud in a rally this weekend. >> we are fighting hard for the state. when you look at the corruption and the problems having to do with the election. >> trump was there to campaign for the republican senators but spent most of his time rehashing had his election defeat. let me tell you, this election was of rigged. >> packed crowd, mostly maskless, even as covid infections near 200,000 cases a day. and georgia hit record highs in the last week. wendy evans was there, right in the front row. >> do you acknowledge joe biden as ourpresident elect?

>> no. >> there's no such thing as president elect. when they certify the votes, yes, but not until they certify the could votes. >> not until the last dog dies will you accept biden as the president. >> correct. >> were you worried at all about covid? >> no, i work in health care, i just got off work, no, i mean, it's outside, i was not kissing nobody or nothing. so, you know, plus, you know, i just lord protects me. i just the way i live. >> if you did not have faith in the past election. why do you have faith in the up coming run off? >> if i do nothing, i fold my hands and what else can we do. brey and vote. there were more people voting had time. >> another lawsuit was thrown out in georgia today.

>> the legal effort is about, i just think it's a clown show. they don't know what they are doing. they lost the case today because they didn't pay the filing in the court. that is amateur hour. the more he goes to court and loses like this, and embarrassing ways, i think the more damage it does. >> more bad news, the president's lawyer sidelined, rudy giuliani, hospitalized with the coronavirus. a day after the president's visit debate night. loeffler and warnock faced off first. >> yes or no, senator loeffler, did donald trump lose -- >> president trump has every right to use every legal recourse available. >> in the second debate, democrat jon ossoff had the stage all to himself, after senator purdue declined to participate. >> your senator is refusing to answer questions and debate his opponent because he believes he should not have to. >> the question for georgia voters, will they participate in

large numbers? come january 5th. >> the secretary of state is reporting that about a million requests for absentee ballots have come in and that is a significant number. >> had mark lavigne volunteered for the new georgia project. registering voters in a local food drive. >> today i have registered four. most of the people are registered because of of the recent election. some people moved and they say, i forgot and thing this is like that. so it's a combination of both. that's why i came down to do it, it's important. >> the ceo of the organization. >> we helped 500,000 young people and people of color register to vote over the past six years. so, we have expanded electorate georgia is a new battleground state because of the demographic shifts. people think of the deep south

and think of georgia as black and white. but or voters were essential to the coalition and very much a part of georgia's future. >> the naacp is also banking on a bigger than usual turnout. >> if we don't make sure that people get back out and understand the senate is in play and control of the senate is in play. it's important. we want people to participate in the election. it's very, very, very important. >> georgia is changing. democrats are making ground. what we are seeing is it a mirage or is the shift occurring? >> it's like you are putting together a puzzle and all of these are pieces of the puzzle. every person that has done anything on the ground, is a piece of the puzzle. the demographics are a piece of the puzzle. and the biggest challenge that we have right now, is to make sure that that puzzle stays whole in january. >> republicans are hoping tru trump's visit will energize his supporters. they are hoping that young

voters and people of color show up. >> this is something i have not seen in my lifetime. >> stay with abc news, and coming up. rising to the occasion. how one figure skater is creating miracles on ice. experience clean in a whole new way. now roomba vacuums exactly where you need it. alexa, tell roomba to vacuum in front of the couch. and offers personalized cleaning suggestions for a clean unique to you and your home. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. roomba and the irobot home app. ♪ ocean spray works with nature every day to keep you healthy

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rekindle her passion and get back on the ice. but first the climb of her life. here is my "nightline" co-anchor, juju chang. ♪ >> the freedom that you feel when you skate outside, verse inside is unlike any other. >> hi in tgh in the mountains o frozen alpine lakes like this one, she skates like you have never seen before. >> there's a sky over your head and either the wind to your back or just no wind at all. and you see the reflection of the clouds in the sky in the ice. and it's kind of like a perfect mirror. you are in this like magical world. >> she blurs the lines between heaven and earth, sports and art. >> i think the novelty of

creating art on outdoor black ice is still very exciting to me. my blade is essentially drawing art. but what's enabling my blade to draw that art is my years and years of skating. the challenge is in the technical ability to have a pattern or a shape in my head and then be able to skate it. >> she is one of just a few alpine figure skaters in the country. >> the skating goes back to the fw beginning of the short. >> her art has been around since the victorian era and evolved in to the sport we know today. while the practice of skating literal figures fell out of fashion in the 80s. >> the first figure we see it here, was the rocker. >> the name figure skating stuck. >> this has some patterns that, look at that, that is so wild.

>> see, it's cool to try to figure out the patterns out. i know from my experience with moves in the field like, this is rocker right there. >> for laura, it's a way of connecting to the history of the sport that has been a life long love. competing when i was younger, like i definitely had my eye on the olympics. like, i think every young figure skater does. it was my world. it was my life. >> my parents are working class parents. the financial stress ors of figure skating were already there. it quickly got to a point where i was increasing in age. but i didn't get my double axle and i was not landing any triples yet. so, i kind of knew that i was not going to make it. like i was not on the track. it is kind of frustrating when you realize that and you figure that out.

>> olympic dreams dashed. laura started skating less as she turned to a more conventional life path. >> i got my degree in graphic design at penn state, and so is i'm very much doing my passion now. there was a little bit of sadness in me that like, i kind of, i had to let it go, because of like societal normals and the career track and all of that. >> but it was a devastating injury on the ice which threatened to ground laura for good. >> i ended up pulling a disk in my lower back. i was a major stress and sadness with my life at that point. >> the once high flying girl now feared she'd never take flight again. >> but her love for the ice would become a path to her healing. >> a figure is for me, they were like the perfect activity to be able to do, and go back to. when i was nursing the injury.

because it was a compressed disk in my back, i could not jump or do anything super interactive with my upper body. >> one day on a winter hike, she discovered the perfect canvas for her new found artistry. her rekindled passion. >> the first time i got to skate in rocky mountain national park, it was incredible. the whole ice was not like smooth and pristeen. there's patches of snow, like half of the ice was covered in snow. i do remember being able to do jumps and spins up there and how incredible that was. and i squuft like, i have kind of fall een in love with that er since. the meriment of the beauty of the outdoors and the sport. that's where our sport began. outdoors. it was not born in an arena, it was born outside. >> high in the mountains over colorado. laura finds her peace and her pace. cutting figures in to fresh ice with mechanical precision. >> you have toly really think about like the micro muscles in your foot when you are doing it.

but it's very meditate >> finding pristeen ice in the wild is no easy fete, earlier this year, we joined her on the hunt for the canvas. >> i like to tell people that like, the comparison of what this is, is like rarer than a powder day when you find pristeen ice. you have to have those perfect conditions where it's super high alpine. and it has not snowed in a while. >> the search for a perfect lake was more like a search for a needle in a hay stack. winds whipping, trail-head to trail-head. >> i don't see crystal lake here on the map. >> hiking up in colorado is beautiful. we went around to breckenridge and dillon, and blue lake. wheeler lake. crystal lake. >> finally after an eight hour

day, braving the elements, a little patch o o o ice, though far from pristeen, an artist finding her canvas. >> ended up being like a blast because the patch that we found that was skatable created this little obstacle course because there's little patches of snow here and there and i was able to skate through things, and do fun foot work and you know, hop over patches of snow and play around a bit. it ended up being a magical day. >> our thanks to juju, up next, the day that will live in infamy, 79 years later especially these times. but some things are too serious to be ignored. if you still have symptoms of crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis even after trying other medications, it may be a sign of damaging inflammation, which left untreated, could get much worse. please make an appointment to see your gastroenterologist right away.

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. ♪ and finally tonight, saluting our veterans. pearl harbor attacked 79 years ago. >> the japanese attacked the pearl harbor, hawaii, from the air. >> one of america's darkest days. today a ringing of the bell from the uss arizona, retired lieutenant commander, one of the last survivors from the ship.

recently celebrating his 99th birthday. and ricky ganic, watching a ceremony from home. today and every day, america salutes its heroes. and that's "nightline" for this evening, you can watch the full episodes on hulu, see you back here tomorrow, same time. thanks for the company, america, good night.