Georgia Senate runoffs: The final battles for control of the US Senate

Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were sworn in to office Wednesday, giving the Democrats a narrow majority in the Senate and affirming the historical significance of their victories in Georgia.

Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the swearing-in as her first act as the president of the Senate — a role she will have to play often as the decisive tie-breaking vote in a Senate split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans.

Everything went right for Democrats in Georgia on January 5.

Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock became the first Democrats Georgia voters elected to the Senate since 2000, two months after President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. Neither race was super close. Both Democrats won with margins outside of Georgia’s threshold for a recount; Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have both since conceded. How did the Democrats do it?

On our first nationally televised game of the 2020 WNBA season, my team — the Atlanta Dream — decided to seize the moment. We walked into the arena wearing tees that said Vote Warnock, a sea of black shirts of solidarity. At the time, Rev. Raphael Warnock was a long shot in Georgia’s Senate election, a Democrat polling at fourth in a traditionally red state. What made our endorsement extra bold is that his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, the sitting senator, was a co-owner of our team.

Flash forward to five months later, and I’m lying in my bed in Ankara, Turkey, where I’m playing in the Turkish league for the winter, scrolling anxiously through Twitter. I had barely slept the night before, waking up every couple of hours to check the news of Georgia’s Senate race. That’s when I spotted the tweet.

Democrats have won control of the Senate, and suddenly the possibilities for health care policy look a little wider than they did before the Georgia runoff elections.

Their Senate majority will be slim as can be, and their margin for error in the House is also quite small. So it’s not going to be easy to get anything done. But it seems likely that the Biden White House and a Democratic Congress will try to pass legislation to expand health coverage.

Thanks to Georgia, don’t give up hope on a $2,000 stimulus check just yet.

Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeated Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Georgia’s US Senate runoff elections on Tuesday, giving Democrats a slim margin in the Senate. Democratic control of the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate has big policy implications in terms of what can be accomplished — including more stimulus to boost the economy as the Covid-19 pandemic continues.

Well, it’s official. Georgia Democratic Senators-elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are going to Washington. The Senate will be evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. That means that, with Democratic Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote, Democrats will have the narrowest possible majority in the Senate.

If the Senate were anything approaching a democratic institution, however, the Democratic Party would have a commanding majority in Congress’s upper house. The Senate is malapportioned to give small states like Wyoming exactly as many senators as large states like California — even though California has about 68 times as many residents as Wyoming.

Georgia could soon see another election recount if the final margins in the state’s Senate runoffs are narrow enough.

Both races — between Sen. Kelly Loeffler and challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock, and between Sen. David Perdue and challenger Jon Ossoff — had tight margins, although at least one of the elections appears to be decisive enough to avoid a recount.

Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock has won a US Senate seat in Georgia, beating Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in one of the state’s pivotal January 5 runoff elections.

The race was called by Vox’s elections partner Decision Desk at 11:13 pm ET.

More than any other factor, the high turnout from Black voters in Georgia’s Senate runoff elections appears to have won Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff their seats and their party control of the US Senate.

Warnock’s victory over Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Ossoff’s win over Sen. David Perdue have been called by Decision Desk. Perdue has announced plans to challenge the results of his race; the contest was within the legal recount threshold as of Wednesday morning.

The balance of political power in Washington, DC, was finally decided in the January 5 Senate runoff elections in Georgia.

Two sets of candidates squared off in twin Senate races with Republican incumbents. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue on Tuesday night, according to projections from Decision Desk.

Republican Sen. David Perdue is sounding an awful lot like President Donald Trump in his reaction to losing his race against Democrat Jon Ossoff, signaling a willingness for a long fight over the election’s results — and that he may potentially try to cast some doubt on the outcome.

In a statement issued early Wednesday morning, Perdue suggested he’s in this for the long haul: This is an “exceptionally close election that will require time and transparency to be certain the results are fair and accurate and the voices of Georgians are heard,” his campaign said. “We will mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are counted. We believe in the end, Senator Perdue will be victorious.”

It’s finally over: Five full days after the actual year 2020 ended, the 2020 elections have ended too.

And they ended with a bang early Wednesday morning. With slim but decisive victories, Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in one fell swoop turned both of Georgia’s US Senate seats Democratic, according to projections by Vox’s election partner Decision Desk. In doing so, the candidates ensured that the party will have a razor-thin 50-50 Senate majority once Vice President Kamala Harris takes office on January 20.

Winning a pair of January 5 Senate runoffs in Georgia, Democrats have regained control of the US Senate, but just barely.

By capturing Georgia’s Senate seats — an impressive feat few political observers thought likely after the November election — Democrats have given themselves the barest of Senate majorities. They are technically split 50-50 with Republicans, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker for simple majority votes. Importantly, though, it will be Democrat Chuck Schumer, not Republican Mitch McConnell, who will hold the title of majority leader.

Democrat Jon Ossoff has won a Georgia Senate seat, beating Republican David Perdue in one of the state’s pivotal runoffs on Tuesday.

The race was called by Vox’s elections partner Decision Desk at 2:14 am ET on Wednesday.

There are very few instances in which I, a young person, will choose to watch network television. The exception, as of late, is to follow election coverage: During the presidential contest, my eyes stayed glued to MSNBC’s flashing graphics as journalist Steve Kornacki zoomed in and out on an oversize map, doing hypothetical math to calculate the candidates’ odds of reaching 270 electoral votes. The good news for Kornacki fans is that he’s back — this time to explain the results of the Georgia runoff elections.

Kornacki is not the only map dude on air (he’s a national political correspondent during non-election times), but according to the internet and my colleagues at The Goods, he is the most attractive to watch. And on the night of November 3 — in which I needed as much comfort as possible — I switched streams from NBC (sorry not sorry, Chuck Todd) to MSNBC without a second thought. Now, during the races that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats hold the majority in the US Senate, Kornacki will once again deliver assurance to those who seek it.

America still doesn’t know which party will control the next US Senate — all due to Georgia’s peculiar election system rooted in the Jim Crow era.

How that system works: In Georgia, no candidate can advance through a primary or a general election system without first earning more than 50 percent of the votes. If no one does, the top two vote getters advance to a runoff election, ensuring that one will earn the majority of votes cast.

The fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s legislative agenda hinges on the outcome of two US Senate races in Georgia on Tuesday, January 5.

The Georgia races will determine whether Democrats can take control of the Senate — and, therefore, political power in Washington. With Biden headed to the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still in control of the US House, Democrats will control the executive branch and at least half of the legislative branch once Biden takes office later this month.

The Georgia Senate runoff elections on Tuesday will determine which party controls the Senate — and the future of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda. Latino voters could represent an important, if overlooked, coalition in those races that could push the Democratic candidates over the edge.

Nearly 10 percent of the state’s population is Latino, and that share is growing quickly, mostly on account of US-born Latinos who are the children of immigrants. Some 377,000 Latinos are eligible to vote, making up 5 percent of the potential electorate, and 270,000 are registered. About 80,000 have requested absentee ballots for the Senate runoffs, and almost 70,000 already voted early. Given that the races will likely be decided by a razor-thin margin, their votes could make the difference.

President Donald Trump rallied to support two Republican Senate candidates in Dalton, Georgia, on Monday night. He appeared maskless in front of a large crowd, in a county buckling under a coronavirus surge, in a state struggling more than most with its outbreak.

In many ways, Georgia is a microcosm of a pandemic raging out of control.

If Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock win their races in Georgia’s Senate runoffs, Democrats will control both Congress and the White House. According to the polls, the two candidates have an about even chance of defeating Republican incumbent Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

The extended races began following Election Day on November 3, when it became clear no candidate had cleared the 50 percent threshold Georgia requires to avoid runoffs. And during this period — aside from a few outliers taken in December that showed decisive leads for either the Democrats or the Republicans — pollsters have found the elections to be quite close.

James Woo, a 35-year-old marketing manager based in Peachtree Corners, has seen Georgia’s Asian American community change a lot since he moved there in middle school.

“Growing up here, there was like one big Asian supermarket,” Woo told Vox. Now, “People talk about Atlanta having the third-biggest Koreatown in the US.”

Less than a week after Joe Biden secured a victory in the 2020 presidential election, it looked like Facebook’s post-election plan was backfiring.

In November, the company announced it would extend its ban on political ads for at least another month, and possibly longer, in an attempt to quell confusion over an election that President Donald Trump lost but still hasn’t conceded. Google similarly told advertisers it was unlikely to lift its political ad ban in November or December, according to the Wall Street Journal. Then, last week, Google lifted its ban on political advertisements.

To win two hotly contested Senate runoff races, Democrats in Georgia need a lot of things to go right.

Georgia voters haven’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in 20 years, and Democrats handily lost the Senate runoff in 2008. But ask Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, and they insist things are different now. For one thing, the two Georgia races will determine which party controls the Senate — and by extension — political power in Washington, DC. For another, their party’s presidential candidate just won the state for the first time in almost 30 years.

Georgia voters will determine which party controls the US Senate on January 5, and thus decide the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda.

There are not one but two runoff Senate elections in Georgia early next year. They have similar dynamics, with Democratic challengers going up against Republican incumbents. One race features a matchup between Sen. David Perdue (R) and Democrat Jon Ossoff, and the other involves Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock.

President Donald Trump’s lies about the election being stolen from him are having an unintended consequence: There are now members of his base who are advocating for Republicans not to vote in the Georgia runoff for two vital Senate seats.

Democrats can take control of the US Senate if both Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeat Republican incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the upcoming runoffs. But Trump has been hurting his party’s cause by attacking two state Republican officials — Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican Trump has demeaned as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only — for their supposed involvement in a far-fetched scheme to throw the state’s presidential election for Joe Biden. (In reality, both Raffensperger and Kemp are Trump supporters.)