According to NBC News, both Georgia Senate runoffs were too short to hold early Wednesday when Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock declared victory in a race.
The competitions will determine which party will have the Senate majority for the next two years. Democrats want unified control of Congress and the White House. Republicans want a review of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda.
Warnock, the 51-year-old senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, who preached Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., challenged 50-year-old incumbent GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler. The seat that Loeffler was appointed to after former GOP Senator Johnny Isakson retired early will be re-elected in 2022.
Warnock led Loeffler with around 98% of the vote, which was counted early Wednesday morning, according to NBC. He declared victory as his lead grew.
“I’m going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia, no matter who you voted for in this election.” Warnock said in a speech early Wednesday morning. He later added, “Are we going to play political games while real people are suffering, or are we going to win righteous battles standing shoulder to shoulder for the good of Georgia, for the good of our country?”
Even when Warnock led and the outstanding votes dwindled, Loeffler did not admit on Wednesday morning and claimed: “We will win this election.”
In the other stitching competition, 71-year-old Republican David Perdue meets 33-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who runs a documentary production company. Perdue is aiming for a second term in the Senate after his first Sunday. The race took place early Wednesday morning with around 98% of the vote.
In a statement Wednesday morning, Ossoff campaign manager Ellen Foster said: “When all the votes are counted, we’ll assume Jon Ossoff won this election to represent Georgia in the United States Senate.” She said that outstanding votes come from areas where the Democrat did well in the elections.
Both elections went to the runoff after no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the general election.
The districts have largely completed reporting. Cobb County, in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, announced that the counting of results will not be complete tonight and that the vote count will resume at 1:00 p.m. CET on Wednesday.
A sign is seen as voters line up for the U.S. Senate runoff election at a polling station in Marietta, Georgia, the United States, Jan. 5, 2021.
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Biden won Georgia with 11,779 votes in November. NBC News announced his victory over President Donald Trump in Peach State only three days after election day when officials were putting together postal ballot papers.
More than 3 million Georgians cast their votes before Tuesday, representing a historically high turnout for runoff elections in the state. Runoff ballot data and voter history data suggest Democrats had an advantage in voter turnout. The Republicans were hoping for a strong performance on Tuesday.
According to the Georgian Foreign Minister, the average waiting time at polling stations until Tuesday was around a minute across the country. Republican election chief Gabriel Sterling said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that election day turnout could range between 600,000 and 1.1 million voters. Exact numbers are difficult to predict before the ballots are counted.
Some districts closed later than 7 p.m. ET due to delays earlier in the day. The latest was a polling station in Lowndes County that closed at 8:00 p.m. ET, according to the Georgia Democratic Party. Voters standing in line before the election was over were legally allowed to cast one vote.
According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, the two runoff elections in Georgia are the two most expensive Senate races of all time.
If even one of the Republicans wins, the GOP retains Senate control. Democrats will have to sweep both races to get a 50:50 split in the chamber. Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris would then hold a groundbreaking vote.
The election results will shape the first two years of the Biden agenda. If Republicans keep the Senate, they will push for a smaller coronavirus bailout package than Democrats hope to pass in the coming months. During a rally Monday, Biden and the Democratic Senate candidates stressed that victories in Georgia could help them provide $ 2,000 in direct aid payments – a plan that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Alone opposes.
A Democratic Senate would also give Biden a better chance to pass his economic recovery agenda and ratify his elected cabinet candidates and judges. Approval only requires a majority, while most laws require 60 votes to pass.
During the runoff election, Perdue and Loeffler appealed to Trump’s loyal supporters, including by supporting the outgoing president’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud. In a climatic event days before the election, Trump threatened Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger with a phone call to find votes that would undo Biden’s victory in Georgia.
Loeffler said in a statement on Monday that she would speak out against the certification of the results of the electoral college on Wednesday. The maneuver is likely to fail.
Some GOP strategists feared Trump’s ongoing attacks on the integrity of the Georgian elections could deter some Republicans from voting on Tuesday.
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