Georgia Senate Races

Both of Georgia’s Republican U.S. Senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, did not win their re-election campaigns outright and will have to continue to campaign for a runoff election on January 5th.

Fox News explained that Georgia’s state law requires a candidate to receive at least 50% of the vote, and if it’s below that, only the top two candidates will challenge each other in a runoff vote. Kind of like a championship match after a tournament.

Georgia is now the most important political race in the nation because it will affect whether Democrats or Republicans have control of the Senate. Republicans currently have a 50-48 majority. If Democrats win both Georgia seats on January 5th, then Democrats will have control over the Senate because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker.

The first race is between Sen. Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. Perdue “won'' the first race by being ahead by 90,000 votes, but only received 49.75% of the state vote totals. Ossoff received 47.9% of the vote. The runoff will remove a candidate from the Libertarian Party and be only between these two.

The second runoff is between Sen. Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock. Warnock, the “winner,” received 32.9% of the vote while Loeffler received 25.9%. There were at least 20 competitors in this special election that received a percentage of the vote. Now it’ll be just the two. Loeffler became a senator last year when she was appointed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019 to fill an empty seat left behind by Johnny Isakson, who resigned because of health reasons. The seat’s term expires in 2023.

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Georgia is a battleground state and in the presidential election, Joe Biden currently has the lead by just over 12,000 votes, and the race is too close to call.

So, what this means is that Georgia voters will decide who controls the Senate in 2021.

Republicans from the nation are now focused on supporting Perdue and Loeffler. Republican leaders are using the slogan, “Defend the Senate Majority.” Democrats hope to capitalize on Joe Biden’s projected election victory to continue to fundraise to try and get both Senate seats.

A lot of eyes are on Georgia.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-senate-runoffs-potential-2024-gop-presidential-contenders

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/we-are-stunned-two-georgia-races-will-decide-which-party-n1246962