By Bill Galluccio
US-POLITICS-VOTE-GEORGIA
Georgia voters came out in record numbers to vote in two runoff elections for seats in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday (January 5), with more than three million people voting early. Officials estimate that 4.6 million people will cast votes, the most ever in a runoff election in the state.
The races will determine which party will have control of the Senate for the next two years. If the Democratic candidates win both races, they will create a 50-50 tie in the chamber, giving Vice President-elect
Kamala Harris the deciding vote. If the Republicans maintain their majority, it will give them the ability to block much of President-elect
Warnock wins Georgia runoff, becoming state’s first Black senator as Dems on brink of majority Chris Sommerfeldt
Democrat Raphael Warnock made history early Wednesday as he defeated one of Georgia’s two Republican senators in a hard-fought runoff election, putting Joe Biden’s party one step away from gaining full control of Congress for the first part of his presidency.
Warnock, a pastor who has for the past 15 years led the Atlanta church where the late Martin Luther King, Jr., preached, was declared the winner by The Associated Press as he trounced incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler by more than 35,000 ballots, or nearly 1% of the vote, with more than 97% of the results tabulated.