ADVERTISEMENT He ultimately lost that race to Rep. Karen Handel The race between Ossoff and Perdue, whose first term in the Senate expired Sunday, advanced to a runoff after neither candidate surpassed the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright in November. Perdue finished slightly ahead in that election, notching just shy of 50 percent to Ossoff’s 47.9 percent. But the runoff campaign between the two men became consumed over the past two months by congressional negotiations over a coronavirus pandemic relief package and President Trump Perdue hitched his political fortunes close to those of Trump, while simultaneously seeking to cast Ossoff as a socialist with pro-China leanings. Ossoff, meanwhile, seized on Perdue’s unwillingness to break with the president, as well as allegations that the Georgia senator made a series of well-timed stock trades amid the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.