Democrats won one hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Georgia on Jan. 6 and pulled ahead in a second, edging closer to control of the chamber and the power to advance Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s policy goals when he takes office this month.
U.S. Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, TV networks and Edison Research projected. Democrat Jon Ossoff held a narrow lead over Republican David Perdue in the other race, with a final tally not expected until later. With 98% reporting, Warnock was ahead of Loeffler by 1.2 percentage points, roughly 50,000 votes, while Ossoff led Perdue by more than 12,000 votes, according to Edison Research.
An Ossoff victory would give the party control of the upper chamber of Congress in a 50-50 split, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaking vote after she takes office on Jan. 20.Voters line up early in the morning to cast their ballots in the U.S. Senate run-off election, at a polling station in Marietta, Georgia, U.S., January 5, 2021.