It’s looking more and more likely that it will be déjà vu all over again in the Peach State, with control of the U.S. Senate coming down to a runoff election in Georgia.
In the nearly 24 hours since the closing of the polls on Election Day, many of the races nationwide have been called, and as of Wednesday afternoon, the Senate still hung in the balance with three races still outstanding.
And if the current leads hold – Republican Adam Laxalt leading Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Democrat incumbent Mark Kelly in front of Republican Blake Masters in Arizona – that would leave the Senate seats at 50-49 in the GOP’s favor.
Because a 50-50 tie is always broken by the vice president, a position still held for the next two years by Democrat Kamala Harris, that means that, just as it did with a pair of runoffs in January 2021, Georgia will decide the fate of President Joe Biden’s next two years in office.
As it currently stands on Wednesday afternoon, incumbent Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock holds a slim advantage. The pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church first took office in one of those pivotal 2021 runoff elections, winning a bid to finish out the term of Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned from office in December 2019.
Warnock defeated Republican incumbent interim senator Kelly Loeffler in that special election and served the remaining two years of the term.
Now Warnock is running to continue on as one of Georgia’s two U.S. senators alongside Democrat Jon Ossoff for a full six-year term.
His opponent, former football star Herschel Walker, running as a Republican with the full endorsement of former President Donald Trump, trailed Warnock by just over 17,000 votes mid-day Wednesday, but it became unlikely that either Warnock or Walker would reach the threshold to avoid a runoff – 50% of the vote + one vote.
Wednesday afternoon, Warnock’s percentage total was at 49.4%. Walker sat at 48.5%.
Chase Oliver, a Libertarian candidate, has 2.1% of the total tally at over 80,000 votes – more than enough votes to swing the election in either direction in a runoff.
Once made official, the runoff election will be scheduled for December 6.
Related
