Senate race goes down to the wire
Control of the US Senate hung in the balance last night as Georgia election officials counted the results of two closely contested runoff races that will determine whether Democrats can enact a sweeping legislative agenda during the first years of Joe Biden’s presidency.
After swapping leads over the course of the night, Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff benefited from late counts in Democratic areas of the state, which gave Warnock a narrow lead over Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler with nearly all precincts reporting. Ossoff was essentially tied with David Perdue, a Republican, whose Senate term lapsed Sunday.
A win by either Democrat would represent a historic upset in a longtime Republican bastion, signalling a clear shift in the political makeup of the state that Biden won nine weeks ago. Warnock would be the first African American Democratic senator from a former Confederate state, and Ossoff, 33, would be the youngest newly elected Democratic senator since Biden in 1973.
At stake was the governing coalition Biden will enjoy in his first years in office. If both Democrats win, they would flip control of the Senate, with the tiebreaking vote of Vice Presidentelect Kamala Harris, opening the door for potential passage of legislation Democrats campaigned on over the past two years, including an expansion of federal healthcare subsidies, a tax increase on the wealthy and a comprehensive immigration overhaul.
President Donald Trump had supported both Republicans in the race, most recently on Tuesday, calling Loeffler and Perdue close allies who were essential to holding back Democratic priorities.
But his efforts were complicated by his simultaneous decision to attack Republican officials in the state, his proposal to increase stimulus payments to $2000, which was opposed by GOP Senate leadership and embraced by Democrats, and his false allegations that the 2020 elections in the state were rigged.
Loeffler and Perdue closed out the campaign warning that unified Democratic control of the House, Senate and presidency would be catastrophic for the nation. Because of possible exposure to the coronavirus, Perdue had to finish the campaign with remote appearances.
‘‘We have to STOP socialism. We have to PROTECT the American Dream,’’ Loeffler tweeted after polling places opened. ‘‘We have to SAVE our country!’’
Ossoff and Warnock, who reject the ‘‘socialist’’ label, closed the campaign promising dramatic changes in Washington, including a $1400 increase to the $600 stimulus cheques Congress approved last month, a surge in vaccine distribution, new civil rights legislation and an ambitious jobs and infrastructure bill. The Republican Senate had tabled the larger stimulus cheques, holding to the lower level despite pressure from Democrats and President Trump.
‘‘This is history unfolding in Georgia right now,’’ Ossoff said yesterday in a morning appearance at a polling site in Atlanta. ‘‘Georgia voters have never had more power than you have today. That is the reason the whole world is watching us.’’
Republicans have a historical advantage in the traditionally lower-turnout runoffs in the state, and the Democratic Senate candidates ran behind both the victorious Biden and the combined votes of their Republican opponents in the first round of voting in November. They were given another chance because multicandidate fields prevented anyone from breaching the 50 per cent threshold. –