A DEM GOOD DAY IN GEORGIA
Ossoff wins! Together with Warnock victory they wrest control of Senate from GOP
The Peach State turned decidedly blue as 33-year-old Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff was declared the winner against 71-year-old Republican Sen. David Perdue, who held the seat for the past six years and had the strong support of President Trump.
Democrats won both Georgia Senate seats — and with them, the U.S. Senate majority — as final votes were counted Wednesday, serving Trump a stunning defeat in his turbulent final days in office while dramatically improving the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s progressive agenda.
Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Democratic challengers who represented the diversity of their party’s evolving coalition, defeated Republicans Sens. Perdue and Kelly Loeffler two months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
That gives Democrats the two victories they needed to secure a 50-50 tie in the Senate. With Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote, the twin Georgia victories deliver Senate control to the Democrats.
“It feels like a brand-new day. For the first time in six years, Democrats will operate a majority in the United States Senate — and that will be very good for the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday morning.
Ossoff vowed to work in Washington to beat the COVID pandemic.
“Let’s unite to defeat this virus and to rush economic relief to those who need it now,” he said
Ossoff paid tribute to civil rights
heroes like the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who he said paved the way for his win in the Deep South.
“It’s with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me,” Ossoff said. “Whether you voted for me or against me, I’ll be for you in the U.S. Senate.”
Warnock wrapped up his win over Loeffler in the early-morning hours of Wednesday.
The pastor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s former congregation in Atlanta acknowledged his improbable victory in a message to supporters, and paid tribute to his elderly mom who grew up under
Jim Crow white supremacy in the South.
“The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” he said. “We proved with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”
The results symbolize the shocking shift in the political climate in the so-called New South as diverse, better-educated voters flock to the fast-growing Atlanta area.
Former
President
Barack
Obama, the nation’s first Black president, issued a statement praising the election of Georgia’s first African-American senator and his ability to improve divisions in Washington.
“Georgia’s first Black senator will make the [Senate] chamber more reflective of our country as a whole and open the door for a Congress that can forgo gridlock for gridlock’s sake to focus instead on the many crises facing our nation,” Obama said.
Biden stunned Trump in November when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
Warnock will be Georgia’s first Black senator while Ossoff will be Georgia’s first Jewish senator, as well as the first Jewish senator elected from any Deep South state since Reconstruction.
Even before Tuesday, Georgia had shattered its turnout record for a runoff with more than 3 million votes by mail or during in-person advance voting in December. Including Tuesday’s vote, more people ultimately cast ballots in the runoffs than voted in Georgia’s 2016 presidential election.