Race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff heads to a runoff to decide control of Senate.
WASHINGTON — Democrats’ hopes for gaining control of the Senate hung Friday on the ballot count in Georgia, as the race between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff headed toward a Jan. 5 runoff.
After days of counting, Perdue led Ossoff but had less than 50% of the vote, according to the Associated Press. Libertarian Party candidate Shane Hazel drew a small share. Georgia requires candidates to clear a 50% threshold to win, or the top two finishers go to a runoff.
Georgia was already facing a runoff for its other Senate seat and the addition of Perdue’s race would all but ensure an expensive twomonth addendum to the exhausting and unpredictable ordeal that has been the 2020 election.
On Thursday, an antiabortion rights group announced it would spend $ 4 million to back Perdue and GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is battling Democrat Raphael Warnock in a special election runoff. Both parties are expected to throw all their resources into Georgia, and the Perdue and Ossoff campaigns were making blustery predictions.
“In Georgia, statewide runoffs have favored strong candidates with the most robust operation,” Ossoff campaign manager Ellen Foster said Friday. “Jon Ossoff has the most robust campaign that Georgia has seen in decades.”
Perdue’s campaign manager, Ben Fry, said in a statement that when all votes cast are counted, the incumbent would have “substantially more votes” than Ossoff.
“There is one thing we know for sure: Senator David Perdue will be reelected to the U. S. Senate and Republicans will defend the majority,” Fry said.
If Joe Biden’s ticket wins, Democrats need a net gain of three seats to control the Senate. Currently, races called by AP have the parties deadlocked at 48 Senate seats each, with Republicans leading in uncalled races in North Carolina and Alaska. If those leads hold, Democrats would need both Georgia seats with Kamala Harris as their vice president breaking ties to control the chamber.
The ballot counting in Georgia stretched through a week of uncertainty about the country’s direction over the coming four years and the message voters intended to send about the Trump administration.
Perdue had hovered over the 50% threshold after polls were closed Tuesday night, causing a cascade of jubilant tweets from Republicans watching the race that it was all but over. But voters awoke Wednesday to news that the count had been delayed by a burst leak at a ballotcounting facility in leftleaning Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, and the needle began to swing slowly in Ossoff and Biden’s direction.
Republicans traditionally hold an advantage in runoff elections in Georgia, when turnout is typically low. But party strategists from both sides said that it was impossible to predict whether that trend would hold.
Georgia has long been considered a Republican stronghold, but dramatic demographic shifts combined with years of Democrats’ work to engage voters made races up and down the ballot competitive this cycle.
Polls in the leadup to the election showed Warnock, a pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, with a slight lead over Loeffler in a hypothetical runoff. In the crowded special election field on Tuesday, Warnock led Loeffler 33% to 26% when the AP called that race shortly after polls closed.
Ossoff, a former congressional aide who owns a documentary film production company, has been hitting Perdue for a series of stock trades in the early days of the pandemic, attempting to portray the incumbent as corrupt. Perdue, a former CEO at Reebok and Dollar General, has countered that Ossoff can’t match his experience in brokering bipartisan deals.
Ossoff’s campaign said Friday it planned to focus on the importance of protecting health care coverage for people with preexisting conditions and getting support to families and small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic. They argue their case would be strengthened by voters’ frustration with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“The argument that leaving McConnell and Republicans in charge of the Senate to create more indecision and failure to act for the American people is not a winning argument,” Foster said.
Ossoff is a veteran of another Georgia runoff that captured national attention as Democrats sought to wrest an Atlantaarea House seat from the GOP in the early days of the Trump administration. Ossoff spent more than $ 30 million on that 2017 special election in the Sixth District, and outside groups from both sides threw in tens of millions more, making it the most expensive House race ever.
Ossoff lost, but his Republican opponent, former Secretary of State Karen Handel, served only one year before she was defeated in the 2018 blue wave. Handel ran for the seat again and lost on Tuesday.