Senate Control Hangs in the Balance as Key Races Head to Runoffs
A duo of runoff elections to be held in Georgia in two months will likely determine whether Republicans maintain majority control of the Senate or cede power to Democrats, who already control the House of Representatives.
Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Republican incumbents, will face off against Democratic challengers in runoffs scheduled for Jan. 5, 2021.
None of the candidates reached the 50 percent threshold required under Georgia law to avoid a runoff.
Republicans will likely have to win at least one of those races to maintain majority control of the Senate.
Republicans would have to carry both runoffs if either Sen. Thom Tillis or Sen. Dan Sullivan loses in North Carolina and Alaska, respectively.
Sullivan is leading by 30 points in his race with 50 percent of the Alaska vote counted.
The race in North Carolina has not yet been called, but Tillis leads challenger Cal Cunningham by nearly 100,000 votes with more than 90 percent of precincts tallied.
Perdue leads his challenger, Jon Ossoff, by two percentage points — 49.8 to 47.8 percent — with only 4,200 votes left to be counted as of Friday morning.
Loeffler was the top Republican in a field of 20 candidates. She will face off against Raphael Warnock, an Atlanta pastor, in her runoff.
Warnock received 32.9 percent of the vote versus Loeffler’s 26 percent. Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican, came in third with 20 percent.
Seventeen other candidates — a mix of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and independents — divvied up the rest of the vote share.
Republican candidates received a slightly higher percentage of the overall vote share, 49.6 to 48.2 percent.
While the Perdue-Ossoff race has not been called, the National Republican Senatorial Committee signaled that the group expects the contest to go to a runoff.
“David Perdue won this race in regular time and will do the same in overtime. Georgians have rejected Jon Ossoff’s liberal, socialist agenda not once, not twice, but three times,” NRSC executive director Kevin McLaughlin said in a statement.
Should Republicans lose both runoff elections in Georgia, and if Joe Biden wins the presidency, Democrats will have de facto control of the Senate, with Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote in the event of any 50-50 split in the upper chamber.
Republicans have ended up in a better position than most political observers expected heading into the election on Tuesday.
Most polls had Maine Sen. Susan Collins losing to Democrat Sara Gideon, but the incumbent ended up winning by nearly 10 points.
Democrats also had high hopes that they could oust Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Steve Daines in Montana, or John Cornyn in Texas.
All three coasted to victory.
Republicans, who currently have 53 Senate seats, will lose at least one from their majority.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner and Arizona Sen. Martha McSally lost to their Democratic challengers.
Republicans picked up one seat in Alabama, where former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville defeated Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.
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