With Georgia win, Democrats on the brink of Senate control

lanta, January 6

Democrats won one US Senate race in Georgia and surged ahead in another on Wednesday, moving closer to a stunning sweep that would give them control of the Congress and the power to advance President-elect Joe Biden’s policy goals.

Raphael Warnock, a Baptist preacher from the historic church of Martin Luther King Jr., beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler to become the first Black senator in the history of the deep south state.

Jon Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker who at 33 would become the Senate’s youngest member, held a narrow lead over incumbent David Perdue in the other race.

The results were a repudiation of Donald Trump in a state his Republicans have controlled for decades. The outgoing president campaigned for both Republicans, while at the same time leveling false accusations that his own poll loss was tainted by fraud, and attacking Republican officials.

Some Republicans said it discouraged his supporters from voting. With 98% of votes in and counting mostly stopped for the night, Warnock was ahead of Loeffler by 1.2 percentage points, roughly 54,000 votes, according to Edison Research. Ossoff led Perdue by 16,000 votes. — Reuters