Ballot-counting under way in high-stakes Georgia Senate runoffs

Americans once again hunkered down for a long election night after polls closed in a pair of highly consequential Georgia runoff elections that will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue, 71, whose term expired Sunday, faced off against Democrat Jon Ossoff, 33, a former congressional aide and journalist. U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, 50, who was appointed to an unexpired term, was challenged by the Rev. Raphael Warnock, 51, the senior pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The races attracted national attention, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent in advertising and money flowing in from all corners of the country — including Massachusetts.

Results began to trickle in shortly after most polls closed at 7 p.m. Georgia had smashed its turnout record for a runoff even before Election Day, with more than 3 million votes cast by mail or during early in-person voting in December.

“Both sides are very highly energized,” analyst J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said.

Early turnout was expected to benefit the Democrats, as it did in the presidential race in which Biden won the Peach State by about 12,000 of the 5 million votes cast.

Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams said on CNN that there was “steady turnout across the state” on Election Day that “signaled that people are interested.”

The high-stakes races will decide the balance of power in the Senate. Republicans needed to win only one of the two seats to keep control of the upper chamber, while Democrats needed both to gain the upper hand.

There were 50 Republicans, 46 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats in the Senate on Election Day.

Democrats would balance the scales at 50-50 if they won both Senate seats. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris could then cast tie-breaking votes down the road.

Biden stressed the importance of Democratic wins during an interview on WVEE-FM on Tuesday, saying, “I need their votes in the Senate.”

If Republicans keep control of the Senate, it could complicate passage of everything from Biden’s Cabinet picks to his legislative agenda.

“That is going to be a tremendous roadblock,” Coleman said.

The shadow of President Trump loomed over it all. Trump has made Georgia a focal point of his attempts to overturn the president election results, making claims of widespread voter fraud some worried could discourage voters. And the runoff elections fell just before Congress meets in joint session to certify the Electoral College vote that would cement Biden’s win — and that Trump is now pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to intervene in.

Herald wire services contributed.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2LmiDzJ