Rev. Raphael Warnock was announced at the winner of the first of the two senate runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate.
The result was called shortly after 2 a.m. local time in Georgia by organizations including AP and The New York Times.
Democrats hope to take both seats and claim unified control of government.
BREAKING: Democrat Raphael Warnock wins election to U.S. Senate from Georgia, beating incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler. #APracecall at 2:00 a.m. EST. #GAelection https://t.co/lGfinjTqT4
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) January 6, 2021
Warnock took a narrow lead over Sen. Kelly Loeffler after votes were tallied in DeKalb County shortly after 11 p.m. Sen. David Perdue clung to a slim margin over Democrat Jon Ossoff, but Ossoff appeared likely to overtake him as more votes were counted.
Decision Desk has reported an Ossoff win, but AP, major TV networks and the New York Times have not called a result. With more than 99% of the votes counted, Ossoff had a winning margin of 12,806 according to Decision Desk.
If Democrats win both seats, the upper chamber would be divided 50-50, giving Kamala Harris the power to cast tie-breaking votes as vice president. Republicans need to win one of the two seats to keep their majority.
Warnock is seeking to become the first Black senator ever elected from Georgia. Ossoff, 33, would be the youngest senator in decades.
On TV, the runoff provided a brief reprise of November’s election night, which stretched out for several days. The cable news networks featured familiar scenes of number-crunchers zooming in on interactive maps of the state, as county-by-county results slowly trickled in. Meanwhile, the New York Times’ needle presented a more clarifying view of the race, showing a consistent advantage for the Democrats throughout the night.
None of the four candidates won a majority in the November election, forcing both races to runoffs on Tuesday. The races attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spending, as Democrats hoped to give President-elect Biden control of both houses of Congress. Hollywood donors gave heavily to the two Democrats, and used social media to urge Georgians to get to the polls.
Tyler Perry flew back to the state to vote, after he said on Twitter that his absentee ballot never arrived. He said the election was “too important to miss.”
“Y’all get out and vote, get out and vote, get out and vote,” Perry said in a Twitter video.
The Republican candidates, meanwhile, made the race about preventing “radical socialists” from claiming control of government. Loeffler urged supporters to help “hold the line” against the Democrats.
“We’re the only ones left who can stop them,” Perdue said in one ad. “We win Georgia, we save America.”
The Democrats campaigned on a promise to deliver a $2,000 stimulus check to voters, picking up on a policy supported by President Trump but opposed by Senate Republicans. They also hammered the Republicans for allegedly trading stocks to profit from knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ossoff called Perdue a “crook” at their debate, and Perdue ran an ad saying that he was “totally exonerated” of the charges.
The Senate has not been evenly divided since 2001, when Vice President Dick Cheney cast the tie-breaking vote for the Republicans. The two parties worked out a power-sharing deal which provided for equal committee representation. Republicans held the majority for several months, until Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords switched parties.