On January 5, 2021 Georgia will determine which party controls the US Senate with two runoff elections.
If no candidate in an election earns …
On January 5, 2021 Georgia will determine which party controls the US Senate with two runoff elections. If no candidate in an election earns over 50% of the vote in Georgia, state law dictates that the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff election. Georgia is one of a dozen states, most of which are in the South, that use runoff elections. In addition to the Senate races, a runoff for a Georgia Public Service Commissioner election will also take place on January 5. In the state’s regularly-scheduled US Senate election, first-term Republican David Perdue will go to a runoff against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old former investigative journalist and US House staffer who ran in the high-profile 2017 special election for the US House in Georgia. There’s also a special US Senate election taking place to determine who will fill the seat held by former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned in late 2019 over health concerns, and serve out the rest of his term until 2022. Republican Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman and WNBA team owner, was appointed to the seat after Isakson’s resignation. After competing in a jungle special election with 20 other candidates, on November 3 she competed in a runoff against Democrat Raphael Warnock, a senior pastor at the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Democrats will need to win both races in order to get to 50 seats in the Senate, which would allow Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaking vote and give Democrats a narrow majority in the chamber.
