A double victory in Georgia could create serious difficulties for Democrats—and might even make it less likely for Biden to win reelection.
When the networks declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election, his agenda seemed stillborn. Because most observers assumed that Republicans would win at least one of the two Georgia Senate runoffs and retain control of the upper chamber, they thought that Biden wouldn’t get much of anything done. But Raphael Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler in Georgia last night, and Jon Ossoff currently leads David Perdue in the tally, leaving the Democrats likely to take control of the Senate. This is good news. Georgians seem to have repudiated Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on democratic institutions. Judging from the apparent results, they no longer want Mitch McConnell and the obstructionist Republicans to be in charge of the United States Senate. And they hope to give the incoming president a chance to actually govern the country. Democrats will, if the current vote tallies stand, enjoy unified control of Congress. That would allow them to push through Biden’s nominations for the Cabinet, the judiciary, and key agencies like the Federal Reserve. And by taking over the leadership of the chamber’s committees, they would actually be able to shape Congress’s agenda. For these reasons, if I were a resident of Georgia, I would not have hesitated for a moment before voting for Ossoff and Warnock. But a double victory would, nonetheless, create serious difficulties for Democrats—and might even make it less likely for Biden to win reelection. If Democrats enjoy full control of the government, progressives will push to advance a wish list that includes the Green New Deal, radically overhauling health care, a new Voting Rights Act, packing the Supreme Court, and granting statehood to Washington, D.
