A pastor who has led the Atlanta Church for the past 15 years where Martin Luther King jr. Preaching, Warnock defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. It was a scathing reprimand from outgoing President Donald Trump, who undertook one of his last trips to office in Georgia to pull together his loyal base behind Loeffler and Republican for the other seat, David Perdue.
The focus now shifts to the second race between Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff. The candidates were locked up in a tough race and it was too early to call a winner. Under Georgia law, a backward candidate can request a retelling when the margin of an election is less than or equal to 0.5 percentage points.
If Ossoff wins, Democrats will have full control over Congress, which will strengthen President-elect Joe Biden as he prepares for Jan. 20.
Warnock’s victory is a symbol of a striking shift in Georgia’s politics, as the growing number of diverse voters has been trained in the heart of the deep south. This follows Biden’s victory in November, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
Warnock, 51, acknowledged his unlikely victory in a message to fans early Wednesday, citing his family’s experience of poverty. According to him, his mother chose “someone’s cotton” earlier as a teenager.
“The other day, because it’s America, the 82-year-old who chose someone else’s cotton chose her youngest son to be a US senator,” he said. “Tonight we proved with hope, hard work and the people on our side that anything is possible.”
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The Associated Press declared Warnock the winner after an analysis of outstanding votes showed Loeffler could not take his lead. Warnock’s lead is likely to grow as more ballots are counted, many of which were in democratic areas.
Loeffler refused to concede in a short message to fans shortly after midnight.
“We have a bit of work to do here. It’s a thumbs up. We’re going to win this election,” demanded Loeffler, a 50-year-old former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a year ago. . by the governor of the state.
Loeffler, who remains a senator in Georgia until the results of Tuesday’s election are finalized, said she would return to Washington on Wednesday morning to join a small group of senators who plan to challenge Congress’ vote to Biden’s victory to confirm.
“We’re going to keep fighting for you,” Loeffler said, “this is about protecting the American dream.”
The other run-off election in Georgia pitted Perdue, a 71-year-old former businessman who held his Senate seat until his term expired Sunday, against Ossoff, a former congressional assistant and journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the youngest member of the Senate.
Trump’s false allegations of voter fraud cast a dark shadow over the by – elections, which were held only because no candidate reached the 50% threshold in the general election. On the eve of the election, he attacked the head of state of the state and envisioned that some votes could not be counted, even if votes were cast on Tuesday afternoon.
Republican government officials on the ground reported no significant problems.
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This week’s election is the formal finale for the turbulent election season in 2020, more than two months after the rest of the country finished voting. The extraordinarily high stakes have transformed Georgia, once a staunch Republican state, into one of the country’s leading battles in the last days of Trump’s presidency – and probably beyond.
Both games tested whether the political coalition that fueled Biden’s victory in November was an anti-Trump departure or part of a new electoral landscape. To win Tuesday’s election – and in the future – Democrats needed strong support in African-American countries.
Based on his popularity among black voters, among other groups, Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes with about 12,000 votes out of the 5 million cast in November.
Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election, though deserving, resonated with Republican voters in Georgia. About 7 out of 10 agree with his false claim that Biden was not the legally elected president, according to AP VoteCast, a poll of more than 3,600 voters in the by-elections.
Electoral officials across the country, including Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, as well as Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, confirmed there was no widespread fraud in the November election. Almost all of the legal challenges faced by Trump and his allies have been rejected by judges, including two rejected by the Supreme Court, where three judges nominated by Trump preside.
Even with Trump’s allegations, voters in both parties went to the polls because of the high stakes. AP VoteCast found that six out of ten Georgia voters say Senate Party control was the most important factor in their vote.
Already before Tuesday, Georgia broke its election record for a run-off with more than 3 million votes by mail or during pre-voting in December. Including Tuesday’s votes, more people ended up voting in the aftermath of the ballots than they did in Georgia’s 2016 presidential election.
In the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, 37-year-old Kari Callaghan said she voted ‘all Democrats’ on Tuesday, an experience that was new to her.
“I have always been a Republican, but I was very disgusted by Trump and just like the Republicans work,” she said. “I feel that the Republican candidates should still stand there with Trump and feel a campaign with Trump is quite rotten. These are not the conservative values I grew up with.”
But 56-year-old Will James said he voted ‘straight GOP’.
He said he was concerned about the recent support of Republican candidates over Trump’s challenges to the presidential election results in Georgia, “but that has not really changed the reasons why I voted.”
“I believe in balance of power and do not want either party to have a referendum,” he said.
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Peoples reported from New York. Bynum lived in Savannah, Ga. Associated Press, authors Haleluya Hadero, Angie Wang, Sophia Tulip, Ben Nadler and Kate Brumback in Atlanta, contributed to this report.
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