Georgia Senate results: Jon Ossoff beats David Perdue

Democrat Jon Ossoff won a Senate set from Georgia and beat Republican David Perdue on Tuesday in one of the state’s most important consequences.

The race was hosted at 02:14 ET by Vox’s election partner Decision Desk.

Ossoff is the second Georgia Democrat to win the January 5 by-elections. Democratic Reverend Raphael Warnock also won late Tuesday night, according to a call from Vox’s election partner Decision Desk. It is important that Ossoff’s victory means that the Democrats have now won the two seats needed to regain control of the Senate.

Ossoff is a former investigative journalist who ran for Congress in the Sixth Congress District of Georgia in 2017. now lose to Republican Karen Handel in a runoff. Few election experts in Georgia predicted he would beat Perdue, as the Democrat would fall behind Perdue by about 88,000 votes in November. Ossoff’s victory two months later indicates greater enthusiasm for Democratic candidates and weaker enthusiasm for Republicans.

Ossoff and Warnock’s victories come on the heels of President-elect Joe Biden as the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992. House Democrats also have their only 2020 GOP-held district in Georgia’s Seventh Congress District , overturned in Atlanta’s suburbs.

These major victories for the Democrats mean a shift in Georgia’s diversifying voters.

“The state is getting younger and more diverse every day,” Ossoff said in an interview with Vox this fall. “Over the past decade, investment in democratic infrastructure has been huge.”

Ossoff’s victory is also a firm rebuke to President Donald Trump in a Senate race that made the outgoing president largely over him and his November loss to Georgia. Ossoff’s Republican opponent, Perdue, was one of Trump’s earliest allies in the Senate, and a strong defender of the president after the November 3 election. Perdue and fellow Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler backed Trump in his fight with Georgia’s Republican civil servants, counting on the president’s support in the state to give them a victory.

The support eventually did not materialize.

What Ossoff’s victory means for Senate control and Biden’s agenda

Joe Biden may have won the presidency on November 3, but he does not have much chance of getting on the daring agenda he proposed without a purchase from Congress.

Biden enters the office facing multiple crises: the Covid-19 pandemic worsens in the U.S., even as vaccines begin to be delivered across the country, and there are still millions of jobs without coronavirus-related layoffs. After months of biased rhetoric, Congress was able to pass an $ 900 billion economic emergency package before the new year. Biden said he wants more economic stimulus, but whether a future package can succeed will largely be determined by which party the Senate controls.

‘The power is literally in your hands. Unlike any time in my career, one state can set the course – not just for the next four years, but also for the next generation, “Biden said at a Monday rally in support of Ossoff and Warnock.

Even with this victory, the Democrats will have to fight the Republicans of the Senate. The security of both Georgia seats gives the Democrats 50 seats in the Senate, plus the elected Vice President Kamala Harris who serves as a key tiebreaker for ordinary majority votes. The catch is that most bills need to clear a super majority of 60 votes in the Senate. Therefore, even if the Democrats have control of the Senate, they will usually need about 10 Republican votes to get things done.

Democratic bills will be approved in a 50-50 senate. It will be difficult to pass on even broad dual accounts. But winning Georgia’s seats is the only thing that guarantees Democrats – rather than McConnell – will have a say in bills coming to the Senate floor for debate. It will also give them the ability to more easily confirm Biden’s cabinet choices, or his nominees at the federal court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ossoff’s victory in Georgia ensures that Democrats can at least rely on the razor-sharp Senate majority.