The Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has won his Senate runoff election, giving Democrats control of the Senate for the opening of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Ossoff’s victory against David Perdue, was called by the Associated Press late on Wednesday, and follows fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock’s victory against incumbent Kelly Loeffler.
With the victories of Ossoff and Warnock, the US Senate is now 50-50.
Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as the tie-breaking 51st vote, giving Democrats control of the chamber for the first time since 2015.
A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, Warnock’s victory makes him the first Black senator in his state’s history.
The results were a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind the state’s Republican candidates.
In an emotional address early on Wednesday, Warnock vowed to work for all Georgians whether they voted for him or not, citing his personal experience with the American dream. His mother, he said, used to pick “somebody else’s cotton” as a teenager.
“The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” he said. “Tonight, we proved with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”
The Democrats were propelled to victory in Senate runoff elections by Black voters, young voters and new arrivals to the rapidly diversifying state, a coalition just strong enough to topple a long-dominant GOP and take control of the US Senate.
Black voters cast 32% of the ballots, a slight increase from the presidential election two months ago, according to AP VoteCast. As in November, almost all – 94% – of those votes went for Democrats. Black voters accounted for about 60% of ballots for Democrats, according to the survey of 3,700 voters in the runoff elections.
Voters under the age of 45 also broke for Democrats, as did suburban voters, women, low-income voters and voters who have lived in the state fewer than five years, a group that cast about 60% of their votes for Democrats.
The coalition closely mirrored the one that handed Georgia’s electoral college votes to President-elect Joe Biden, the first Democrat to win the state since 1992. In defeating Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Democrats will have half the seats in the chamber, leaving Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as tie-breaker.
The high-stakes runoffs drew hundreds of millions of dollars, media attention and a massive organizing effort. The result was a game of inches – both Republicans and Democrats largely held their voters from November, the survey showed, but Democrats did just slightly better in pushing their voters to the polls.
The GOP candidates won an overwhelming majority – almost three-quarters – of white voters and 60% of voters 65 and older. They also captured majorities from voters earning $75,000 or more. That coalition in the recent past likely would have been enough to keep Perdue and Loeffler in the Senate. But shifting demographics and an energized Democratic party have turned the tables.