UNITED STATES POLITICS: GEORGIA PREPARES FOR SENATE RUNOFF ELECTIONS

United States Politics: One of the most surprising events from the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was the apparent victory that Joe Biden pulled off in Georgia.

The state’s vote is currently undergoing a full recount, but if the results from Election Day stand, a Democrat will carry Georgia for the first time since Bill Clinton did it in 1992.

Stacey Abrams, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, went to work enrolling voters, adding over 800,000 people to the registers.

Next up in Georgia is a rare event – not one, but two Senate Runoff Elections on January 5. If the Democrats win both, they would have control of the Senate, but the odds on that are long. Let’s take a closer look!

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A Look at the Georgia Senate Runoff Elections

As the United States politics have come in each day, the importance of these two elections has increased. For Republicans, the good news is that Democrats don’t usually do well in runoffs. In one runoff, Democrat Jon Ossoff is taking on incumbent David Perdue; on November 3, Perdue pulled in 90,000 more votes than Ossoff. In the special election, Democrat Raphael Warnock is challenging Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed by the governor ahead of this special election.

The challenge for Democrats is that Trump is no longer on the ballot. Without a Presidential question to vote on, getting Democrats back to the polls could be a challenge. Republicans are approaching their base that sending Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate would let liberalism – or socialism, as the Republicans have branded Democratic policies in this election cycle – run rampant in the nation. The last Georgia Senate runoff took place in 2008, when Republican Saxby Chambliss routed Democrat Jim Martin by 15 points. In the November election, Chambliss had edged Martin by only three points. In that November election, Martin had shared the ballot with presidential candidate Barack Obama.

If the Democrats do not win both seats, then the Republicans would retain control of the Senate, under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell, in 2008, had stated that his goal was to keep then-President Obama to one term in office, and he refused to take up Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, despite the nomination coming almost a year ahead of the next general election. It remains to be seen how willing McConnell would be to work with President-elect Biden on matters of policy. For now, though, all eyes are on the Peach State.

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