Georgia — The Eye of The Storm
These two run-off elections will determine who controls the Senate during a potential Biden Administration
After a contentious election this past November 3rd, the numbers for the U.S. Senate stand at Republicans with 50 seats, and Democrats, after flipping a single Senate seat in both Arizona and Colorado, at 48. However, that leaves two Senate seats unfilled, both of which, are in Georgia.
“Georgia really is going to be the center of the American political universe.” — Rickey Bevington, Georgia PBS
The reason for Georgia’s double-election stems from the resignation of Senator Johnny Isakson, who stepped down following concerns over his health in late 2019. Georgia’s Republican Governor selected now-Senator Kelly Loeffler to serve as the Junior Senator until a new Senator could be elected.
That brings us to this recent election and the close races for the Georgia Senate seats. However, something unusual happened this time around. In Georiga, if a Senate candidate doesn’t receive at least 50% of the vote, the election becomes a run-off* election. None of the candidates for either of Georgia’s Senate seats won 50% of the vote, which means we now have a historic double-run-off election. The run-off elections will be held on January 5th, 2021. The two candidates to be in the runoff election will be the candidate who received the most votes, as well as the candidate who received the second-most votes.
*(A “run-off” election is a special election wherein no candidate for the position receives 50% of the total vote share on the normal election day. What happens in these cases is the top two vote earners move onto a new election, the “run-off” election, held on a later date. At that point, at least one of those two candidates will receive at least 50% of the total vote share, and be elected to the office)
The four candidates (and vote percentages) Georgia has to choose from are:
Regular election: Sen. David Perdue (R), the incumbent with 49.7% vs. Jon Ossoff (D), his challenger with 48%
Special election: Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), the incumbent with 25.9% vs. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D), her challenger with 32.9%
Ossoff has been challenging Perdue to special election debates to better help the Georgia voters decide who they want to represent them. Ossoff went so far as to call Perdue “a coward”, after Perdue declined a December 6th debate. Perdue, for his part, claimed that Ossoff “lied repeatedly” and blamed that on the reason for declining the debate.
These run-off elections are crucial to who will be in control of the Senate during the up-coming Biden Administration. If Democrats want control of both chambers of Congress (as is required to pass a law of any substance), they must win both seats in Georgia to throw the Senate into a 50/50 tie, giving the deciding vote to the Vice President, who would be Kamala Harris, giving the Senate to the Democrats. If Republicans want to retain control of the Senate, they must win at least one of the run-offs, keeping their Senate majority at a razor-thin 51/49, limiting Biden to what would be a lame-duck presidency, at least for the first two years.
These run-off elections are so important, in fact, that many Californians have loudly stated they’re prepared to move to Georgia to campaign on behalf of the Democratic Senate candidates, or, in some instances, even vote for them in the Peach State (although voting officials have warned against this, as doing so is against the law). One of the most famous examples of an out-of-stater apparently moving to Georgia is Andrew Yang, who gained national attention for his bid at the Democratic nomination for President and for his famed “Freedom Dividend.”
Yang said on Twitter:
Regardless of the legality of moving to Georgia to vote, the talk of doing so shows just how important these two run-offs are to the future of this country.
During a short segment on PBS News Hour, Georgian PBS correspondent, Rickey Bevington, described Georgia as “the center of the American political universe” for its historic and surprising blue-shift toward Biden as well as the double run-off election that will decide who controls the Senate.
This coming January, voters in Georgia will have a profound choice to make for the direction this country goes for the next two years, as Biden’s entire agenda hangs in the balance.
Let’s just hope they make a wise and informed choice.
