Georgia Runoff: Democrats Win First County, Narrow Lead in Second; Control of Senate in Sight

Voting in the US Senate run-off election is still underway and the final outcome is expected not until later in the day.

New Delhi: The Democrats on Wednesday won one of the hotly contested Georgia seats and are leading in the second paving way for Democratic President-elect Joe Biden to take control of the chamber. At 98 per cent voting, TV networks projected that Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock will beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. However, voting in the US Senate run-off election is still underway and the final outcome is expected not until later in the day.

Warnock, a senior pastor of the church where Martin Luther King preached through the height of the Civil Rights movement until his assassination, created history by becoming the first Black senator in Georgia. Meanwhile, Democrat Jon Ossoff is leading over sitting Republican David Perdue by a narrow margin of more than 12,000 votes in the second race, a Reuters report stated.

A large number of Republican lawmakers, including more than 100 members of the House of Representatives and over a dozen Senators, are expected to raise their opposition to the counting of votes and election results favouring the Biden-Harris campaign.

It must be noted that whichever party wins the key seat of Georgia will take control of the US Senate. In such a case, there will be a tie-breaking vote between the president of the Senate and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. However, in case incumbent Senator David Perdue wins the second race, the Republicans will remain in control of the Senate.

During the counting of November 3 elections, President-elect Joe Biden became the first presidential candidate to win Georgia since the 1990s.

At the same time, incumbent President Donald Trump, a Republican, has not conceded the election, reiterating unverified claims that the presidential polls were rigged even after failing dozens of lawsuits challenging election results in US courts.