LIVE: Georgia Counts Votes With Senate Control, Biden Agenda at Stake

(Jan. 5) Georgia voters are turning out in record numbers to cast ballots in two runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years. Three million Georgians have voted ahead of the election on Jan. 5, more votes than have ever been cast in a Georgia runoff race.

Democrats are hoping voter enthusiasm can propel them to their first Senate victory in the state in 20 years, but candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock need to make up ground if they’re to match President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in November, when he beat President Donald Trump in the state by a narrow 12,000 votes out of almost 5 million cast. That could be a tall task, as the Democrats in both Senate contests in November received fewer votes than Republicans. Democrats will remain the minority party in the Senate unless they win both runoff races.

The Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, have their own question marks. They’ll need to prove that they can turn out Republican voters in high numbers without Trump’s name on the ballot, and in spite of unsubstantiated claims by Trump and others of voting improprieties in November. While turnout so far has been high for a runoff election, it’s still far below the 4 million ballots cast early in the general election, and accounts for just 60% of all the ballots cast in November.

Top early-voting counties include Democratic strongholds like Atlanta-area Fulton and DeKalb counties, but also some Republican-leaning counties, including Greene County—south of Athens—which voted for Perdue by a margin of 31 percentage points in November.

Georgia broke its all-time turnout record in November, following a trend of historic turnout levels across the country.

If the results of the November election are any guide, Perdue could have an advantage against Ossoff. In the certified vote count, Perdue led Ossoff by 88,000 votes. He also received 763 more votes than Trump did statewide even though 45,000 fewer people voted in their Senate race than voted for president. Ossoff trailed Biden’s vote total by nearly 100,000 votes.

For Democrats, the November results were a sign that plenty of voters who rejected Trump were still willing to support Republicans down the ballot. More than 50 precincts, mostly in the Atlanta suburbs, split their vote between Biden and Perdue. Fewer than 10 voted for Trump and Ossoff. A big question in the runoff is whether Biden-Perdue voters are motivated to cast another ballot for Perdue.

Prospects may be more positive for Democrats in the other Senate race. In November, Warnock received the most votes among a crowded field with 20 candidates on the ballot. Although about 38,000 fewer people cast a ballot in that race than in Perdue and Ossoff’s race, Warnock and other Democrats received nearly 4,000 more votes, in total, than Ossoff did in his race.

Adding to the uncertainty is that more than 40% of Georgians voted for someone other than Warnock or Loeffler in November—and it’s unclear how or if they’ll vote this time. Nearly 15% of all votes went to other Democrats, while 25% went to other Republicans, including 20% of ballots that went to Representative Doug Collins of Georgia’s 9th Congressional District.

Donors from around the country flooded the state with money in an effort to influence the outcome, and Trump, Biden, Vice President Mike Pence and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris all made appearances in the state in the closing days of the campaign.

Both races are tight. The FiveThirtyEight polling average shows both Democrats up by small margins, and the Cook Political Report has called them “the very definition of a true Toss Up.”

It is likely that no winners will be declared on the night of the election. The state doesn’t start counting mail and absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day, and the Associated Press didn’t call the state’s competitive presidential race in November for more than two weeks.

---

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.

To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit  or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.

Connect with us on…

Breaking News on YouTube