After an arduous 2020 election, it’s looking like we’ll have to wait until 2021 to learn which party is in control of the U.S. Senate. With incumbent Senator David Perdue having just failed to cross the 50 percent barrier necessary in the State of Georgia to claim victory, leadership of the Senate looks to be in limbo until January 5, when the run-off election will take place.
The current Senate sits at 53 Republican and 47 Democrat. In the November elections, Democrats were able to gain seats in Colorado, where Bilderberger John Hickenlooper defeated Republican incumbent Cory Gardner, and in Arizona, where GOP Senator Martha McSally was ousted by Democrat Mark Kelly. Republicans did pick up a seat in Alabama, where former football coach Tommy Tuberville defeated Democrat placeholder Doug Jones by a wide margin.
Thus far, for the new Senate convening next year, the GOP has claimed 48 seats to the Democrats 46. However, two independent senators — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine — caucus with the Democrats, making the current count 48-48 with four races still to be decided.
In North Carolina, Republican Thom Tillis looks to be in good position, with a 96,000-vote lead over Democrat Cal Cunningham with 98-percent reporting. In Alaska, the Senate race pitting Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan against Democrat challenger looks to go the GOP as well, with Sullivan holding a 30-point advantage, although only 50 percent of precincts have reported as of this writing.
So control of the U.S. Senate and the advise and consent role that comes along with it would seem to depend of the State of Georgia. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Perdue maintains a nearly 2 percentage point lead over Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff. But Perdue’s percentage falls a mere two-tenths of a point under the 50-percent threshold needed to claim victory in the State of Georgia. Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel seems to have spoiled a Perdue victory party by garnering 2.3 percent of the vote.
“There is one thing we know for sure: Senator David Perdue will be reelected to the US Senate and Republicans will defend the majority. Perdue will finish this election in first place with substantially more votes than his Democratic opponent,” said Perdue’s campaign manager Ben Fry in a statement.
“It’s clear that more Georgians believe that David Perdue’s positive vision for the future direction of our country is better than Chuck Schumer’s radical, socialist agenda,” Fry continued. “There’s only one candidate in this race who has ever lost a run-off, and it isn’t David Perdue.”
In 2018, Ossoff lost the most expensive race for a House seat in history when he was narrowly defeated by Republican Karen Handel.
Yet, the Ossoff campaign was optimistic that the far-left Democrat would ultimately be victorious. “We are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Senator David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible of unemployment, disease and corruption,” said a statement from Ossoff’s campaign manager Ellen Foster.
The other Senate race in Georgia is a special election and was long expected to go to a run-off as 19 candidates were running to fill the seat vacated by Johnny Isakson in 2019. Republican Kelly Loeffler was nominated as the placeholder by Governor Brian Kemp and was challenged by 18 others, most notably Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Rep. Doug Collins. Whoever ultimately wins this contest will need to run again for reelection in two years.
Although the Democrat Warnock came out on top in the contest with 32.9 percent of the vote so far, it’s worth noting that in the 19-person race, Republican candidates have garnered 49.3 percent of the vote — with Loeffeler leading the way at 25.9 percent followed by Collins with 20 percent — while Democrats could only manage 45.6 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting. The remaining few percentage points were split among independents, Libertarians, and Green Party candidates.
Georgia has been reliably Republican for over a decade with the last Democrat senator being Zell Miller, who left office in 2005 after having supported Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. But there are fears that changing demographics might put the GOP’s stranglehold on the state in jeopardy.
Assuming the North Carolina and Alaska races go to the GOP, Republicans will control 50 seats, meaning that they will need to win at least one of the Georgia seats to insure that the gavel is kept in Republican Mitch McConnell’s hands. On the other hand, if Democrats succeed in their theft of the presidency, and somehow be able to win both Georgia Senate races, a 50-50 tie would occur, then the radical Democrat Kamala Harris would become the tie-breaking vote in the upper chamber.
If the Democrats, who already have majority control of the House, capture the White House and gain majority-control of the Senate, then they would control all both legislative chambers as well as the presidency, positioning them well for implementing their radical agenda — not just policy proposals such as the Green New Deal but also changes in the system such as packing the Supreme Court. So the stakes in the Peach State have never been higher.
