2nd Georgia Senate runoff looms as presidential race closes

UPDATED, SATURDAY, 3 P.M.

Georgia will have two U.S. Senate runoffs on Jan. 5 that could determine which party gains control in that chamber.

Republican Sen. David Perdue was at 49.78 percent of the vote in his race against Democrat Jon Ossoff.

At the same time, the Georgia presidential race could be headed for a recount, with Joe Biden holding a roughly 7,500-vote lead over Donald Trump.

The results from those races are being updated here.

As final votes were being counted in Georgia, news outlets began calling the presidential race for Biden based on vote-counting in his home state of Pennsylvania.

If that holds up, that would give Biden 290 electoral votes to 214 for Trump. Presidential candidates need 270 votes to win.

Georgia, Arizona and Nevada were the other states that remain too close to call.

Trump led Biden in Georgia by 370,000 votes on election night, but absentee ballots have heavily been in favor of Biden.

Biden and Ossoff also won Cobb County easily, as did Raphael Warnock, the first-place finisher in a “jungle primary” special election in the other U.S. Senate race.

Warnock, the minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—the church of Martin Luther King Jr.—will face U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican appointed last year.

The winner of that runoff will fill the remaining two years of the term won in 2015 by Johnson, who retired due to health reasons..

UPDATED, FRIDAY 10:30 A.M.:

Democratic former vice president Joe Biden edged ahead of Republican President Donald Trump overnight Friday, with Georgia’s 16 electoral votes up for grabs.

As of 10:30 a.m., Biden had 2,449,590 votes to 2,448,492 for Trump.

That’s a difference of 1,098 votes.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that as of 8:15 a.m. Friday, there are 8,197 votes still to count in Georgia, including 700 in Cobb County.

The majority of those votes are in Gwinnett, where 4,800 votes have not been counted in a county that like Cobb has been surging toward Democrats in recent elections.

Provisional, military and overseas ballots, and ballots needing to be “cured” or corrected by voters also were to be counted on Friday.

Biden also has moved ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania as final vote-counting continues.

Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue (in photo at left) was trying to fend off a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff (in photo at right). That runoff would take place on Jan. 5.

Perdue’s lead as of 10:30 a.m. Friday stands at 98,849 over Ossoff. More importantly, Perdue has 49.84 percent of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.84 percent.

Runoffs take place in Georgia when the leading candidate gets less than 50 percent of the vote plus one vote.

Shane Hazel, a Libertarian candidate, has tallied 2.32 percent of the vote.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Cobb will certify election results next Friday, Nov. 13.

Party control of the U.S. Senate, which has been in Republican hands, could be determined in if both Georgia races go to runoffs.

In Tuesday’s special election, appointed Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler finished second in a “jungle primary” to Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The winner of that runoff, also on Jan. 5, will fill the remaining two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.

Biden (56 percent) and Ossoff (54 percent) won Cobb, and Warnock was the top vote-getter in the county in his race (37 percent).

Like Biden, Ossoff has been able to close with absentee votes from metro Atlanta and other strong Democratic parts of the state.

On Thursday afternoon Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, sent out a statement saying that “the votes are still being counted, but we are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Senator David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible record of unemployment, disease, and corruption.”

Perdue hasn’t responded directly to the prospects of facing a runoff; instead he went on social media Thursday, commenting on the presidential race, and saying that if “every lawful vote cast should be counted, once,” Trump will be re-elected.

Some pro-Trump supporters gathered at State Farm Arena in Atlanta Thursday to protest what they said was a “fix” against the president in the vote-counting.

In Thursday evening remarks at the White House, Trump claimed “we’re clearly going to win Georgia,” referring to a 117,000-vote margin he enjoyed after election-day votes were counted.

He didn’t mention the new numbers based on absentee ballots counted.

The Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party have filed lawsuits over the ballot-counting in the presidential race, and Trump’s campaign also was doing the same in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where mail-in ballots are being counted.

Other states that are too close to call and that are still counting are Arizona and Nevada.

“This is a fraud to the American public,” said Trump, adding that “frankly, we did win this election. . . . This is a major fraud on our nation.”

The latest overall results compiled by C-SPAN have Biden with 264 electoral votes to 214 for Trump, with four states to call: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency. Georgia has 16 electoral votes.

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