Georgia Senate election results: Jon Ossoff declared runoff winner as ‘militia gathers’ at state Capitol
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Democrats took control of the Senate after Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler by razor-thin margins.
The victories were overshadowed by riots in Washington DC as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop the count of the Electoral College votes declaring Joe Biden as president elect.
The chaos spread to Georgia as governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger were reportedly evacuated after a 'militia' gathered outside the state Capitol.
Mr Ossoff, 33, becomes the youngest man to enter the Senate since president-elect Joe Biden did so himself in 1973 while Reverend Warnock becomes the state’s first black senator and only the second black senator elected to represent a former Confederate state.
Their wins mean that both parties have 50 senators each, leaving the deciding vote in legislative matters with vice president-elect Kamala Harris and seeing Mitch McConnell deposed as majority leader.
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DeKalb County turnout surpasses presidential election
Based on real-time numbers from DeKalb County precincts, the number of ballots cast there have surpassed those cast during the 2020 presidential election, as Nate Cohn points out.
7 in 10 Republican voters in Georgia believe Trump’s false assertion that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected
Seven out of 10 Republican voters in Georgia do not believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected in te 2020 presidential races, according to a survey of more than 3,600 voters.
The AP VoteCast conducted during the runoff elections for two US Senate seats also found that six out of 10 voters overall believe control of the Senate, which is on the line with these races, is the single most important factor in casting their ballot.
Republican voters in the state “overwhelmingly lack confidence” that the 2020 vote count was accurate, compared to 84 per cent of Democratic voters.
Most polls have closed in Georgia. When will we know the results?
Most polls in Georgia have now closed, except for those still waiting in line, and a handful of precincts ordered to stay open for a little while longer.
Election officials were able to begin the process of tabulating early mail-in votes before polls closed. Those ballots are expected to lean heavily Democratic, potentially skewing early assessments of the outcomes. So the “race” begins of watching results waver throughout the night – the very basic process of counting that Trump has called “dumps" of fraudulent ballots.
When is Georgia runoff election over and when do polls close?
When will we know Georgia election results?
Georgia election polls: Who is winning Senate runoff race?
Washington correspondent Griffin Connolly breaks down what the polls were saying ahead of election night:
Here’s what the final polls show for crucial Georgia elections
None of the four candidates has separated from their opponent
As expected, Democratic candidates get larger early vote turnout
Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have received a huge boost from early voting turnout, according to Georgia’s secretary of state. With less than 1 per cent of any election day precincts reporting statewide, they have an edge over their Republican counterparts, though the results from in-person voting are far from being counted.
‘Total control’: Fear of a socialist takeover of America drives some Republicans to the polls in Georgia runoffs
The Independent’s Richard Hall, reporting from Georgia:
GA GOP bars reporters from election night HQ
Georgia’s Republican Party has barred Georgia Public Broadcasting from covering its election night headquarters.
The party’s response:
Early votes for Democrats more than double Republicans
As results trickle in (at about 6 per cent so far, folks), the absentee and early in-person vote tallies capture how much of a surge Democrats got from the early voting perdiod.
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have roughly twice as many early votes than their Republican counterparts. That lead starts to thin as election day votes from across the state paint a more complete picture. (Within the hour after polls closed, the Democrats have captured roughly 54 per cent of the vote, based on less than 7 per cent of total ballots counted.)
All polls in Georgia have now closed
Just one poll remained open until 8pm tonight. So now we wait.
More than 1 million votes have been reported.
With less than 13 per cent of the vote in, here’s a look at Atlanta
Fulton County, which includes the Atlanta area, has Raphael Warnock up by more than 60 points, with roughly 13 per cent of the vote in.
That’s a much larger margin than Biden over Trump, who received 26 per cent of the vote to Biden’s 72 per cent.
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