Ayyyeee… What’s Goodie Everyone. So I got some tea and it involves the Georgia Senate Runoff elections.
Democrats won control of the U.S. Senate with victories in Georgia’s two runoff elections. Jon Ossoff(D) defeated David Perdue (R), whose Senate term lapsed on Sunday and Raphael Warnock(D) won his race against Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler.
During a live streamed speech, Warnock claimed victory and thanked his supporters in an emotional address that noted he had received a vote from his mother. “The 82 year old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” said Warnock, the pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. “We were told that we couldn’t win this election,” Warnock continued. “But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.” Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, issued a statement Wednesday expressing confidence that he would win because of the location of the uncounted ballots.
“We look forward to seeing the process through in the coming hours and moving ahead so Jon can start fighting for all Georgians in the U.S. Senate.”
Ossoff and Warnock, who reject the “socialist” label, closed the campaign promising dramatic changes in Washington, including a $1,400 increase to the $600 stimulus checks Congress approved last month, a surge in vaccine distribution, new civil rights legislation and an ambitious jobs and infrastructure bill. The Republican controlled Senate had tabled the larger stimulus checks, holding to the lower level.
Jon Ossoff, will be the youngest newly elected Democratic senator since Joe Biden in 1973. Raphael Warnock will be the first African American Democratic senator from a former Confederate state.
Ossoff and Warnock lead their opponents by more than the 0.5 percentage point threshold for a recount.