Two weeks before he is sworn in as president of the US, Joe Biden received a much-needed boost as the Democrats are certain to take control of the Senate.
Control of the Senate hinged on two races in Georgia. Democrats winning both seats would mean Republicans and Democrats have 50 senators each and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris could cast a tie-breaking vote.
Decision Desk, a US election monitoring agency, on Wednesday morning projected Democrat Jon Ossoff as the winner of the Senate race against Republican David Perdue, with Ossoff holding a lead of less than 1 per cent with 98 per cent votes counted.
Perdue's campaign issued a statement late on Tuesday night, noting the election was "exceptionally close" and time and transparency was needed "to be certain the results are fair and accurate". Warning of the possibility of legal wrangling, the Perdue campaign said the Republican will be victorious.
Earlier in the day, Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock made history by becoming the first black man to win a Senate race in Georgia. Warnock defeated incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler in a bitterly fought contest.
At 33 years of age, Ossoff would be the Senate's youngest member.
Associated Press highlighted the importance of the Senate races in Georgia. "This week’s elections mark the formal finale to the turbulent 2020 election season more than two months after the rest of the nation finished voting. The unusually high stakes transformed Georgia, once a solidly Republican state, into one of the nation’s premier battlegrounds for the final days of Trump’s presidency—and likely beyond. Both contests tested whether the political coalition that fueled Biden’s November victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new electoral landscape."
With Democrat control of both the House and Senate, Biden can look forward to a smooth path to push contentious legislation.
