Democrat Raphael Warnock wins Senate race in Georgia
On Wednesday, Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs. As of early morning, the second race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff was still too close to call. Yahoo Finance reporter Jessica Smith breaks down the latest news from the nation’s capital.
Video Transcript
MYLES UDLAND: Let's get right to what's going on in Georgia as of this moment. Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith joins us now from Washington, DC with the latest, Jess, on what we know as we get set for the trading session.
JESSICA SMITH: Yeah. We are still waiting on some results from Georgia this morning. But with Raphael Warnock's win, the Democrats are getting closer to controlling the Senate.
One race is still too close to call. That is the race between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue. The remaining vote seems to be from largely Democratic counties. And Ossoff is leading right now by roughly 16,000 votes.
He is confident. In a new video out this morning, he already thanked Georgia for sending him to the Senate. Let's watch.
JON OSSOFF: This campaign has been about health, and jobs, and justice for the people of this state, for all the people of this state. And they will be my guiding principles as I serve this state in the US Senate.
JESSICA SMITH: Senator Chuck Schumer has also kind of declared victory a little early here, saying that it is a new day, celebrating a Democratic-controlled Senate.
But the Purdue team is still holding out hope. In a statement, he called for time and transparency. He went on to say, "We will mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted. We believe in the end, Senator Perdue will be victorious."
Now, the Associated Press has already called the other race in Georgia. That's Raphael Warnock versus Kelly Loeffler. Warnock has defeated Loeffler by more than 53,000 votes. And he's set to become Georgia's first black senator. Here's what he had to say overnight when it became clear he won.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: We were told that we couldn't win this election. But tonight we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible.
JESSICA SMITH: Now, Loeffler has not conceded yet. She said yesterday that there is still work to do. She's headed back to DC today to object to the certification of President-elect Biden's victory.
But if Ossoff does hold onto his lead today, that means Democrats will control the Senate because of that tie-breaking vote that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have. So Biden would come into the White House with a Democratic Congress, just like President Obama did, but Biden's majorities would be very, very narrow. Myles.
MYLES UDLAND: Well, Jess, we're 13 days, if my math is right, away from the president-- the next president being sworn in, the next Congress being seated. Presumably, it sounds like both Purdue and Loeffler are going to explore their legal options.
But is there any chance that that's going to drag on beyond the 19th of January? What is the exact timeline here in terms of getting this thing settled? Because as you mentioned, today, DC, we're doing the electoral certification. We've also got all these protests out there, because-- I don't know what-- today's the coup day or whatever, according to QAnon or something. So I mean, what is the status of all that as we try to wrap this up?
JESSICA SMITH: Well, it could drag on a bit, the Ossoff race, in particular. If he does hold onto his lead, but it is still within half a percentage point, the campaign can request a recount. So that would drag things on a bit. Plus you have to go through the process of actually certifying these votes.
So it could be some time before the new senators are actually sworn in. The timeline isn't exactly clear. And again, it's going to depend on whether they do a recount, which it looks like, at least the Ossoff race, is in that margin at this point. But it could be more like January 23-ish is a date that I'm seeing that could be the earliest that they would be sworn in. But again, everything very fluid right now.
MYLES UDLAND: All right. Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith with the latest from DC.
