All eyes are on the southern state of Georgia, where the future of the United States Senate will be decided on Tuesday with the election of the two senators who will represent this territory.
But not only that, the result will have important implications in the development of the presidency of Joe Biden and in how much the democrat will be able to achieve in his first term.
1. Why are there elections in Georgia?
According to the rules of that state, for a candidate for senator to be declared the winner he needs the 51% of the votes and in November none got them.
Then, the two candidates who obtained the most votes went to a kind of second round that is celebrated on the 5th January.
2. Who are the candidates in Georgia?
In both races, we have a Republican in office facing a Democratic candidate.
On one side are Republican Senator David Perdue , of 70 years, against Democrat Jon Ossoff, of 50.
Perdue has performed as Senator of Georgia since 2015 . The former CEO of Reebok was an early supporter of Donald Trump and has remained an ally of the president .
Now he faces a strong scrutiny for carrying out transactions of shares of companies whose scope of business falls under its jurisdiction in the Senate committees of which it is part. He has denied having committed any crime.
Ossoff launched his campaign with the backing of civil rights defender John Lewis , who died in July.
Before taking the reins of documentary producer Insight TWI, he worked five years for Congressman Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Atlanta.
His youth is one of his strengths, although his rivals accuse him of lack of experience.
On the other hand, there are the s enadora Republican Kelly Loeffler, of 51 years, who faces the r everendo Raphael Warnock, of 52 .
Loeffler, the senator junior from Georgia , is still perceived as a newcomer to politics. She was appointed to the United States Senate in December 2019 by Governor Brian Kemp after the sitting senator resigned.
It is one of the richest senators . She is a co-owner of the NBA women’s team Atlanta Dream. Given his opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, league players asked him to sell their stake.
Reverend Warnock is pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the leader of the civil rights Martin Luther King Jr .
Along with rising Democratic star Stacey Abrams, initiated the New Georgia Project , an organization to promote the law to vote. The group is under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State for allegedly sending vote requests to non-residents.
3. Why are elections so important in Georgia?
The upper house of the United States Congress, the Senate, has been controlled by the Republican party since 2014 .
This instance is key for the approval of laws and the confirmation of the appointments of the cabinet and the judges of the Supreme Court , the highest court in the country.
If Democrats win in Georgia, the two additional seats would give them effective control of the Senate.
Each match would have 50 Senators and in case of a tie the Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris would have the deciding vote .
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC Washington correspondent DC
If Democrats win both seats and achieve a tie 51 – 50 in the upper house, not safe what bid in order to enact the kind of radical legislation that he proposed during his successful presidential campaign on issues such as the environment, health care and the economy. 
The narrow margin will ensure that any law has to be supported by Democratic senators centrists .
However, it will give the new president the opportunity to fight for legislative achievements and will make it much easier for him the appointment of government officials and federal judges of their choice.
If Republicans succeed in retaining control of the Senate, that would mean two more years of divided government and probably legislative deadlock.
4. How has the campaign been in Georgia?
A lot of money has been invested in the campaigns of the four candidates, but the Democrats have registered record numbers.
The Loeffler-Warnock race has received more media attention, in part because it has been more energetic and vocal .
The senator accuses Warnock of be a “radical liberal” who courts Marxism and wants to stop funding the police.
Warnock, for his part, adheres to a fairly centrist Democratic message that emphasizes the need to confront the coronavirus pandemic and provide health care to the population.
Given his ties to Martin Luther King Jr, the reverend is well known among African Americans in a state that has a higher proportion of black voters than average states of the country.
Georgia has about a 70% of population blanc a not latin a, in front of a 33% of population black a, according to the census data of 2019.
Black residents accounted for nearly half of the 1.9 million increase in the voting population in Georgia from 2000, according to the Pew Research Center.
In 2020, 2.5 million black voters made up a third of that state’s total electorate.
Biden-Harris’ victory in November was the first in 32 years in Georgia for a Democratic presidential formula.
5. Who has the upper hand in Georgia?
No Democratic candidate has won the Senate race in Georgia in decades, so it will be an uphill fight for them.
The two Republican candidates obtained the most votes in both Senate races when they were held in November .
But Biden won by a narrow margin in Georgia in the presidential race by leveraging an effective campaign to get African Americans out to vote.
Polls show very competitive competition adjusted in both races, although some doubt about the reliability of the polls.
Voting by mail began weeks ago and the first indications suggest a high participation , possibly a record for a second round in the state.
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