The state of Georgia voted this Tuesday in a very tight elections that will decide which party controls the Senate during the first two years in power of the president-elect, Joe Biden , and therefore, if The new leader will be able to undertake reforms of a certain depth.
More than three hours after the first polls closed, and with the 87% scrutinized, the two Republican Senate candidates led by a narrow margin in the vote count , but it was expected that the Official count will still take hours to complete.
A race adjusted to the maximum
The two incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, had more than 51% of the ballots at this point in the count, while their Democratic rivals – journalist Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock , respectively- were around 05%.
Preliminary results pointed to a high participation of African-Americans, mostly Democrats, and a weaker-than-expected performance by Perdue and Loeffler in Republican fiefdoms across the state, giving Biden’s party cause for optimism.
In addition, Perdue had a wider advantage over his opponent than Loeffler had over his; Therefore, some commentators already predicted a possible defeat of the second.
However, state authorities and the media stressed that the The race was too close to predict a winner , while millions of Americans waited in suspense for results as crucial for Biden as for the Republicans who will be his opposition.
A test for both Biden and Trump
The elections are a second round after none of the candidates will exceed 50% of the votes in the elections on November 3 , when there were still more applicants at stake.
Republicans only need to win one of the seats at stake in Georgia to retain control of the Senate until at least 2023, while the Democrats should conquer the two seats that are disputed to wrest the reins of that chamber from the conservatives.
The elections are expected to also show the degree even to which the outgoing US president, Donald Trump, has influenced Republican voters with his denunciations without proof that the November elections were fraudulent.
Trump, who lost to Biden in Georgia, has pressured state authorities for two months to “find” votes in his favor while spreading disinformation about an alleged fraud in the territory, which has generated strong tensions with those responsible electoral bodies in the territory, which are Republicans.
“It will be the fault of Trump”
“(If the two Republican senators lose their seat), the blame will be entirely on President Trump and the actions he has taken since November 3,” the person in charge of the implementation told CNN on Tuesday. introduction of Georgia’s voting system, Gabriel Sterling.
That same official on Monday accused Trump of “ undermining the faith of the residents of Georgia in the electoral system l, especially that of the Republicans ”, and warned that there could be less participation of the conservatives due to the unfounded allegations of fraud by the president.
Trump campaigned on Monday in the state, but used most of the rally to defend his own anti-democratic maneuvers to interfere in the outcome of the presidential elections, a sterile feat in which he has counted with the support of the two Republican senators for Georgia.
This Tuesday night, and the president again tried to sow distrust in the results in Georgia, tweeting that someone in the state appeared to be “waiting to see how many more votes they need” to hurt Republican candidates.
Records in spending and early voting
The Georgia elections have been the most expensive legislative contest in U.S. history, and more than 3 million of the 7.6 million Registered voters in the state cast their ballots in advance , a record for a runoff election in the territory.
Election day is It ran with few hiccups, and while there were lines of about an hour in certain mostly Republican counties, the median wait time to vote in the state was one minute, Sterling said.
That official warned that the final results would probably not be known for “a couple of days” due to the need to process early voting and by mail, in addition to the ballots issued by the military abroad, which can go until Friday.
If the two democr candidates atas will win in Georgia, the Senate will be divided into 50 seats of one party and others 50 of the other, but the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, could break any possible tie , since her new position implies being also the Speaker of the Upper House.
In that case, Biden will have a much easier time approving candidates for his cabinet and pushing forward his legislative priorities, since in many cases just one Simple majority of 51 votes to approve or prevent a change in the Senate, and Democrats already control the Lower House.