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Political analysts discuss impact of Georgia races on US Senate control

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Published  November 5, 2020 12:24am EST
2020 Election
FOX 5 Atlanta

Battle to represent Georgia in the Senate

Georgia's two Senate races could go into runoffs.

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. - With thousands of ballots still being counted, Georgia could play a major role in Democrat’s path to a Senate majority.

Two Senate seats are still up for grabs in the state.

Experts said the chances of Democrats gaining a Senate majority is slim. However, with so many uncounted ballots in Georgia, they said Democrats could narrowly take control.

"If there's two special elections coming up, control of the senate is gonna be decided by Georgia," University of North Georgia Political Science Professor Glen Smith said.

Democrats were hoping to take back control of the U.S. Senate. However, the GOP has maintained many of its key seats.

Republican Kelly Loeffler will face off against Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock in a runoff in the special election.

"Warnock is a very strong candidate, strong messaging that appeals to a lot of voters," Dr. Joshua Meddaugh, Associate Professor of Political Science at Clayton State University, said.

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Warnock received the majority of votes during Tuesday’s election.

"Loeffler's gonna have to go ahead, and not only distance herself from the 'Trumpism" that she was pushing - has to go to more of the conservative roots of Doug Collins and really start talking about the few things she was able to do while in the Senate," Meddaugh explained.

He said the Democrats might have a chance to gain control only if there's a runoff between Republican Senator David Perdue and challenger Jon Ossoff as well.

"A lot of eyes are going to be on that race and it's not that Ossoff is gonna like win outright. The real push right now is the slide back of Perdue under 50% because that will trigger the run-off."

Even though Perdue has 50% of the vote, Ossoff's team isn’t saying whether they’ll concede just yet.

Experts said the votes in several metro Atlanta counties will determine the outcome of both the Senate and presidential races.

"It's because Atlanta is one of the fastest moving cities in the country. It is a large metro area and what we are seeing is those large metro areas are predominately blue and it's indicative of what's going on in the whole country," Meddaugh detailed.