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Welcome to The Runoff Report
January 6, 2020
Republicans have secured 50 seats in the next U.S. Senate compared to 48 seats for Democrats (including two independents who caucus with them). Control of the next Senate will has come down to Georgia's runoff elections. In The Runoff Report, we provide the latest on each runoff and the fight for Senate control.
Where things stand
As of 2 p.m. ET today, Raphael Warnock (D) was projected as the winner of the special runoff election while the regular runoff remained too close to call. Senate control was still undetermined.
Warnock won with 50.6% of the vote to incumbent Kelly Loeffler's (R) 49.4%, according to unofficial results available as of Wednesday morning. Warnock will be the first Black U.S. senator from Georgia. Georgia's last Democratic senator, Zell Miller, left office in 2005.
In the regular runoff election, Jon Ossoff (D) led David Perdue (R) 50.2% to 49.8%. Ballotpedia will not project a winner until there is a consensus projection made by a pool of five national news outlets: ABC, CNN, FOX, NBC, and NYT. None of the outlets had called the election as of 2 p.m. ET today.
With Warnock's win, the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate will have 49 members, while there are 50 Republicans in the chamber. If Perdue wins re-election, Republicans will maintain their Senate majority with 51 members. If Ossoff wins, Democrats will split the chamber 50-50 and Kamala Harris (D) will cast tie-breaking votes.
Runoff winners will be sworn in once results are certified, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) has until Jan. 22 to certify statewide results. Perdue was elected to the Senate in 2014, and his term ended Jan. 3. His seat will remain vacant until the runoff election results are certified. Gov. Brian Kemp (R) appointed Loeffler after Johnny Isakson (R) resigned at the end of 2019 for health reasons. Once sworn in, Warnock will serve the remaining two years of the term Isakson won in 2016.
Turnout
ABC News reported Wednesday morning that at least 4.4 million people voted in the runoffs. Votes are still being counted. Around 5 million people voted in the Nov. 3 general election.
Before this year, Georgia had held two runoffs for U.S. Senate: one in 2008 and one in 1992. In 2008, turnout between the general and runoff elections decreased 43%. In 1992, turnout decreased 44%. So far, turnout in 2021 has been about 12% lower than in November 2020.
Local station WABE reporter Emma Hurt tweeted the following this morning:
Outstanding absentee ballots that we know of:
DeKalb: 17,902
Henry: 9,078
Cobb: 5896
Chatham: 5318
Fulton: 5294
Gwinnett: 5068
(all of the above, D leaning)
Thomas: 2078
Bryan: 1515
Meriwether: 1325
Dougherty: 1200
Fayette: 1139
Forsyth: 752
Pivot and Reverse-Pivot County voting
Last month, we looked at voting patterns in Georgia's Pivot and Reverse-Pivot counties. Here's how they voted in the Senate runoffs compared to the Senate races in November based on unofficial results available Wednesday morning.
Georgia's five Pivot Counties voted for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012, then Donald Trump (R) in 2016. All five voted for Trump again in 2020.
Georgia's three Reverse-Pivot Counties voted for John McCain (R) in 2008 and Mitt Romney (R) in 2012 and then for Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016. All three supported Biden (D) in 2020.
For the Nov. 3 special election, we combined votes for all eight Democratic candidates and all six Republican candidates and compared those to Warnock's and Loeffler's runoff votes, respectively.
 
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