The polls have closed in two runoff races that will determine the balance of power in the United States Senate and much of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ability to enact his agenda early in his term.
The races feature two Republican candidates — Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, whose Senate term ended on Sunday — trying to fend off their Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, in contests that have drawn national attention and unprecedented levels of campaign spending.
Both Mr. Biden and President Trump campaigned in the state on Monday, a sign of the high stakes of the races. If either Republican candidate wins, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, will remain the majority leader. But if both Democrats win on Tuesday, the party will gain control of the chamber, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaking vote.
Polling and early voting data — which showed that more than 3 million Georgians voted before Election Day — suggest it will be an extremely tight race. Polling is so close that in the FiveThirtyEight average, none of the four candidates broke 50 percent. A tight race could mean the counting could drag later into the week, as it did in the general election in November.
As votes are tallied, experts have told the public to brace for possible lead changes. Republicans are expected to jump to an early lead on Tuesday evening with in-person votes — which have favored that party during the coronavirus pandemic — counted faster, along with ballots cast in more rural and conservative areas. More Democratic counties in and around Atlanta are expected to take longer to tabulate their votes.
Mr. Biden narrowly carried Georgia in November, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1992. That win has lifted the party’s hopes before the runoffs. But Democrats did not fare as well down ballot. Mr. Perdue far outpaced Mr. Ossoff by nearly 90,000 votes in November, suggesting that Democrats still have to make up ground to win the runoff.
The racial makeup of the final electorate will be crucial in a state where Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats and white voters back Republicans. According to data compiled by georgiavotes.com, Black voters made up a larger share of early voters for the runoff — nearly 31 percent — than they did in the general election, when it was closer to 28 percent.
Mr. Warnock, who is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the spiritual home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is seeking to become the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South. He and Mr. Ossoff, a 33-year-old documentary film…
Read More: Ossoff, Perdue, Loeffler and Warnock: Live Tracker