The Democratic nominee gets 50.7 percent of the vote after hours of a neck-and-neck race. President Joe Biden’s party can thus expand its wafer-thin majority in the US Senate. For former President Donald Trump, the result is another defeat.
In the US state of Georgia, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock won the runoff against Republican challenger Herschel Walker. This was reported by the US television channels CNN and NBC on Tuesday evening (local time) based on vote counts and forecasts. President Joe Biden’s Democrats are thus expanding their wafer-thin majority in the US Senate.
According to CNN, Warnock received 50.7 percent of the votes cast, or just over 1.73 million votes, almost 50,000 votes more than his Republican competitor. After the polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, it looked like a stalemate situation with both candidates at exactly 50 percent before Warnock won the race shortly after 10:30 p.m. local time.
Election turnout was high both at the polling stations and in postal voting, said Returning Officer Gabriel Sterling on CNN. “People in Georgia were very motivated to vote for her.”
The runoff election in Georgia became necessary because none of the candidates received the required absolute majority in the nationwide midterm elections in the US southern state a month ago.
The Democrats had already secured 50 of the 100 seats in the Senate during the so-called midterms in November – and thus regained control of the important chamber of congresses. Because the Democratic US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is also President of the Senate, is allowed to vote in a stalemate. With the mandate of Democrat Warnock, the party now has a 51st seat in the chamber – and a somewhat more comfortable majority than before.