Unpacking the race for control of Washington.
| | | | | |  | | By POLITICO Staff | | 
| Democrat Jon Ossoff has defeated Republican David Perdue in the remaining Georgia Senate race — clinching control of the chamber for his party after fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock triumphed in the state's other runoff election. His victory resets the Senate's balance of power at 50-50, securing a Democratic majority for the first time since 2014 due to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's ability to cast tie-breaking votes in the chamber once she is inaugurated. The first of those will make Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) the majority leader, relegating current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to the minority after six years in charge of the Senate. Democrats' twin victories in Georgia have huge implications for President-elect Joe Biden's legislative agenda, as he will not be forced to navigate a Republican Senate during the opening years of his administration. The results of the Senate flip could be felt almost immediately. Ossoff and Warnock campaigned vigorously on additional Covid-19 relief measures, while Senate GOP leaders had declined to commit to additional stimulus funding after recently approving a $900 billion package. The close divide in the Senate will still give outsize power to moderates in both parties. | | | Warnock beats Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler: With more than 4 million votes counted, Warnock held a slim lead over Loeffler of just over a percentage point. The Democrats had been trailing, but received a huge boost as a large number of votes from Democratic-heavy DeKalb County were counted late Tuesday night. The Loeffler-Warnock race placed heavy weight on two relatively untested candidates and had also been imbued with racial and gender political dynamics. Warnock was attacked the most out of the four candidates in paid TV commercials during the Georgia runoffs, POLITICO reported earlier this week. Warnock will serve the remaining two years of Loeffler's term but will have to run for reelection to a full term in 2022. He is the first Black Democrat to win election to the Senate from a Southern state and will be just the 11th Black senator in history. | 
Election results as of 4:55 p.m. EST on Nov. 6 with 98 percent of the expected vote in. | Ossoff beats Perdue: Ossoff, an investigative journalist and former congressional candidate, had 50.3 percent of the vote to Perdue's 49.7 percent when The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday, with 98 percent of precincts reporting. Ossoff, at 33, is the youngest Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate since Joe Biden in 1972. | 
Election results as of 4:55 p.m. EST on Nov. 6 with 98 percent of the expected vote in. | | | | The 2020 elections are done and now, so is this newsletter. There's a new party controlling Washington, but 2021 brings its own set of challenges. With an ongoing global pandemic, the lingering effects of last year's social unrest and historic unemployment, America's political discord and record inequality will take center stage. Here's how you can stay up to date: • Sign up for POLITICO Playbook, an insider's daily briefing on what's driving Washington. We're getting a revamp, bringing in a new, larger team of writers and taking a broader focus on politics and power. • Sign up for Transition Playbook, the definitive guide to the new administration and one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history.
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