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Warnock Scores Historic Win in Georgia Senate Race, Ossoff-Perdue Runoff
Still Too Close to Call

VOA News

   Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of two close Senate runoff races in
   the U.S. state of Georgia, putting Senate control within the party's
   reach and making Warnock the first Black Democrat to win a Senate seat
   in a former Confederate state.
   Warnock, the pastor of an Atlanta, Georgia, church once led by civil
   rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., defeated Republican incumbent
   Kelly Loeffler in a race that was called by Edison Research and the
   Associated Press early Wednesday after the candidates exchanged leads
   overnight.
   In the other Georgia Senate race, Democrat Jon Ossoff maintained a
   tighter lead over Republican Senator David Perdue, whose six-year term
   expired on Sunday. Ossoff, a former congressional aide and television
   documentary producer, claimed victory early Wednesday but the race was
   too close to declare a winner.
   An Ossoff victory would give Democrats full control of Congress,
   raising the possibility that President-elect Joe Biden and Democratic
   lawmakers can more easily enact their legislative agenda.
   Warnock and Ossoff needed heavy turnout from African American voters,
   as did Biden two months ago, when his popularity with Black voters and
   other groups allowed him to capture Georgia's 16 electoral votes by
   almost 12,000 out of 5 million votes cast.
   Warnock's win also crystalizes a years-long political shift in Georgia,
   where growing numbers of minorities and college-educated residents have
   helped turn the state from a longtime Republican stronghold into a
   swing state.
   "Georgia is in such an incredible place when you think of the arc of
   our history," Warnock said Wednesday on ABC's Good Morning America.
   "This is the reversal of the old Southern strategy that sought to
   divide people."
   President-elect Biden was quick to commend Warnock and Ossoff on
   Wednesday, although Ossoff had not been declared the winner.

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