Contesting Control of the Senate

Abstract

Following the 2020 election, Republicans controlled 50 seats in the U.S. Senate and Democrats controlled the other 48 seats. Control of the Senate hinged upon runoff elections for two Senate seats in Georgia, which Democratic challenger Joe Biden carried narrowly over Republican President Donald Trump. Georgia law requires a runoff election between the two candidates with the most votes if no candidate gets a majority of votes on Election Day. In the runoff elections on January 5, 2021, Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff’s and Warnock’s victories resulted in a 50–50 tie between the two parties, and because incoming Vice President Kamala Harris is a Democrat the outcomes of these runoff elections gave the Democrats majority control of the Senate. Because both elections were expected to be close, and because leaders of both parties knew that majority control of the Senate depended on their outcomes, unprecedented amounts of campaign funds were spent on the runoffs and prominent political figures in both parties visited Georgia to campaign for their respective parties’ nominees. In both runoff elections, the two Democrats won substantial majorities in the rapidly growing Atlanta metropolitan area, allowing them to more than offset Republican majorities in other parts of the state. As the Atlanta metropolitan area continues to grow and continues to trend toward the Democrats, Republicans face a dilemma as they seek to retain political power in Georgia.