Georgia Senate runoffs: Democrat Raphael Warnock wins against Kelly Loeffler

Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King once preached, has won one of the two runoff elections for the US Senate in Georgia, putting the Democrats within striking distance of taking control of the upper chamber.

And Jon Ossoff declared victory over the Republican David Perdue on Wednesday morning, as he widened the lead over his opponent even though the race was still too close to call.

“I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve in the United States Senate,” he said in a live stream.

In a moment laden with historic significance, 51-year-old Warnock, who was born when Georgia was represented by two segregationist senators, becomes the first Black Democratic Senator to be elected from the south and Georgia’s first ever Black senator.

Warnock’s victory over the ultra-Trump loyalist Kelly Loeffler, who tried to paint him as a “dangerous radical”, was called by Associated Press just after 2am.

It solidifies the astonishing transformation that has seen Georgia reshape itself from a southern Republican stronghold into a diverse and increasingly progressive state, just two months after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there in almost three decades.

In a short, streamed address, Warnock claimed victory noting that his mother who had been a teenage sharecropper had voted for him.

“The 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” he said.

The result puts the Democrats just one seat away from gaining control of the Senate. The second run-off election of the night, that of Ossoff, a former documentary film-maker, against the Republican incumbent David Perdue, was still too close to call with fewer than 2,000 votes between them.

Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, issued a statement early on Wednesday said they were confident he would also win.

“The outstanding vote is squarely in parts of the state where Jon’s performance has been dominant. We look forward to seeing the process through in the coming hours and moving ahead so Jon can start fighting for all Georgians in the US Senate,” she said.

Election staff resumed counting ballots around 8am local time on Wednesday after pausing in the early hours.

Warnock said on Wednesday morning: “I cannot tell you how honored I am that the people have decided to send me to the US Senate to represent their concerns at this defining moment in American history.”

Asked in a live interview on the NBC Today show if he thought his defeated opponent, Loeffler, who has not yet conceded the race, would try to draw out the contest, Warnock said, beaming: “I expect to serve in just a few days in the US Senate.”

He added that his success, as a child who grew up in public housing, was an example of what strong federal public policy could achieve.

“I’m sitting here, but it’s slipping away from too many people,” he said.

Underlining the significance of the two Georgia Senate runoffs more than 4 million Georgians cast ballot in the two races, exceeding the number of votes cast in the state during the 2016 presidential race.

Significantly voter turnout in rural, white counties where Republicans needed a strong showing appears to have struggled without Donald Trump on the ballot while Black voters appear to have been energised by the momentum of Trump’s defeat in November when Joe Biden became the first Democrat to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.

A Democratic sweep of both runoffs, now potentially within the party’s grasp, would have seismic ramifications. It would strip the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, of his vice-like grip over the Senate which under his control has been likened to a “legislative graveyard”.

By extension, it would vastly widen the vistas of the incoming Biden administration over such critical and potentially epochal areas as tackling the climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, appointing federal judges, and addressing racial and income inequality.

Taken on its own, Warnock’s triumph marked a dramatic moment in American politics.

The first time a Democrat has been sent by Georgia to the US Senate in 24 years, it raises several awkward questions for the Republican party that has seen its dominance in the state crumble in such short order.

There is also likely to be soul-searching over whether Trump’s refusal to concede defeat in November’s presidential race, and his ongoing attempts to overturn the results of the election, damaged the party’s standing among moderate Republicans.

The president-elect himself summed up the high stakes on the eve of election day at a rally in Atlanta. He told the crowd: “One state can chart the course not just for the next four years, but for the next generation.”

Warnock delivered what amounted to a victory speech before any of the TV networks or Associated Press had called his race. Shortly after midnight, with his lead over Loeffler looking increasingly solid, he went online and introduced himself effectively as Georgia’s new senator-to-be.

Calling himself a “son of Georgia whose roots are planted deeply in Georgia soil”, he promised to work in the Senate for all of the state’s people, despite many predicting he could not win the election.

Related: Georgia Senate runoff elections – live results

Warnock’s lead in a race in which he was relentlessly attacked by Loeffler and the Republicans as a far-left “socialist” was presaged by the candidates’ contrasting fortunes in turnout. In Republican areas of the state, turnout was notably down on the presidential race in November which Biden won by a paper-thin margin.

By contrast, Democratic-leaning counties saw both Warnock and Ossoff markedly improve on Biden’s record.

As Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report pointed out, turnout in majority African American counties was especially striking. “Black turnout looks, frankly, phenomenal,” he wrote on Twitter.

Throughout Tuesday, polling stations across the state reported a steady stream of voters who defied a devastating surge in coronavirus infections in Georgia to vote in person. Individual Georgians went to extreme lengths to take part in what have been described as elections that could set the course of America for a generation.

According to state election officials, the number of Georgians who had cast their votes in advance of election day – either through absentee ballots or by early voting – reached 3.1 million. That, on its own, smashed the standing record set in 2008 for a Senate runoff in Georgia which attracted a total of 2.1 million voters.

By the time the final votes are counted, election officials suggested the total is likely to reach 4.6m – more than double the 2008 record.

For participation in runoff elections to surpass that of a presidential race was extremely rare, and was welcomed as a positive signal by Democrats given that Biden soundly defeated Trump in Dekalb county by 83% to 16% in November.

Stacey Abrams, who has been seminal in building a Democratic ground game through her group Fair Fight, put out a tentatively celebratory tweet shortly before midnight, when both runoff elections remained in the balance. “With new votes joining the tally, we are on a strong path,” she said, adding: “Across our state, we roared.”

Fears of trouble or even violence outside polling stations did not materialize. Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, told CNN that “we have never seen an election is more secure and has had more integrity.”

• This article was amended on 6 January 2021 to correct a misspelling on Jon Ossoff’s name.