Daily US Times: The Democratic Party has won control of the Senate – and of Congress overall – with two victories in the Senate runoff in Georgia.
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue respectively.
Democrats will control the House of Representatives and the Senate and the White House for the first time since 2009.
An estimated four million voters in Georgia turned out to vote in the run-off election.
The result is a severe blow for the Republican Party and outgoing President Donald Trump.
The election in Georgia was rerun because none of the candidates in the November general election achieved the 50% needed for victory under state rules.
Mr Warnock, a Baptist pastor, becomes the first black Senator for Georgia and only the 11th black member of the Senate in US history. The newly elected Senator paid tribute to his mother, Verlene, who as a teenager worked as a farm labourer.
He said: “The other day – because this is America – 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.”
With the result in Georgia, the Republicans and the Democrats will now each have 50 seats in the Senate, the upper house of Congress.
However, the incoming Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris, will have the tie-breaking vote once she takes office.
This gives the incoming president Biden’s administration a greater chance of achieving its agenda on issues such as healthcare and climate change.
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