Democrats to take control of the Senate as Jon Ossoff wins in Georgia

Jon Ossoff

As violent Trump supporters have stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from counting the electoral votes that made Joe Biden the president-elect, Jon Ossoff has been projected to defeat David Perdue, winning his Georgia Senate runoff and giving Democrats the narrowest possible control of the Senate. Ossoff’s lead is larger than Biden’s win in the state in November, and is expected to grow outside the 0.5% margin under which Perdue could request a recount.

Ossoff joins Senator-elect Raphael Warnock in making history, as Georgia will send to Washington, D.C., its first Black senator and its first Jewish one. Just over a century ago, Georgia was the site of the anti-Semitic lynching of Leo Frank. His win comes on a day when we are reminded of the nation’s history of white supremacist violence.

With Ossoff and Warnock, the Senate’s partisan split will be 50-50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, breaking ties. This makes Biden’s job in the early weeks of his presidency much, much easier—rather than a series of protracted confirmation battles, with Mitch McConnell in the majority leader role refusing to even give some nominees a vote, Biden can make the nominations he wants and focus on other things. But, again, the events of the day are a stark reminder of how much damage there is to undo.