Here’s where polling stands on Election Day for Georgia’s two US Senate runoffs
Polls show tight races in Georgia’s pair of runoffs for the U.S. Senate — with the two Democratic candidates slightly ahead — on the Jan. 5 Election Day.
None of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote in the November election as required by state law, so runoffs are being held Tuesday. First-term Republican Sen. David Perdue faces Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff for one seat, and first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler faces Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock for the other in a special election.
The outcome of the two races will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate.
Democrats already control the U.S. House of Representatives, so a Democratic-controlled Senate would give President-elect Joe Biden a clearer path toward implementing his agenda. A Republican controlled Senate, however, would likely create roadblocks for his Cabinet selections and policies, among other things.
Polling has shown both sets of candidates neck and neck since November, and the two Democrats are slightly ahead as of Tuesday. Betting odds have also shifted, with multiple oddsmakers now favoring the two Democrats as of Monday.
Here’s where polling stands as voters head to the polls Tuesday.
Perdue vs. Ossoff
Ossoff is leading Perdue by an average of 1.7 percentage points, 49.1% to 47.4%, as of Tuesday morning, according to poll analysis site FiveThirtyEight.
The race has been especially close since late November, with the lead switching several times per the FiveThirtyEight average. Ossoff pulled ahead on Dec. 30 and has maintained a narrow lead since.
RealClearPolitics’ polling data aggregator shows Ossoff up by a narrower margin, 49.3% to Perdue’s 48.8%. But poll aggregator 270toWin shows him with a stronger lead: 50.2% to Perdue’s 47.4%.
Some new polls this week also show Ossoff with a lead.
A Jan. 2-4 poll of 857 likely voters conducted by AtlasIntel shows him up by 4.5 percentage points, outside the margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The pollster was relatively accurate in the 2020 presidential race, with an average error of 1.94 points, it says. In its Oct. 26-28 poll, it showed Biden up by 4.7 percentage points. Biden won 51.4% of the popular vote to Trump’s 46.9%, or a 4.5 point win.
Two other polls added in early January, one from Targoz Market Research and the other from Insider Advantage, show the candidates tied. Another from the University of Nevada Las Vegas Lee Business School shows Perdue up by 1 percentage point, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Perdue was elected to the Senate in 2014, winning 52.9% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia. Ossoff is the CEO of an investigative media company and ran for a U.S. House seat in 2017. The race went to a runoff that Ossoff eventually lost to Republican Karen Handel.
Perdue received 49.73% of the vote compared to Ossoff’s 47.95% in the Nov. 3 election.
Loeffler vs. Warnock
FiveThirtyEight’s average shows Warnock leading Loeffler by 2.2 percentage points, 49.4% to 47.2%.
The site’s average has shown him ahead since Dec. 22. The two were tied for part of mid-December, with Loeffler pulling slightly ahead at one point.
RealClearPolitics shows Warnock leading by an average of 0.5 percentage points, and 270toWin’s average has him up by 2.8 percentage points.
The new AtlasIntel poll shows him with a larger lead than the averages: 3.9 points.
The University of Nevada Las Vegas Business School and the Insider Advantage polls show Loeffler up by 1 point.
Loeffler was appointed to her Senate seat by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after former Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down for health reasons in December 2019. Warnock is the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and chaired the New Georgia Project, a voter registration effort founded by Stacey Abrams, from 2017 until 2020.
Warnock won 32.9% of the vote to Loeffler’s 25.91% in the Nov. 3 special election, with Republican Doug Collins also in the race and garnering 20% of the vote. If Warnock wins, he would be Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator.
Importance of the runoffs
All eyes have been on Georgia’s runoff races since November.
Democrats have 48 seats and Republicans will have 50 seats in the Senate with the two Georgia seats yet to be decided. Democrats have to win both runoff races to gain control of the chamber, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as a tie breaker, and Republicans have to win just one.
Turnout for the runoffs has already been historically high, with early voting numbers surpassing turnout in any other runoff race in Georgia. More than 3 million ballots had been cast early as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Elections Project, which tracks early voting data.
Both Biden and Trump have visited Georgia to campaign for their respective parties in recent days.
Trump’s Monday rally focused largely on Vice President Mike Pence’s roll in certifying the 2020 presidential election results, saying he hopes he’ll “come through for us,” CNN reports.
His rally came as some Republicans have been concerned his continued, baseless claims about election fraud could hamper GOP turnout in the runoffs.
Georgia has historically been a Republican stronghold, and a Democrat hasn’t won one of its U.S. Senate seats in two decades.
But Biden carried the state in the Nov. 3 election with 49.5% of the vote — marking the first time a Democrat had won the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 10:49 AM with the headline "Here’s where polling stands on Election Day for Georgia’s two US Senate runoffs."
