ATLANTA, Georgia – As of Tuesday night, Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) held a small lead over Democrat opponent Jon Ossoff, while Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) held a very slight lead over Democrat opponent Raphael Warnock.
The outcome of the race will determine which party holds the majority in the U.S. Senate.
According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s website Tuesday as of 9:30 p.m. Eastern, Perdue had 50.48 percent of the vote or 1,492,417 votes. Ossoff had 49.5 percent of the vote or 1,463,934 votes.
Loeffler, meanwhile, had 50.11 percent of the vote or 1,481,541 votes. Warnock had 49.89 percent of the vote or 1,474,962 votes.
At a victory party rally at Atlanta’s Grand Hyatt hotel Tuesday night, Loeffler and Perdue had yet to address the crowd.
Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer, though, told members of the audience that the effort to keep Perdue and Loeffler in the U.S. Senate was “perhaps the biggest organization that the Georgia GOP has ever seen.” This included more than 1,000 people on the payrolls. Volunteers knocked on 120,000 doors a day for the last several weeks, Shafer said. He also said volunteers contacted millions of voters, made countless telephone calls and sent out millions of pieces of mail.
“This is normally the time on election day when you say that you have left it all on the field, and you wait for the ballots to be counted,” Shafer said.
“But I will tell you this. Other than the good Lord above, we are trusting no one.”
Shafer said GOP officials “will have eyes on every part of this process.”
“We will do everything in our power to restore the confidence of the people and the integrity of our elections.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp later spoke and thanked the Georgia Republican Party’s grassroots supporters, donors, and elected officials “for holding the line in Georgia.”
“We are the red wall that is trying to stop socialism in this great country,” Kemp said.
“We can’t thank you enough for the hours of sweat, your financial resources, your time that you have given.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
