Watching the runoffs: Two Georgia representatives call for Trump’s removal

Bourdeaux joined those calls Wednesday afternoon.

“In light of the personal responsibility Trump bears for today’s events and his flagrant efforts to undermine the election in Georgia, I recommend the House move forward with impeachment proceedings immediately,” she said.

McBath chimed in Wednesday evening with a different proposal.

“Tonight, I am asking Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and begin the process of removing President Trump from office,” she said.

“The eyes of the world are upon us, and the president’s incitement of violence, his inducement of chaos, and his inability to faithfully discharge the powers and duties of his office make it clear,” McBath said. “The president has refused to protect our democracy and must be removed.”

Under the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the president can be replaced by the vice president if he is unable to perform the powers and duties of his office.

4:21 p.m.

Ossoff defeats Perdue

Democrat Jon Ossoff has defeated Republican David Perdue in Georgia’s second U.S. Senate race. Democrats will control the U.S. Senate. You can read more here.

With victories by Ossoff and fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock, Georgia has cemented its place as a swing state. Read more here.

4:05 p.m. update

Georgians react to attack on nation’s capitol

Some Georgians were quick to condemn the attack on U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump Wednesday.

Gov. Brian Kemp called the attack “absolutely disgraceful” and “un-American.”

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan also condemned the rioting.

As did Attorney General Chris Carr.

Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting systems manager who has decried the president’s unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud, called the riots an “attempted coup.”

Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock called for Americans to “be a light to see our country out of this dark moment,” quoting the words of Martin Luther King Jr.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican from Georgia, encouraged the president’s supporters to “Be safe. Be smart. Stay peaceful. Obey the laws.”

“This is not a time for violence,” Greene said.

The president himself asked his supporters at the Capitol to remain peaceful.

Not every Georgian condemned the day’s events. Debbie Dooley, co-founder of Tea Party movement and a supporter of the president, said to riots would encourage “weak kneed Republicans” to “be more afraid of us.”

2:46 p.m. update

Raffensperger escorted out of Georgia Capitol

By Chris Joyner

Georgia Capitol Police escorted Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff out of the Capitol Wednesday afternoon after Donald Trump supporters attempted to enter the building to deliver written grievances over the Nov. 3 election.

”We heard reports of threats and left immediately,” said spokeswoman Deputy Secretary of State Jordon Fuchs.

The development followed a small peaceful “Stop the Steal” rally that stood in contrast to the mayhem that erupted in Washington when thousands of Trump supporter stormed the U.S. Capitol and forced Congress to suspend the official certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

While angry about the outcome of the elections, the smallish crowd, some carrying assault-style weapons, was peaceful. Motorists offered a mix of catcalls and supportive honks as a contingent of state troopers watched from the Capitol grounds.

The group included about two dozen members of the far-right militia movement and some other notable figures, including former Ku Klux Klan leader Chester Doles, who made national headlines when he posed for a photo with Sen. Kelly Loeffler at a Republican campaign event last month.

Friends Kathy Conley and Kay Causey drove from Adairsville for the rally and to express their discontent with Gov. Brian Kemp.

”We will primary him out. Don’t worry,” Conley said from beneath her red Trump cap. “They think we are ignorant but we’re not.”

”He’s a coward or he’s corrupt,” Causey added.

Both women expressed their deep convictions that the November election – and probably earlier elections too -- were rigged.

Asked why a Republican governor would defraud a Republican president, Causey saw two reason: money and globalism.

China does a lot of business here, and China and the new world order are synonymous,” she said.

Both women said they are conservatives but don’t consider themselves loyal to the Republican Party.

”I’m loyal to America,” Conley said.

Conley said the upside to the disappointment of the election outcome is that “people are starting to wake up.”

2:35 p.m.

Gwinnett adjudicating ballots

By J. Scott Trubey

Amid a surreal spectacle of protesters storming the nation’s capitol, vote counting continued in metro Atlanta.

About 2 p.m., Gwinnett County officials determined about 20 ballots within 17 batches of absentee votes needed adjudication to sort out issues before they could be counted.

The county notified the Democratic and Republican parties to send representatives.

A county spokesman said they hope to form two adjudication panels to review the ballots. Spokesman Joe Sorenson said they hope to form the panels by about 3:30 p.m., and the work should move quickly.

If the panels can sort out the issues, they’ll finish counting all 4,800 ballots today. If not, the county might only report those from batches without ballots under review.

2 p.m. update

Obama joins chorus congratulating Warnock

Former President Barack Obama joined a chorus of voices congratulating Democrat Raphael Warnock on his victory in the U.S. Senate race.

“My friend John Lewis is surely smiling down on his beloved Georgia this morning, as people across the state carried forward the baton that he and so many others passed down to them,” Obama said in a statement released Wednesday.

Obama credited grassroots organizing and the leadership of Stacey Abrams with Warnock’s victory, as well as President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in November.

“Georgia’s first Black senator will make the chamber more reflective of our country as a whole and open the door for a Congress that can forego gridlock for gridlock’s sake to focus instead on the many crises facing our nation—pandemic relief for struggling families, voting rights, protecting our planet, and more,” the former president said.

Obama urged citizens to remain engaged in civic life outside of election season.

“In recent years, our institutions, our democracy, and truth itself have been greatly tested by those who’ve chosen to prioritize personal gain or political ambition over our democratic principles,” Obama said. “And even a good election will not eliminate those threats.”

“Yet we should also remember that in two weeks, we will inaugurate a new president,” he said. “He will have a chance to work with a new Senate and House on the business of the American people.

“If we want to protect the gains we’ve made, achieve even more progress in the years to come, and reinforce the foundations of self-governance on which our country rests, there’s no better path to follow than the one forged by the determined, organized, and confidently hopeful people of Georgia,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, Biden followed up his earlier statement of congratulations with phone calls to Warnock and Ossoff.

“Georgia voters delivered a resounding message yesterday: they want action on the crises we face and they want it right now,” Biden said on Twitter this afternoon.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris also tweeted her congratulations.

1:12 p.m. update

AP: Republican wins Georgia Public Service Commission race

The Associated Press has declared Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. the winner in the race for Georgia Public Service Commission.

McDonald, 82, defeated Democrat Daniel Blackman. McDonald has served 17 years on the Public Service Commission, which oversees utility and energy issues and decides what Georgia Power and Atlanta Gas Light can charge consumers and businesses.

You can read more about the race here.

11:53 a.m. update

Biden congratulates Warnock, optimistic Ossoff will win

President-elect Joe Biden Wednesday congratulated Raphael Warnock on his victory in his Georgia Senate race and expressed optimism that Jon Ossoff also would win.

“I congratulate the people of Georgia, who turned out in record numbers once again, just as they did in November, to elect two new senators, demand action and call on our elected leaders to end the gridlock and move us forward as a nation,” Biden said.

He also congratulated “the twin powers of Georgia, Stacey Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms, who have laid the difficult groundwork necessary to encourage turnout and protect the vote over these last years.”

Even as President Donald Trump leveled more unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud, Biden congratulated election workers who, “in a pandemic, with historic turnout and under immense political pressure, upheld their duty to hold a free and fair election.”

The president-elect pledged swift action on the coronavirus pandemic, as well as action economic relief, climate change, racial justice and voting rights. And he reiterated his pledge to work with both parties “to get big things done for our nation.”

11:04 a.m. update

Fulton County resumes vote counting

By Ben Brasch and Ernie Suggs

Fulton County resumed counting ballots at 9:30 a.m. - an hour later than election officials had planned.

Fulton elections director Richard Barron told county commissioners Wednesday morning there are 7,500 absentee ballots left to be uploaded. Fulton spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt said there are 2,700 left to be processed at Georgia World Congress Center.

Mail-in ballots take more time to count because they are more complicated to tabulate. There are a variety of reasons, including an adjudication process that allows ballots with stray markings or other irregularities to be reviewed by poll watchers from each party.

The adjudication process for those remaining ballots will begin today at 3 p.m. That means Fulton’s ballots won’t be uploaded until after 3 p.m., Barron said. The process will occur at the county’s English Street warehouse, which is where votes are actually uploaded once they’ve been adjudicated.

Barron said the number of provisional ballots was unknown. Corbitt said provisional ballots have until 5 p.m. Friday to be cured, which is also the deadline for overseas/military ballots.

Meanwhile, in DeKalb County, as officials prepare to resume counting at the Voter Registration and Elections Office, a caravan of about 20 minivans paraded through the parking lot blowing their horns. Representing NACA, each of the vans had Warnock and Ossoff signs attached to them. After about 2 revolutions, they were kicked off the property.

10:05 a.m. update

Trump makes more unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in Georgia

President Donald Trump continues to make unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud involving Georgia elections.

In a post on Twitter Wednesday morning, the president claimed Georgia election workers “just happened to find 50,000 ballots late last night.”

The claim was quickly rebutted by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

“No Mr. President, there weren’t ‘found’ ballots,” said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager.

“We have known the number of advanced votes since this weekend,” Sterling wrote on Twitter. “We saw record Election Day turnout. As of Monday 970,000 absentees had been accepted. 31k more were added in yesterday’s totals. That leaves 60k that came in yesterday.”

The president has been making unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud involving the presidential race in Georgia for weeks. None of those claims have held up in court – most recently on Tuesday, when a federal judge rejected Trump’s request to decertify Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.

Investigators from the Secretary of State’s Office and the U.S. Justice Department have found no evidence of widespread voting fraud in Georgia or in other states.

9:40 a.m. update

Vote counting resumes across metro Atlanta

By J. Scott Trubey

Metro Atlanta counties will resume counting ballots for the runoff election today.

Tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted. But counting generally went smoothly and results came much faster Tuesday night than in the general election in November. That’s due in part to a shorter ballot with fewer races, as well as instructions from the Secretary of State’s Office for counties to begin processing (but not counting) ballots more than a week before Election Day.

In Gwinnett County, the shorter absentee ballot was contained to a single page. For the November election, Gwinnett absentee ballots were multiple pages because of the many local, state and federal races and because Gwinnett must print its ballots in English and Spanish.

Handling those multiple pages and counting so many races slowed both the initial November election count and the subsequent recounts, including the laborious hand recount ordered by the Secretary of State’s office.

“A one-sheet ballot with only three questions made a huge difference for us, said Gwinnett spokesman Joe Sorenson said.

Gwinnett election workers were sorting, batching and opening absentee ballots and are set to count about 4,700 to 4,800 absentee ballots that were received before 7 p.m. on Tuesday, he said. The county also has about 870 provisional ballots to sort through that the board of registrations and elections must approve.

Overseas military ballots can be accepted through 5 p.m. on Friday. Sorenson said there are about 1,370 overseas military ballots that were requested that could come in, but the county won’t know how many there will be to count until they do.

8:54 a.m. update

Warnock: ‘Georgia is in such an incredible place’

Democrat Raphael Warnock basked in his historic victory in the U.S. Senate race on Wednesday morning and pledged to make fighting the coronavirus pandemic his top priority.

During appearances on “Good Morning America” and on CNN, Warnock marveled at his victory, even as his Democratic colleague, Jon Ossoff, declared victory in Georgia’s other Senate race.

“Georgia is in such an incredible place, when you think about the arc of our history,” Warnock said on “Good Morning America.” “We are sending an African American pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served, and, also, Jon Ossoff, a young Jewish man and the son of an immigrant, to the U.S. Senate.

“This is the reversal of the old Southern strategy that sought to divide people,” he said. “In this moment, we’ve got to bring people together in order to do the hard work. And I look forward to doing that work.”

Warnock defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler in Tuesday’s runoff election. Ossoff held a slim lead over Republican David Perdue, with tens of thousands of ballots still to be counted.

But Warnock was already turning his attention to the work that a Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate might accomplish. At the top of his list: a national strategy for addressing the pandemic and a bigger economic stimulus package than the one recently approved by Congress and President Donald Trump.

“The Senate should have approved a $2,000 stimulus last week,” Warnock said. “People are really struggling.”

On CNN, Warnock took aim at Loeffler, who has pledged to challenge Democrat Joe Biden’s victory when Congress takes up the Electoral College vote today.

“She has consistently put what she perceives to be her own short-term political interest over the interests of ordinary people,” Warnock said. “And the people of Georgia rose up and rebuked that tonight.”

Neither Loeffler not Perdue has conceded defeat in the Senate races.

8:15 a.m. update

Ossoff declares victory in Senate race

Democrat Jon Ossoff claimed victory in his U.S. Senate race against Republican David Perdue Wednesday morning, though the race remains too close to call.

In a live-streamed speech, Ossoff said “it is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate.”

“I am honored — honored — by your support, by your confidence, by your trust, and I will look forward to serving you in the United States Senate with integrity, with humility, with honor and getting things done for the people of Georgia,” Ossoff said.

Perdue has not conceded the race, and major national news outlets have not declared Ossoff the winner. But he maintained a narrow lead over Perdue Wednesday morning. And though tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted, many of them are in Democratic strongholds like Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cobb counties.

Ossoff pledged to make ending the coronavirus pandemic and related economic aid his top priority.

“I will work in the U.S. Senate to support a robust public health response so that we can defeat this virus, putting Georgia’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the lead, trusting medical expertise, doctors, and scientists to bring the tools to bear, the technology to bear, the ingenuity to bear, and the resources to bear necessary to stop the spread of this virus to defeat it and to get our daily lives back — and to rush direct economic relief to people who need help right now,” Ossoff said.

7:40 a.m. update

Jon Ossoff to deliver virtual remarks on U.S. Senate runoff election at 8 a.m.

6:45 a.m. update

Good morning. Here’s where things stand the morning after Tuesday’s runoff election in Georgia:

*Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. He will become Georgia’s first Black senator and the Senate’s first Black Democrat elected from the deep South.

*Democrat Jon Ossoff has a narrow lead over Republican David Perdue, though the race is still too close to call. If Ossoff wins, Democrats will take control of the U.S. Senate.

*Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald leads Democrat Daniel Blackman in the Public Service Commission race,

*Counting resumes today, with tens of thousands of ballots outstanding. Counting will continue in Democratic strongholds Gwinnett, Chatham, Cobb, Fulton and DeKalb counties, as well as several smaller and more conservative-leaning counties.

You can find full election results here.

3:45 a.m.

Perdue fights for political life

Republican incumbent David Perdue vowed to “mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse” as he fought for his political life in a Senate runoff that was too close to call early Wednesday.

The top aide to challenger Jon Ossoff said the Democrat expects to win because the outstanding votes are “squarely in parts of the state where Jon’s performance has been dominant.”

The back-and-forth came shortly after Democrat Raphael Warnock declared victory over U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the parallel Senate contest and major news networks called the race in Warnock’s favor. Loeffler, meanwhile, insisted she still had a “path to victory.”

Republican officials are growing increasingly nervous as early runoff returns show skyrocketing Black turnout in metro Atlanta and Loeffler and Perdue underperforming in key rural and exurban strongholds.

Here’s what else you need to know:

On the line are two U.S. Senate seats that will determine which party controls the chamber, setting the course for President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda in Washington over the next two years. Republicans need to hold onto only one of their seats to maintain the majority in the upper chamber.

Also on the ballot is a Public Service Commission race that will help chart the state’s energy future and the utility rates Georgians pay.

Follow our live updates below:

3:30 a.m.

Tens of thousands of mail ballots remain

About 25,000 mail ballots have not been counted, according to data from the Secretary of State’s office. The numbers are estimates based on early data and could change. The ballots are scattered around the state with the bulk in the metro Atlanta area.

2:40 a.m.

DeKalb scans thousands of ballots following ‘technical issue’

By Wilborn P. Nobles III

In DeKalb County, election workers scanned thousands of ballots early Wednesday due to issues with the computer system.

Erik Burton, a county voter registration spokesperson, said DeKalb has a fail safe to prevent the erasure of any votes despite the “technical issue.”

Several election monitors said over 18,000 ballots could’ve been affected if DeKalb had not scanned them early Wednesday.

2:20 a.m.

Perdue campaign: “We will... exhaust every legal recourse”

The Perdue campaign broke it’s silence. In an emailed statement, spokesman John Burke said the campaign would “mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted.”

Here’s the full statement:

“As we’ve said repeatedly over the last several weeks and as recently as this evening, this is an exceptionally close election that will require time and transparency to be certain the results are fair and accurate and the voices of Georgians are heard. We will mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted. We believe in the end, Senator Perdue will be victorious.”

2:05 a.m.

More news outlets call race for Warnock

The Associated Press, CNN, ABC News and other major news outlets have joined NBC News in declaring Raphael Warnock the winner of Georgia’s special Senate election over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler.

The news now puts a Senate majority within reach for Democrats.

2:00 a.m.

Fulton wrapping up counting for tonight

By Ben Brasch

Fulton County is wrapping up vote tallying for the evening at the Georgia World Congress Center and will resume at 8:30 a.m.

A county spokeswoman said there are “at least 4,000 more absentee ballots to upload” and that the next adjudication panel will meet at 9 a.m.

1:50 a.m.

NBC News calls race for Warnock

NBC News projected that Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the special election to fill the remaining two years on Johnny Isakson’s Senate term. NBC is the first major network to declare a winner in either Senate contest tonight.

1:30 a.m.

Ossoff’s campaign manager: ‘We fully expect’ to win race

Jon Ossoff’s campaign manager suggested the Democrat is feeling bullish about his chances of unseating Republican incumbent David Perdue as many Democratic strongholds continue to count ballots.

“When all the votes are counted we fully expect that Jon Ossoff will have won this election to represent Georgia in the United States Senate,” said Ellen Foster in an e-mailed statement. “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 U.S. Senate.”

With 97% of precincts reporting, Perdue is clinging to the narrowest of leads over Ossoff. Only about 1,300 votes, or 0.4% of the vote, currently stands between the two men.

Neither Ossoff nor Perdue has delivered remarks since polls closed.

1:15 a.m.

Republican holds narrow lead in PSC contest

It’s constantly gotten eclipsed over the last nine weeks, but the public service commission race is also quite the nail-biter.

Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald is currently polling about 2 percentage points ahead of Democrat Daniel Blackman, with roughly 98% of precincts reporting. There are many heavily-Democratic counties still counting ballots, so the race could still get tighter. .

Even more interesting is that McDonald, a former state legislator who’s served on the PSC for 17 years, appears to be the top Republican vote-getter of the runoffs in terms of raw votes.

12:50 a.m.

Warnock takes victory lap

By Patricia Murphy

With a narrow but growing lead in the race to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate, the Rev. Raphael Warnock declared victory early Wednesday morning against U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

“I promise you this tonight, that I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia,” Warnock said.

No major news outlets had yet to declare a winner in the contest, and Loeffler said she still had a “path to victory.”

“This is a game of inches,” Loeffler told her supporters early Wednesday. “We are going to win this election.”

Warnock used his speech to deliver a message of unity to the audience watching him on cable news outlets and social media streams across the state, not unlike the messages he issued to his parishioners as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

“Will we seek to destroy one another as his enemies,” the Democrat asked, “Or heed the call toward the common good, building together what Dr. King called ‘the beloved community?’”

With 97% of precincts reporting, Warnock led Loeffler by about 37,000 votes just after midnight Tuesday. Of the outstanding votes left to count, many were expected to come in from Democratic strongholds in DeKalb and Fulton counties.

If elected, Warnock would be the first Black Democratic senator from the Deep South. He would also be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Georgia since Zell Miller in 2000.

“Whether you voted for me or not, know this,” Warnock concluded, “I hear you. I see you. Every day I’m in the United States. I will fight for you. I will fight for your family.”

Shortly before he delivered is remarks, former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams congratulated Warnock on Twitter. Abrams had hand-picked Warnock to run for the seat.

12:40 a.m.

More on the ground in DeKalb

By Wilborn P. Nobles III

More than a dozen election monitors were waiting in DeKalb’s elections office as the county continued to process ballots early Wednesday morning.

Erik Burton, a county voter registration spokesperson, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they are trying to push to finish the Election Day tabulations and round out the early voting numbers.

DeKalb’s ballots from Election Day and early voting are still remaining for today, Burton said. He added that DeKalb still has absentee ballots collected today, as well as military and overseas ballots

Round 2 of scanning and processing will begin in DeKalb at 10:30 a.m.

12:30 a.m.

Loeffler: ‘This is a game of inches’

By Greg Bluestein

In a speech to a cheering crowd of hundreds shortly after midnight, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, the first cousin of David Perdue, said the high-stakes cliffhangers would not soon be decided.

Loeffler said she still had a “path to victory” with the dwindling number of outstanding ballots.

”This is a game of inches,” she said. “We are going to win this election.”

12:10 a.m.

Warnock to deliver remarks at 12:20 a.m.

Rev. Raphael Warnock’s team just sent word that the Democrat will deliver remarks at 12:20 a.m. Here’s his speech:

12:00 a.m.

Additional ballots to be tallied across metro Atlanta

By Mark Niesse

Tens of thousands of votes, mostly from Democratic-dominated counties, remained to be counted.

Those votes include 19,000 early ballots from DeKalb County, which so far has supported the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate with 83% of the vote each, according to the secretary of state’s office. Another 7,000 early ballots are pending from Coffee County, a more Republican area.

Additional ballots remained to be tallied in other large counties, including Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett in the metro Atlanta area.

”What we have outstanding will likely be leaning Democrat,” said Gabriel Sterling, voting system manager for the secretary of state’s office.

In Fulton County, election officials reported that cars blocked poll workers from returning absentee ballots that had been picked up from drop boxes, Sterling said. The ballots arrived, but they were delayed. Details of the incident weren’t immediately clear.

”It’s a contentious time. We want people to be patient,” Sterling said.

11:30 p.m.

Warnock, Perdue overperforming their “running mates”

By Greg Bluestein

Right now, Raphael Warnock is outperforming Jon Ossoff by about 20,000 votes, and David Perdue is outperforming fellow Republican Kelly Loeffler by roughly the same margin.

Why? For one thing, Perdue is more of a name-brand in the Georgia GOP, with a 2014 win under his belt, while Loeffler was appointed to the job by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019. Some Republicans may still favor her vanquished rival, ex-Congressman Doug Collins, over her.

As for Ossoff, Democratic strategists long thought he would trail Warnock slightly, in part because the Atlanta pastor has a longer history of political activism and entrenched support in the African-American community.

11:25 p.m.

More outlets call race for Warnock, but nothing yet from major networks

Analysts at Decision Desk HQ and Vox have declared Democrat Raphael Warnock the winner of the Georgia special election against U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler. But the major news outlets, including the Associated Press, have yet to project a winner for either race.

Earlier this evening, Dave Wasserman, an analyst from the respected Cook Political Report, also called the race for Warnock.

The projections came as DeKalb County uploaded the results from more than 150,000 ballots. The county, one of the bluest in the state, is expected to deliver a trove of Democratic votes to Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

11:15 p.m.

The latest from Cobb

By Meris Lutz

In Cobb County, where 56% of voters backed Joe Biden in November, both Democratic Senate candidates maintained leads in unofficial early returns.

There was no evidence of a statistically significant number of split-ticket ballots in these early results.

By 11 p.m., election workers had tallied more than 300,000 votes with only a small number of precincts outstanding. The remaining absentee ballots are scheduled to be tallied Wednesday.

As of January 4, Cobb had issued 146,905 absentee mail ballots and accepted 121,302 that were returned. Another 114,000 people cast early in-person ballots.

For comparison, in November, about 135,000 absentee mail ballots were cast and 174,000 people cast early in-person. More than 390,000 total votes were cast in November .

10:45 p.m.

All eyes on DeKalb County

By Wilborn P. Nobles III

DeKalb County officials on Tuesday night told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they know the county’s counting process is taking a while, but that isn’t uncommon or out of the normal pace in the elections process.

A line with nearly 60 people is stretching outside of the elections building in Decatur where dozens of electronic tablets containing the ballots from the election still need to be processed.

Erik Burton, a spokesperson for voter registration, told the AJC that the county is still working to verify the oath signatures with the inner ballot envelopes for the mail-in ballots. Several drop box and mail ballots were submitted today and they’re still processing those ballots, he said.

”We have a number of votes as far as the advance voting numbers that are being processed now and it’s a significant number,” Burton said.

The dozens of people in line, Burton said, are captains of the 191 precincts in the county. The officials have to process several boxes, and then the chips from those boxes are being processed elsewhere.

Burton said DeKalb had more people voting in person today than the number of people who voted in person in November. Even so, he stressed “this is working seamlessly and it’s working the way it’s intended to work.”

”It’s like a busy beehive really because everyone is doing their own task here,” Burton said.

10:35 p.m.

Trump weighs in on election returns

President Trump finally weighed in on Georgia’s election returns, which are increasingly favoring Democrats.

Trump may be referring to DeKalb County, the Democratic stronghold that has only reported about 40% of its votes so far. Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are expected to net upwards of 80% of the vote there.

The president has spent the last nine weeks complaining about the November vote count. Since many Democrats opted to vote by mail, it took longer for their votes to appear in states’ election returns, which caused an early Trump lead in some battleground states to evaporate as election night wore on. Trump and his allies have alleged that widespread voter fraud is to blame, but that argument was repeatedly struck down in courts around the country.

10:00 p.m.

Gwinnett’s vote counting expected to stretch into Weds

By Arielle Kass

In Gwinnett County, vote-counting wasn’t expected to finish on Tuesday. While 95,765 absentee-by-mail ballots were tallied when the polls closed, county spokesperson Joe Sorenson said election workers stopped preparing absentee-by-mail ballots this afternoon to prepare for day-of votes that were coming in. He did not know how many absentee-by-mail ballots were outstanding, but the county sent out 124,335 absentee ballots.

Sorenson said election day votes were coming in “at a pretty good clip” and would all be uploaded tonight, but that the county had not tracked how many voters cast ballots on election day. He added that 171,056 advance in-person votes would be added to the total tonight, as well. Gwinnett has 592,342 active registered voters.

For those absentee-by-mail votes that came in today, Sorenson said, the county will still have to verify voters’ signatures, something that won’t be finished until later this week.

“We’re almost certainly not going to know what the final results are tonight,” he said

9:50 p.m.

Well-known elections analyst: Warnock defeats Loeffler

One respected political prognosticator, Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, is calling Georgia’s special election in favor of Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Other news outlets have yet to call the race, but this is still worth noting.

Republicans currently have a lead in the tabulated vote, but the remaining votes are mainly from Democratic strongholds like DeKalb County.

Wasserman said he sees Jon Ossoff as the favorite in the other Senate contest but that there’s “still a ways to go there.”

9:35 p.m.

Ossoff, Warnock forgo election night parties

By Patricia Murphy

While the Republicans waited for returns in Buckhead, neither of the Senate Democratic nominees held watch parties Tuesday night, assuming that final results would be slow to come in.

Earlier Tuesday, Warnock held events in Marietta and downtown Atlanta in a final push to get voters to the polls. “The four greatest words in a democracy are, ‘The people have spoken,’” Warnock told reporters. “And I think we’re going to hear them loud and clear today. And I look forward to that result.”

And in an Election Day interview, Ossoff told the AJC that the highlight of the cycle for him has been going to small towns in rural Georgia that rarely see Senate candidates.

”Their response to the civil rights and criminal justice initiatives that have been at the very center of my campaign has been one of overwhelming support,” he said. “And there’s just a lot of love out there.”

9:30 p.m.

Republicans grow antsy as early returns come in

By Greg Bluestein

“Grab a pillow and a sleeping bag.”

That’s what one senior Republican strategist texted as returns trickled in.

It’s still early, but Republicans are increasingly antsy about their chances. Early returns are showing U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue underperforming in important GOP strongholds in rural areas and the exurbs.

And turnout in Democratic bastions is nearing November general election levels in some left-leaning rural counties that have already reported most of their results.

Republicans are still holding out hope that Floyd and Lumpkin counties will help build margins over the Democrats, but the finger-pointing has already begun in some circles.

9:10 p.m.

Why election returns are pouring in so quickly

By Mark Niesse

Election results poured in quickly after polls closed Tuesday night, giving voters a clearer picture of the race than they had on election night in November.

One reason for the fast count was the shorter ballot, with just three races: two for U.S. Senate, and one for the Public Service Commission. Ballots in the general election had many more races, adding to the time it took to scan and load absentee ballots.

In addition, county election officials were required to process absentee ballots ahead of time. The State Election Board passed a rule in November that counties had to begin opening and scanning absentee ballots eight days before election day.

Finally, turnout was lower and election officials had more experience with Georgia’s relatively new voting system. With fewer ballots to count, election officials had less work to do.

8:55 p.m.

What a difference a night (and crowd) makes

By Greg Bluestein

A night ago, Gov. Brian Kemp was roundly booed when President Donald Trump menacingly vowed to campaign against him in 2022. Tonight, he was greeted with warm applause as he thanked the crowd for fighting for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

The governor wore a “Hold it for Harrison” cap honoring Harrison Deal, the young aide to Sen. Kelly Loeffler who was also his daughter’s boyfriend. Deal died in a December car accident ahead of a campaign event in Savannah, and Kemp asked the crowd to hold his memory in their hearts.

8:50 p.m.

The 30-30 rule and why it’s so important to Democrats

By Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy

No, it’s not a reference to the vaunted baseball standard of hitting 30 home runs and swiping 30 bases. For Georgia Democrats, it’s another important metric.

Since Republicans began their rise to power in Georgia two decades ago, Democrats have longed to reach a dual threshold: capturing 30% of the white vote and achieving a Black participation rate of 30% of the overall turnout.

In 2016, they didn’t come too close. Exit polls showed Hillary Clinton won about 21% of white voters while Black turnout hit 28%. But Biden more or less hit the 30-30 goal in November.

Exit polls suggest Biden won 30% of white voters. And an analysis by the Democratic firm TargetSmart showed Black voters made up roughly 29% of the vote. TargetSmart also found that the proportion of white voters decreased from roughly 66% in 2016 to 63% in 2020.

Re-creating that coalition won’t be easy for Georgia Democrats, particularly since African American voters are typically less likely to cast ballots in statewide runoffs. And without Trump on the ballot, Democrats may be less energized to turn out in droves.

Still, Ossoff and Warnock have reason to be optimistic. An AJC analysis of the more than 3 million ballots already cast shows that Black voters made up a higher portion of voters so far than in the presidential election.

8:35 p.m.

Why David Perdue can blame Sonny Perdue for his runoff

If Georgia were like most other states, David Perdue would have already been sworn in for his second Senate term.

The Republican incumbent edged out Jon Ossoff by about 2 percentage points in November.

In other states, which operate under a plurality voting system, the candidate with the most votes wins. But because of Georgia’s unique runoff system, which requires the winner of a general election (or primary) to receive the majority of the votes cast, Perdue was sucked into an expensive, draining overtime battle against Ossoff.

Perdue can partially blame his first cousin, former Gov. Sonny Perdue, for the rules of the road.

In the 1990s, Georgia Democrats changed the law to make it easier for candidates to avoid runoffs by lowering the winning threshold from 50% to 45%. (That came after Republican Paul Coverdell upset Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler in the 1992 Senate race.) Republicans reversed that decision when they took over the legislature in 2005 and reinstalled the majority vote requirement. The governor who signed that into law: Sonny Perdue.

Since then, there’s been little discussion of changing the rules, especially with the GOP holding all major offices and carrying all past statewide runoffs. But we wonder if that will change should Perdue or U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler lose their reelection bids.

Read more about the fighting over Georgia’s runoff system here.

8:15 p.m.

Some of the questions we’re pondering

If you haven’t already, check out Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy’s post from earlier about the biggest questions of the day. Among them: Will President Donald Trump’s loyalists vote in a ‘rigged’ election? Who wins the turnout game? And will anyone actually concede?

As we wait for election returns, here are a few others we’re thinking about:

-Without President Donald Trump on ballot, what will turnout look like? A full 69% of Joe Biden voters in Georgia said they supported him in November mainly to voice their disapproval of Trump, according to exit polls. Without a presidential race at the top of the ticket, do those anti-Trump voters turn back out?

-Do we see a significant number of split-ticket voters? There is evidence that a notable number of voters in suburban Atlanta split their tickets, a dynamic that likely helped David Perdue in November. Did those voters turn out again for Perdue (and presumably Loeffler) for the runoffs?

-On a similar note, could we see many voters split their ticket between Kelly Loeffler and Jon Ossoff (or vice-versa)? The dynamic is unlikely, since Perdue/Loeffler and Ossoff/Warnock have essentially run as packaged deals for the last nine weeks. But with election results expected to be tight, even a few thousands voters could be enough to swing the races.

-What’s the impact of this weekend’s extraordinary phone call between Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the president asked for his Georgia defeat to be overturned? Could that hurt the GOP brand in wealthy, well-educated suburbs like Johns Creek, Raffensperger’s home base?

7:50 p.m.

The scene at the GOP watch party

By Greg Bluestein

At the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead, the booze was flowing and Fox News featured on big screens dotting a posh ballroom.

At least two dozen cameras were trained on an empty stage at the front of the room, and it’s uncertain whether U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler will speak. She’s ensconced in a hotel room upstairs, and U.S. Sen. David Perdue isn’t here - still self-isolating after being exposed to a staffer who contracted the coronavirus.

About 100 operatives wandered the floor, some wearing masks and others bare-faced, munching on shrimp skewers, pimento mac-and-cheese fritters and spicy chicken empanadas. Three bars sold pricey imported beers and mixed drinks. In smaller side rooms, Republican elected officials and big-time donors gathered for more exclusive gatherings far from our prying eyes.

Democrats aren’t holding an in-person gathering tonight due to COVID-19, and neither Raphael Warnock nor Jon Ossoff have announced any Zoom events since final results are expected to be slow to arrive.

7:25 p.m.

Ballot counting updates from Fulton and Cobb

By Stephen Deere and Meris Lutz

Fulton County is expected to do a preliminary release of early voting results by 8 p.m. that will be updated throughout the night, elections chief Richard Barron told county election board members at a Tuesday night meeting shortly before polls closed.

Barron said he expected voter turnout to be above 450,000. About 528,000 Fulton County residents voted in the November general election.

“For a runoff, this is pretty impressive,” Barron said.

He said that he told election board employees to expect to keep counting votes until 2 a.m. or until the Georgia Secretary of State sent them home.

Of the 450,000 ballots cast, more than 70,000 were on election day, Barron said.

Meanwhile, Cobb will allow observers in starting at 8 p.m., when tabulation begins at the county’s main elections office.

The county said it will not finish counting ballots tonight. It plans to resume counting absentee ballots tomorrow at 1 p.m.

7:00 p.m.

Most polling places close

Voting has now ended in most precincts in Georgia, capping a relatively drama-free 12 hours of in-person election day voting.

Polling places in a handful of Georgia counties will stay open late to accommodate voters who may have been held up by problems earlier in the day, our colleague Mark Niesse reports.

Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager, said the average wait time today was 1 minute.

Polling places were being held open late in some precincts in Columbia, Tift, Cobb and elsewhere to make up for delays earlier in the day.

6:40 p.m.

Campaign operatives jittery before polls close

By Greg Bluestein

Campaign operatives were awash in a see-saw of emotions in the final hour of voting.

Texts alternated between boasts about high turnout in a Democratic stronghold and evidence of robust participation in a middle Georgia precinct. Some Republicans were jubilant, others despondent. Democrats had the same nervous energy, with some campaign hands overjoyed and others fretting about light turnout in this or that district.

The truth is, no one is quite sure yet what the election day turnout numbers will deliver - and which party stands to gain. President Donald Trump’s visit to northwest Georgia was designed to energize Republican voters, and there was anecdotal evidence of long lines and steady voting. But many of those Republicans might have been planning to vote on runoff day all along. The same could be same about precincts around metro Atlanta, where President-elect Joe Biden made a last-ditch appeal on Monday.

Hang in there, folks

Credit: Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com

Credit: Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com

6:10 p.m.

The counties we’re watching

Clayton, DeKalb and Rockdale: These counties represent the heart of the Democratic base. They’re home to many Black voters, whose turnout the party is heavily depending on to unseat U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Clayton, located in the congressional district once represented by the late John Lewis, helped push Joe Biden beyond Donald Trump in Georgia this November. DeKalb often provides the state’s largest trove of Democratic votes. And Rockdale, along with neighboring Henry county, had the country’s largest Democratic swing between 2016 and 2020.

Forsyth and Cherokee: What Clayton and Dekalb are for Democrats, Forsyth and Cherokee are to the GOP. Loeffler and Perdue need to rack up votes in these exurban Atlanta counties to offset Democratic gains in the closer-in suburbs. Both counties are densely populated and deeply conservative, but Biden was able to chip away at Republican dominance there in November. Trump won Forsyth, which is at the heart of the newly-competitive 7th Congressional District, by 33 percentage points in the general election (compared to his 48-point win there four years ago). In Cherokee, Trump won by 39 points in November (he won by 50 percentage points in 2016).

Gwinnett and Cobb: These are two once deep-red counties that are now on the front lines of changing Georgia. Both have experienced exploding population growth in recent years, fueled by an influx of people of color and immigrants. Biden easily carried both counties in November. But there are signs that there were a decent number of voters, especially in Cobb, who split their votes between Biden and Republican Senate candidates. Will those voters turnout without Trump on the ballot?

Whitfield: Bordering Tennessee in far northwest Georgia, Whitfield is no doubt a Republican stronghold. But it’s also been hard-hit by COVID-19. Voter participation has lagged other parts of the state, which is why Trump made a beeline for Dalton, where he held a boisterous rally yesterday to drive support for Loeffler and Perdue. Was his effort enough to spike election day turnout, or did Trump supporters stay home, fearing the election was rigged?

Peach: As our colleague Greg Bluestein reported in October, this middle Georgia county is one of the state’s few bellwethers. The county’s voters have picked the eventual presidential winner in all but two elections since 1992. One of those exceptions was in November, when voters backed Trump over Biden by more than 4 percentage points. Biden won the state by less than 12,000 votes.

6:00 p.m.

Few problems reported at the polls today

By Mark Niesse

A handful of polling places will stay open late across Georgia, but for the most part lines moved quickly and there were few problems for election day voters.

Average wait times hovered around 1 minute for most of the day, according to the secretary of state’s office. Several polling places stumbled with voting equipment problems when voting began, but those issues were resolved.

Election officials reported steady turnout, but it won’t be clear how many people voted Tuesday until ballots are counted. During the presidential election, about 988,000 people voted on Nov. 3.

The most significant problems occurred in Columbia County, where voters in some precincts had to fill out paper emergency ballots because of problems with voting equipment. Keys to start up ballot scanners and poll worker access cards needed to operate voting touchscreens weren’t programmed correctly. The issues were resolved by 10 a.m.

Polling places were being held open late in Columbia, Tift and Cobb counties to make up for delays earlier in the day.

”We haven’t seen anything too over-the-top crazy, which is good,” said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager. “We want steady. We want to see that the people who want to cast their vote, that their votes are going to count.”

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

5:15 p.m.

AP releases early survey of Georgia voters

It’s not an exit poll, but the Associated Press just released some initial data about the runoff electorate. A few top lines:

-56% of voters surveyed said they disapprove of President Trump’s handling of the 2020 election results

-60% believe Senate control is the most important issue in the runoffs

-nearly two-thirds believe the country’s been moving in the wrong direction

-only 63% are very or somewhat confident in the accuracy of the election results

5:10 p.m.

About that PSC race

It’s gotten lost in the deluge of Senate coverage, but the Public Service Commission race on the ballot will have major implications on Georgians, their pocketbooks and the state’s energy future.

The five-member commission oversees utility and energy issues and decides what Georgia Power and Atlanta Gas Light can charge consumers and businesses. That includes determining how much customers will pay toward Georgia Power’s multi-billion-dollar cost overruns on its nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle.

Voters are picking between incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, an 82-year-old Republican who has spent years on the commission and Democrat Daniel Blackman, a 41-year-old former business consultant from Forsyth County.

As our colleague Matt Kempner detailed here, McDonald has raised about 10 times as much as Blackman. McDonald was an early backer of Georgia Power’s Vogtle expansion, which is now years behind schedule, and he’s continued to back the project while pushing the utility to increase its use of solar energy.

Blackman says the incumbent has often favored large utilities over regular people, while McDonald has warned the Democrat will back steps that will so aggressively cut carbon emissions that they will harm the state economically.

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@

4:40 p.m.

Some reading material

If you’re just tuning in, here are a few previous AJC stories to get you started:

- The key questions for Georgia’s pivotal U.S. Senate runoff races

- The long, complicated history behind Georgia’s unique runoff system

- Our lookback at the past nine weeks and the road ahead

- What’s at stake in the Senate runoffs

And don’t miss our newsroom-wide effort focused on voting throughout metro Atlanta and the state today.

4:25 p.m.

Keeping tradition alive

Republicans are hoping to keep up a runoff winning streak that stretches back three decades.

If you count Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, who was first elected to the Public Service Commission as a Democrat but later switched to the GOP, Republicans have won all eight statewide runoffs since 1992. Two of those contests were for U.S. Senate, five for PSC, and one, in 2018, for secretary of state.

In all of those overtime contests, turnout plunged between 42 and 91 percent compared to the general election. And in three of them, the winner of the runoff was different from the candidate who lead in the general election vote (’92 Senate, ’06 PSC, ’08 PSC).

It’s pretty clear that turnout in today’s runoffs will be record-setting, but could it be enough to scramble the leaderboard from Nov. 3? (David Perdue led Jon Ossoff by roughly 2 percentage points and Republican candidates narrowly outpaced their Democratic counterparts in the special election featuring Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock.)

One more fun fact: if you count today’s race, McDonald has been a candidate in three of Georgia’s six PSC general election runoffs (his other races were a 1998 special election and in 2008). In the latter, Democrat Jim Powell narrowly led him in the general election contest by 0.6%, but McDonald came back several weeks later to win the runoff by 13 percentage points.

Credit: Curtis Compton

Credit: Curtis Compton

4 p.m.

All about turnout

Both parties long ago gave up on trying to persuade undecided voters – there were so few of them to begin with– and instead channeled their money and efforts into convincing their supporters to return to the polls.

To do that, U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have tied themselves inextricably to President Donald Trump. They’ve refused to recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election, didn’t object to Trump’s inaccurate claims of widespread fraud and called on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign.

Democrats have campaigned with Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and a stream of Washington and Hollywood celebrities whom statewide candidates once shied away from. And they’ve spent boatloads of cash to mobilize Black voters and young people who lean Democratic but turn out less frequently in non-presidential years.

Republicans have some ground to make up. Early voting was particularly heavy in metro areas that tend to favor Democrats, and Black voters outperformed their share of the electorate. Turnout has lagged in more conservative, rural parts of the state that traditionally favor Republicans, which is part of what drew Trump to northwest Georgia yesterday for a boisterous rally in Dalton.

The prognosticators at Sabato’s Crystal Ball believe that if total turnout surpasses 4 million (the early vote was roughly 3.1 million), it will be a good sign for the GOP.