With the news of the Democrat elect Joe Biden winning the 2020 Presidential Election, the Republican party hoped for holding the majority in the Senate elections to keep a check on the Biden administration on Capitol Hill. Democrats however are hoping for a majority blue senate to be able to more easily pass bills and laws. The power in the Senate has come down to Georgia, with both races not reaching the 50 percent threshold needed to win, causing a runoff election to take place on January 5, 2021.  In order to not be overpowered by Republicans, the Democrats must win both races. This would then cause the Democrats and Republicans to have equal seats in the Senate. In the case of a tie in the senate of 50 Republicans versus 50 Democrats, the matter would then be determined by the President of Senate, Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris. If Republicans win just one seat they will then take the majority.

While this all may seem like a lot, which is because of the stakes of this election, it is not too much to process. Here are a couple of things to know about Georgia’s runoff Senate Election.

1.) The Democratic Party is counting on a record number of voter turnout

While Biden scored a historic victory at the top of the ballot in Georgia, Democrats will face a number of hurdles in the January runoffs. The race is taking place in an off-election year amid a pandemic. On top of that, Republicans historically have a stronger track record of turning out in runoffs in the state. Therefore, Democrats are leaning on early organization, building upon already-high turnout in November. Democrats have turned a large portion of their focus to Black voters and first-time voters. This is highly important considering the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus stated that over 1,200,000 Black voters came out to vote in November 2020. Around 800,000 first-time voters were registered since 2018 thanks to Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight Action group combatting voter suppression. Seventeen year olds who will be 18 by January 5 will also be able to vote in this election.

2.) Georgia political chaos could backfire on the Republican Party

Divide among Georgia Republicans has fallen into public view following the election, causing Democrats

reason to suspect that the chaos could possibly affect the elections. Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud and voting irregularities in the state ended up turning Georgia’s Republicans against one another in the weeks after November 3, 2020. As Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, adamantly denied there was evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state, Perdue and Loeffler called on him to resign, ostensibly in an effort to kiss up to Trump. These divides within the Republican party could be enough to distract Republican voters and cause the party to not be united for the runoff.

3.) A large number of mail-in votes are expected

As seen with the election, many voters in Georgia will be using early voting and mail-in votes making the results of the election not likely to know by the end of the night. To anyone who needs to hear this, counting hundreds of thousands of votes takes time, voter results coming in late is expected, does not mean it is fraud. As of now, over 762,000 mail-in ballots have been requested by Georgia’s citizens. The Georgia State Election Board voted Monday to keep with the use of secure ballot drop boxes in this election. They also voted to require counties to start processing absentee ballots a week out from Election Day. Democrats are hoping to see a significant number of mail-in votes compared to Republicans.

4.) Trump is trying to energize his voters

Even though Biden may have won the election in Georgia, it does not mean the Senate run-off election will also swing blue. Biden only won by 0.26%, a razor-thin margin. He has already hosted one post-election rally (not in Georgia) that did not go too great for the Republican party in Georgia (explained later in the article). Because of these close numbers, Democrats MUST focus on getting first-time voters registered and their targeted demographics mentioned before.

So what is happening now? 

As of now, The Republican party in Georgia is in danger due to Donald Trump’s post-election rally where he majorly criticized and attacked the top Republicans in the state and the state attorneys (who were pro-trump) who are now all are asking Georgia’s Republicans to boycott the election. Trump’s visit was supposed to be beneficial to the two Republicans running for senate, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Mr. Perdue is running against Democrat Jon Ossoff, Ms. Loeffler is running against Democrat Raphael Warnock. Republican figureheads and members of Trump’s team have raised concern over Trump possibly sabotaging the Republican party with the chaos he has been causing.

That’s all I have got for y’all today. If you have friends or family members in Georgia make sure to remind them to check their voter registration status and go vote! The deadline to register to vote was December 7, 2020.