Georgia election: All you need to know about key Senate run-off races

All eyes are on the southern state of Georgia, where the future of the US Senate will be decided this week. Here's all you need to know.

There are two races and voting has been going on since mid-December.

The outcome will be crucial to how much the incoming Democratic president, Joe Biden, will be able to achieve in his first term.

Wait, another US election? Wasn't all this done in November?

OK, rewind.

Why is there an election in Georgia?

According to the state rules, a winning candidate needs 50% of the votes and in November no-one achieved that.

So the top two go through to a 5 January replay - a so-called run-off.

Who is running in Georgia?

In both races, we have a Republican incumbent up against a Democratic newcomer.

Senator David Perdue, 70, v Jon Ossoff, 33

Mr Perdue has served as a Georgia senator since 2015. The former Reebok CEO was an early supporter of Donald Trump, and has remained an ally to the president. He is now facing scrutiny over multimillion dollar stock trades in companies whose business falls under his purview on Senate committees. He has denied wrongdoing.

Mr Ossoff launched his campaign with an endorsement from civil rights champion John Lewis, who died this summer. Before taking the reins of a documentary film company, Insight TWI, he spent five years working for Congressman Hank Johnson, an Atlanta Democrat. He has employed his filmmaking skills on the trail, launching campaign accounts on both Snapchat and TikTok.

Senator Kelly Loeffler, 50, v Reverend Raphael Warnock, 51

Ms Loeffler, the junior Georgia senator, is still a political novice. She was named to the US Senate in December 2019 by Governor Brian Kemp after the sitting senator resigned. One of the wealthiest members of the Senate, Ms Loeffler is co-owner of the women's NBA team the Atlanta Dream. The ownership has caused a stir after the league's players called for Ms Loeffler to sell her stake over her vocal opposition to Black Lives Matter.

Rev Warnock is a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr once preached. Along with Democratic rising star Stacey Abrams, he started the New Georgia Project, a voting rights organisation. The group is now under investigation by Georgia's Republican secretary of state for allegedly sending ballot applications to non-residents.

Why does the election in Georgia matter so much?

The upper chamber of US Congress, the Senate, has been controlled by the Republican Party since 2014.

It's very important in getting laws passed, Cabinet appointments confirmed and Supreme Court Justices on to the bench of the highest court.

If Democrats win in Georgia, the extra two seats would give them effective control.

Each party would have 50 senators and it's become increasingly rare for senators to vote against their party.

Technically, there are currently 46 Democrats and two independent Senators - Bernie Sanders and Angus King - but they typically vote with Democrats.

So in a 50-50 tie, Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris would have the deciding vote in her role as Senate president.

If Democrats pick up the two seats and forge a 50-50 tie in the upper chamber, it's far from certain that Biden will be able to enact the kind of sweeping legislation on the environment, healthcare and the economy that he proposed during his successful presidential campaign.

The narrowness of the margin will ensure that any laws will have to be supported by centrists like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona's two senators.

It will, however, give the new president a fighting chance at legislative accomplishments - and make it significantly easier for him to appoint the administration officials and federal judges of his choice.

If the Republicans hold on, then that would mean two more years of divided government and, probably, legislative gridlock. Democratic hopes will rest on the whims of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a handful of Republican moderates.

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