Georgia Senate Race between Loeffler and Warnock Will Be Decided in January Run-off

Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock are both candidates running for the senate seat in Georgia. Neither of the two received more than 50% of the votes, and by law, there must be a run-off election to determine who wins.

What We Know:

• Kelly Loeffler is the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream. She was appointed to the seat in 2019 to replace retiring Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, according to Yahoo News. Another candidate, Doug Collins, wasn’t as successful as she was and has decided to endorse her in the run-off election taking place on January 5th. The two of them split the Republican vote.
• Loeffler’s team didn’t support her after she denounced Black Lives Matter in a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert in July. The players campaigned for her opponent Raphael Warnock instead. In order to support, the Atlanta Dream basketball team players wore “Black Lives Matter” shirts on August 4th.
•  Aside from her letter, she also made a statement at a summer campaign appearance saying “There is no room for racism in this country. We cannot have it. But there is an organization, different from the saying, an organization called Black Lives Matter founded on Marxist principles. Marxism supports socialism.”
• Raphael Warnock is a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and a candidate for the senate seat. He officially announced his candidacy in January of this year. A statement he told the New York Times was, “Yes, it is, for some people, an extraordinary step for a clergyperson to operate beyond the pulpit and enter the rough-and-tumble of politics”. Warnock continued, “I am aware of the risk. But I am embracing it because I think the times demand it”.
• He is in favor of both abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. By winning the run-off election, he would make history as the first Black American in the Senate to represent Georgia. On top of that, he’s a Democrat.

The election is set to happen on January 5th and early voting will begin on December 14th. The deadline to register to vote for the run-off is December 7 and voters can request an absentee ballot starting November 18th.