In Republican strongholds of Georgia and North Carolina, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has made the kinds of inroads that could lead to most of the desired results his party arrived with during the 2020 election.
As vote counting continued early Friday morning, Biden had taken the lead in Georgia and, with 94 percent of the count in, had pulled within 1.42 percentage points of President Donald Trump in North Carolina.
While Biden is on the verge of being recognized as the president-elect, tabulations from those two Southern states have also produced Senate races that are likely headed to a January runoff to determine the upper chamber’s control.
This year, Georgia had two Senate races because of a special election to determine a replacement for Johnny Isakson, who retired last year.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to replace Isakson but faced challenges from 20 other candidates in the special election. State law mandates that a race must advance to a runoff election if no candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote.
Loeffler, who received around 26 percent of the vote, will go to the runoff alongside Democrat Raphael Warnock, who received approximately 32 percent.
In Georgia’s second Senate race, Republican incumbent David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff have failed to reach the 50 percent plateau and now will proceed to a January runoff.
In North Carolina, the latest poll results show that incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and his Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham remain locked in a race that’s too close to call. As of Friday, neither had reached the 50 percent threshold, thus necessitating a January runoff.
For Biden, Black voters have emerged as his savior. Votes have poured in from the predominately Black jurisdictions of Atlanta and Fulton County, pushing Biden ahead of Trump in the state with only a few ballots remaining.
In Pennsylvania, which has 20 electoral college votes, Biden forged ahead of Trump by more than 5,500 votes after a large swath of ballots were counted in predominately Black Philadelphia and neighboring counties. A win in the state would seal the presidency for the Democrat.
Biden maintains a roughly 11,400-vote lead in Nevada, with 84 percent of the vote counted, including the predominately Black Clark County.
The bad news hasn’t stopped Trump from further desecrating American democracy, falsely claiming that Democrats are “trying to steal the election” and hyping up an already bloodthirsty base that has tried to disrupt counting in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Biden has preached patience and declared, “I believe when all of the votes have been counting, [running mate] Kamala Harris and I will be the winners.”