Republicans need just one victory between Perdue and Loeffler, both seeking second terms, to maintain Senate control. Video / AP
Donald Trump's Republican Party is in serious danger of losing its majority in the US Senate, with the Democrats narrowly favoured to win both of Georgia's runoff elections.
The two special elections are necessary because no Senate candidate received a majority of the vote on November 3.
Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are trying to fend off challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, with the balance of power in the Senate at stake.
The Republicans currently hold 50 seats, and the Democrats have 48. Should either Perdue or Loeffler win, their party will retain control of the chamber, with a chance to stymie president-elect Joe Biden's agenda once he takes office.
However, if the two Democrats win and split the Senate 50/50, incoming vice president Kamala Harris will hold the tie-breaking vote for the next two years, effectively giving the Democrats total control of the US federal government.
President-elect Joe Biden stands on stage with Georgia Democratic candidates for US Senate Raphael Warnock, right, and Jon Ossoff, left, in Atlanta. Photo / AP
Both races are close, though Decision Desk has already declared Warnock the winner over Loeffler. Other US outlets have yet to call it.
With 97 per cent of the votes counted, Warnock leads 50.38-49.62.
Meanwhile, Perdue has the thinnest of leads over Ossoff, with a margin of 50.03-49.97, or about 2500 votes.
Most of the outstanding vote is believed to be from Democrat-leaning counties.
Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has indicated the final results may not be known until "lunchtime tomorrow".
Because this is politics, the internal recriminations among Republican officials have already started, even though neither race has been called yet.
Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who serves as Georgia's voting system implementation manager, told CNN it would be President Trump's fault if Perdue and Loeffler ended up losing.
Kelly Loeffler speaks as President Donald Trump listens during a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia. Photo / AP
Sterling has repeatedly debunked Trump's claims about voter fraud in public since the presidential election, voicing his fear that Republican voters would not bother to show up and vote for Perdue and Loeffler if they thought the results were rigged anyway.
"If one of the Republican candidates, or both, lose their seats in the Senate, who would be to blame?" a reporter asked him as the votes started to roll in.
"Well, I'll speak for – outside of my role working for the state. This is a personal opinion. That will fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since November 3," said Sterling.
"When you tell people, 'Your vote doesn't count, it's been stolen,' and people start to believe that, and then you go to the two senators and ask them to tell the Secretary of State to resign and trigger a civil war in the Republican Party – when we need Republicans to unite – all of that stems from his decision-making since the November 3 election."
Sterling went on to agree with the proposition that Trump had "single-handedly divided the party".
Reporters have also been receiving cranky text messages from Republican strategists, which is pretty standard election night stuff.
Georgia election official @GabrielSterling, a Republican, says a loss for Loeffler & Perdue would "fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump." pic.twitter.com/P1hmoukpnB
A different factor in the race may have been the Republican Party's refusal to back Trump's call for more generous stimulus payments to Americans as part of a coronavirus relief package that passed through Congress last month.
"I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low US$600 to US$2000, or US$4000 for a couple," the President demanded on Christmas Eve, when the bill had already been passed after months of painful negotiations.
Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, did not comply, and Trump ended up begrudgingly signing the bill into law.
Meanwhile, the Democrats turned bigger stimulus payments into a campaign issue, promising US$2000 cheques would pass in the Senate if voters in Georgia gave them the numbers.
At the same time, Trump was running TV ads claiming he'd been robbed in the presidential election.
The President held a massive political rally in Georgia the night before the runoff elections, where he repeated a number of his baseless fraud theories – though he did also urge his supporters to vote for Perdue and Loeffler.
"You're going to show up at the polls in record numbers," he said.
"You're going to swamp them, and together we're going to beat the Democrat extremists, and deliver a thundering victory."
Trump started to make the argument that Republicans needed to retain the Senate to act as a check on the power of a Biden administration, before getting a little sidetracked.
"If the liberal Democrats take the Senate and the White House – and they're not taking this White House. We're going to fight like hell," he said.
"I was telling Kelly before, 'You can lose it, that's acceptable. You lose, you lose, you go, you go wherever you're going, and then you say, 'Maybe I'll do it again sometime, or maybe I won't, or maybe I'll get back to life.'
"But when you win in a landslide, and they steal it, and it's rigged, it's not acceptable."
