Why Democrats won in Georgia

Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock unseated Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in runoff elections for Georgia’s two seats in the Senate last week, ensuring their party would control both houses of Congress for the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency.

After two months of intense national focus on Georgia in the leadup to Tuesday’s runoffs, the outcome has been pushed off the front page by the assault on Congress the following day that left five people dead. Still, many political experts see the wins by Ossoff and Warnock — which create an even 50-50 split in the Senate and give Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tiebreaking vote — as among the most consequential down-ballot results in modern American history.