Senate control is reduced to the present secondary elections in Georgia for the two seats in the state Senate. Republicans only need to get one seat to maintain control of the Senate, but if Democrats win both seats, there will be a 50-50 tie in the Senate and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be the tiebreaker vote.
CBSN’s Elaine Quijano will anchor a special episode of “Red & Blue” starting at 5 p.m. CBSN will also begin broadcasting live from 7 p.m. when polls close, with CBSN political reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns from Georgia.
CBS News election and polling director Anthony Salvanto will also appear throughout the night, as will Washington CBS News correspondent Major Garrett, CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes, CBS News political correspondents Ed O’Keefe and Nikole Killion and CBS News political reporters LaCrai Mitchell and Adam Brewster.
CBSN will also speak to local Georgia-based journalists as part of the “Local Matters” series.
How the results of the Georgia Senate bid can be seen
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What: Second round election in the Senate of Georgia
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Date: Tuesday, January 5th
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The polls close: 19.00 ET
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“Red & Blue” preview coverage on CBSN: 5-7 p.m.
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CBSN live coverage: 7 p.m.
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Online broadcast: Live on CBSN on the player above and on your mobile or streaming device.
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Carry on: Live election updates on CBSNews.com.
Nearly 3 million votes were cast at the start of the second round, with 2 million of those first face-to-face votes and nearly one million absent. Early voting ended Thursday.
Senator David Perdue, who faces Democrats Jon Ossoff, announced on Thursday will be in quarantine because he got in touch with someone from his campaign who tested positive for COVID-19. While it’s unclear how long he’ll be in quarantine, the Republican will be missing some of the last key days of the campaign.
Perdue told Fox News on Friday that it was “a terrible time” to go into quarantine, but the campaign “will not miss a step.”
Republicans are fighting hard to keep the two seats. In November, Perdue led Ossoff by less than 100,000 votes, but Perdue failed to get 50% of the vote to avoid runoff.
The other race pits incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler against the Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta.
CBS News
His career went into a second round after Loeffler and Congressman Doug Collins, one of President Trump’s favorites, split the Republican vote in November. Warnock got the most votes of the three, but Loeffler and Collins got more votes than him.
Trump will hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia, Monday, Jan. 4, election eve. Vice President Mike Pence will also be in Georgia on Monday on the call to action of the Georgia Faith Community in a church in Milner, Georgia.
President-elect Joe Biden will be in Atlanta on Monday and Harris campaigned Sunday.