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When Raphael Warnock was born, the state of Georgia was represented in the Senate by two segregationists – one of them, Herman Talmadge, a southern Democrat who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
Today, Warnock, a senior preacher at the Ebenezer Baptist church, where Martin Luther King Jr once preached, has been elected the first African American Democratic senator from a formerly Confederate state.
Normally, Congress simply receives results from states and announces them to the US – but this year may include some twists
A joint session of Congress is scheduled to begin meeting on Wednesday at 1pm to finally certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Never in the modern political history of the United States have these proceedings been notable. For 150 years, Congress has acted in accordance with the constitution and the 1887 Electoral Count Act to simply receive election results from the states and announce them to the nation. It usually takes a couple hours on a weekday, and does not make many headlines.
Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King once preached, has won one of the two runoff elections for the US Senate in Georgia, putting the Democrats within striking distance of taking control of the upper chamber.
Warnock’s victory over the ultra-Trump loyalist Kelly Loeffler was called by Associated Press just after 2am. It solidifies the astonishing transformation that has seen Georgia reshape itself from a southern Republican stronghold into a diverse and increasingly progressive state, just two months after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there in almost three decades.
Shortly before polls are set to close in Georgia, Barack Obama offered this reminder to voters: if you are in line at a polling place by 7 pm ET, do not leave.
Georgia voters—If you're in line before the polls close at 7 pm, stay there. You have the right to vote, no matter how long it takes. If you have questions, call the Georgia voter protection hotline at 1-888-730-5816. Let's bring this home.
That’s all from me today. I’m handing over to my colleague Joan E Greve, who will be with you as the polls close in Georgia and throughout the evening. Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories so far:
Georgia voters headed to the polls on Tuesday for the final day of voting in a critical election that will determine which party controls the US Senate and what Joe Biden can achieve in the first two years of his presidency.
After she cast her ballot on the chilly morning in Atlanta, Stephanie Aluko stood outside her polling place and noted how remarkable it was that the entire world was paying attention to her state.
President-elect speaks at Atlanta rally alongside Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock
Joe Biden urged Georgia voters to surprise the nation once again by sending two Democrats to the US Senate, on the eve of a pair of critical runoff elections that will determine the balance of power in Washington and the scope of the president-elect’s ambitious legislative agenda.
Biden, speaking at a drive-in rally in downtown Atlanta alongside the Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock on Monday afternoon, did not mention Donald Trump’s increasingly brazen efforts to overturn the results of the November election, which escalated this weekend when the president pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in the state. Instead, he focused on what Democrats could accomplish with control of the Senate.
David Perdue, the Georgia Republican facing a Senate runoff election on Tuesday, has twice bought a significant number of shares in a US bank shortly after meeting with financial policy makers, raising more questions about his prolific stock trading while in office.
DC mayor Muriel Bowser urged residents to avoid downtown in the next couple of days, as the city prepares for pro-Trump demonstrations in connection to Congress’ electoral vote count on Wednesday.
The Democratic mayor said at a press conference today, “We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city.”
[Bowser] urged calm Monday as some 340 National Guard troops were being activated while the city prepared for potentially violent protests surrounding Congress’ expected vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
According to a U.S. defense official, [Bowser] put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from Jan. 5-7th, to help with the protests. The official said the D.C. National Guard members will be used for traffic control and other assistance but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. ...
Conversation between president and Georgia’s secretary of state laid bare Trump’s determination to cling on to power
Donald Trump has been recorded pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn US president-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state, in a tape obtained by the Washington Post.
The conversation is mainly between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, but Trump allies including Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and attorney Cleta Mitchell were also present, as was Ryan Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel. Here are the main points:
In an hour-long phone call on Saturday, Donald Trump pressed Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in the election the president refuses to concede.
All 12 Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college results on Wednesday, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend their move on television, a CNN host said on Sunday.
Republicans say they will reject presidential electors from states where Trump campaign contested results unless audit completed
Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and nine other Republican US senators or senators-elect said on Saturday they will reject presidential electors from states where Donald Trump has contested his defeat by Joe Biden, “unless and until [an] emergency 10-day audit” of such results is completed.
Lawsuit aimed at allowing vice president to reject electoral college votes is latest in a long line of cases to be thrown out
A US judge has rejected a lawsuit from a Republican congressman that sought to allow vice president Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday to certify his victory over president Donald Trump.
The latest long-shot attempt by Trump’s Republican allies to overturn the November election result was dismissed by one of Trump’s own appointees to the federal bench, Jeremy Kernodle.
The pandemic created new barriers to the ballot box and strengthened existing ones – aided by the president and his Republican allies
The fight over access to the ballot was one of the most important stories in America in 2020.
The country faced a pandemic that both offered new barriers to the ballot box and exacerbated existing ones. After election day, America faced an unprecedented effort to undermine faith in the election results as Donald Trump and Republican allies baselessly claimed fraud and brought a flurry of unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to get election results overturned.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will travel to Georgia to campaign for next week’s high-stakes Senate runoff elections, it was announced on Wednesday, as Donald Trump called on the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, to resign.
Races will decide which party controls the Senate and, in turn, the legislative power of President-elect Joe Biden
Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both running for crucial US Senate seats in Georgia that will decide the fate of Joe Biden’s new administration, have raised over $100m each in just two months.
The announcement of the recent record-breaking hauls – which considerably exceed that of their Republican opponents – comes with less than two weeks to go until the runoff races are decided in special elections on 5 January.
As Donald Trump peddled baseless claims of vote fraud after 3 November, democracy found out who its friends were
In November, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to try to hold on to power that voters had given to someone else in the course of a national election.
From the pandemic, to the death of George Floyd, to America’s presidential elections, 2020 has been a year of distress – with moments of hope and endurance. These were some of the images that stood out
This year was the most challenging and extraordinary year for news. Our journalists worked tirelessly throughout 2020, from the very start of the year with the Australian bushfires, through the struggle for Hong Kong, the Harvey Weinstein verdict to the death of George Floyd, and the dramatic and divisive US presidential election. But of course, the Covid-19 pandemic was the dominant global story of the year. The Guardian's coverage sought to foreground the science and the latest data, hold the government and the scientific establishment to account and expose incompetence, and bring empathy and humanity to the stories of the victims. Here are some of the highlights of our journalism over that time.
• Show your support for the Guardian’s powerful, open, independent journalism in 2020 and the years ahead
Donald Trump’s flirtation with declaring martial law in battleground states and appointing a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to help his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden are “really sad” and “nutty and loopy”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.
Rudy Giuliani and other advisers opposed president’s suggestion, according to New York Times
Donald Trump pushed to have the lawyer and “kraken” conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell named as a special counsel to investigate supposed electoral fraud, the New York Times reported on Saturday.