High-profile outsiders descend on Georgia ahead of Senate runoff votes
Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan has the latest from Atlanta on 'Special Report'
The presidential race in Georgia was called for President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday night, officially awarding him the state’s 16 electoral votes and widening his lead over President Trump.
The results were determined after the state conducted an audit of nearly 5 million votes cast by residents.
Several thousand previously unreported ballots were discovered in the process, but it was not enough to shift the vote in Trump’s favor.
In a statement Thursday, Jaclyn Rothenberg, Georgia communications director for 'Biden for President', said the recount process simply reaffirmed that voters in the state chose Biden to be their next president.
“We are grateful to the election officials, volunteers and workers for working overtime and under unprecedented circumstances to complete this recount, as the utmost form of public service," Rothenberg said.
PENCE TO CAMPAIGN FRIDAY IN GEORGIA RUNOFFS, BUT NO WORD ON A TRUMP TRIP
Biden has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, though the president has yet to concede the race and has repeated unfounded claims about voter fraud.
Trump’s campaign also launched several lawsuits challenging the voting systems and processes in a number of key battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
During the 2016 election cycle, Trump defeated Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by a margin of about 5%
The last time the state voted for a Democratic candidate in the presidential election was 1992, when former President Bill Clinton won.
Meanwhile, the state’s two Senate seats will be decided in runoffs early next year – as Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the Republican incumbents, defend their seats against Democratic challengers the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively.
These two races will determine whether the GOP maintains its majority in the chamber.
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