Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue in the runoff election.

By winning both seats, Democrats took control of the chamber, with Vice President Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote giving them an effective majority.

The extraordinarily high political stakes caused the races to attract significant attention nationwide and globally.

On January 6, 2021, most major news outlets projected Ossoff the winner, in the midst of the US Capitol riot.

[69] Ossoff criticized Perdue's absence, accusing him of skipping the event because of the negative response to his performance in the October debates.

U.S. executive branch officials U.S. senators State officials Organizations U.S. executive branch officials U.S. senators State legislators Local officials Organizations Unions Individuals with Teresa Tomlinson with Sarah Riggs Amico with Stacey Abrams with Generic Democrat with Generic Republican and Generic Democrat No candidate received a majority of the vote on November 3, so the top two finishers—incumbent Republican senator David Perdue (49.7%) and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff (47.9%)—advanced to a runoff election held on January 5, 2021.

Absentee ballots for the runoff election were sent out beginning on November 18, and in-person voting began on December 14.

[198][199] Ossoff's runoff campaign largely focused around accusing Perdue of corruption as well as aggressively courting Black voters in an attempt to drive up turnout, while Perdue characterised Ossoff as a socialist and accused him of having ties to the People's Republic of China.

[200] Perdue's campaign was hampered by his refusal to state that Joe Biden had won that year's presidential election, which made it exceedingly difficult for him to argue that an Ossoff victory would create a Democratic trifecta.