The first round of the election was held on November 3, 2020; however, no candidate received a majority of the vote, so the top two candidates—Warnock and Loeffler—advanced to a runoff on January 5, 2021, which Warnock won narrowly.
The special election was prompted by Georgia governor Brian Kemp's appointment of Loeffler as the interim replacement for Republican Class III Senator Johnny Isakson, who resigned in December 2019.
Because of this, the two Georgia runoffs determined the balance of the United States Senate under the incoming Biden administration.
The extraordinarily high political stakes caused the races to attract significant attention nationwide and globally.
Major media outlets, including Decision Desk HQ, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and NBC News, called the election for Warnock in the early hours of January 6, just minutes after he declared victory.
Though Loeffler vowed to challenge the results after she returned from the electoral vote certification in Washington,[2] she conceded on January 7.
[14] While she had not been treated as a major contender and was largely ignored by pollsters, Deborah Jackson received 6.6% of the vote in the initial round of the election, being the second-best performing Democrat, and outperformed fellow Democrats such as Matt Lieberman and Ed Tarver, who pollsters had paid attention to.
[citation needed] The Associated Press and other major news outlets called the race for Warnock in the early morning hours of January 6.
On December 17, Judge Eleanor L. Ross found that plaintiffs lacked standing based on possible future harm to toss out a consent decree regarding signatures on absentee ballot applications.
Judge James Randal Hall threw out another case that tried to block the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots.
[261] Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, sister of Democratic politician Stacey Abrams, of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia rejected the attempted purge of 4,000 voters in Muscogee County and Ben Hill County, Georgia, on December 29.