Kelly Lynn Loeffler (/ˈlɛflər/ LEF-lər; born November 27, 1970) is an American businesswoman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2020 to 2021.

When Perdue's term ended on January 3, 2021, Loeffler ascended to be the senior senator from Georgia, a position she held for just under three weeks until Warnock was sworn in.

[10] In 1988, she graduated from Olympia High School in Stanford, where she was in the marching band, ran cross-country and track, and played varsity basketball.

[11] In 1992, Loeffler graduated with a Bachelor of Science in marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's Gies College of Business, where she was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority.

[21] Due in part to her stance on the Black Lives Matter movement, and the resulting criticism expressed by many players on the Dream roster and within the league, in February 2021 Loeffler sold her stake in the team.

[22] When Loeffler left Intercontinental Exchange to join the Senate, the company awarded her over $9 million of financial assets.

[24][25] Loeffler donated $750,000 to Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting former governor Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

[25] In May 2020, Loeffler's husband gave $1 million to a Trump 2020 reelection super PAC, his largest federal political donation to date.

[28] On August 28, 2019, sitting Georgia senator Johnny Isakson announced that he would resign at the end of the year, citing health reasons.

[29] On December 4, 2019, in accordance with Georgia law, Governor Kemp appointed Loeffler to fill Isakson's unexpired term until the next regularly scheduled statewide election in November 2020.

[45][46][43] Loeffler donated portions of her Senate salary to anti-abortion pregnancy centers and an anti-LGBTQ adoption agency.

[49] She cosponsored the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act and opposed the assault weapons ban and red flag law proposals.

[54] In October 2020, shortly after Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were diagnosed with COVID-19 after attending events where they closely interacted with other individuals while maskless, Loeffler, who often appeared at rallies and gatherings without wearing a mask,[55] blamed their contraction of the disease on the People's Republic of China, tweeting, "China gave this virus to our President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @FLOTUS.

"[57] On March 19, 2020, the release of federal financial disclosure documents showed that Loeffler and her husband Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman and CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (a corporation that owns the New York Stock Exchange), had sold stock in companies vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic with an aggregate value of several million dollars.

They began selling stocks on January 24, the same day Loeffler attended a private briefing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions on the spread of the disease, before the public had been alerted to its severity.

[60][61] The government watchdog group Common Cause filed complaints with the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee, alleging possible violations of the STOCK Act and insider trading laws in the matter of stock sales by Loeffler and three other senators, Richard Burr, Jim Inhofe, and Dianne Feinstein.

[67] Under Georgia's election law, all candidates for the seat (regardless of political party) compete in a nonpartisan blanket primary;[68] in addition to Democratic candidates, Loeffler, backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was challenged by fellow Republican Doug Collins, who represented Georgia's 9th congressional district.

[75] In August 2020, players from the Dream and several other teams wore "Vote Warnock" T-shirts in support of one of Loeffler's Democratic challengers in the special election.

[78] When she was separately asked about a recording of Trump telling Bob Woodward that he was intentionally downplaying COVID-19 in public, she responded that it was "fake news".

[79] During the 2020 campaign, Loeffler touted that she had been endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a controversial Republican who won the election for Georgia's 14th congressional district.

Their rhetoric fed into falsehoods and conspiracy theories among segments of the right, including Trump, who lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.

[87] As a consequence of the initial positive test result, Loeffler canceled future appearances at rallies, entering quarantine for the recommended time period.

In a December 6, 2020, debate she repeatedly accused her opponent of being a "radical liberal" and refused to admit Joe Biden was the winner of the 2020 United States presidential election.

[97] During the 2024 United States presidential election, Loeffler was a top donor to Donald Trump, having contributed more than $4.9 million to his re-election effort.

[102] In November 2020, Newsweek reported Loeffler's and Sprecher's combined net worth at $800 million, making her the wealthiest sitting U.S. senator at the time.