Joe Biden won Georgia in November 2020 by just 11,779 votes — the first Democratic presidential victory in the state since 1992 — and weeks later Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock flipped both of Georgia’s Senate seats, handing Democrats control of a Senate split exactly 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaking vote.
Ossoff, then 33, became the youngest member of the Senate, and Georgia elected its first Black senator and its first Jewish senator in the same election.
Ossoff’s First Run: A Costly Loss in a Deep-Red District
The district had voted Republican for decades, but Ossoff, then just 30, decided to run anyway, with Democrats still reeling from Hillary Clinton's defeat.
Little-known at the start, Ossoff quickly drew donations from across the country. John Lewis and Hank Johnson backed him, and he walked Atlanta’s suburban neighborhoods talking about waste and transparency, also courting Republicans who did not recognize themselves in Trump’s tone. He finished first in the initial round but fell short of the 50% needed to win outright. In the June 2017 runoff, he lost to Republican Karen Handel in one of the most expensive House campaigns in American history up to that point.
Still, in a district Democrats had not won for decades, the margin narrowed enough that Democrat Lucy McBath won the seat in 2018.
The 2020 Rematch That Changed Washington
Ossoff waited until 2020 for a second chance, this time running for the Senate against David Perdue, a former business executive and Republican close to Trump. The backdrop was a changing Georgia: Atlanta kept attracting new residents, once-solidly conservative suburbs became more competitive, and Black voter mobilization redrew the state’s political map.
After Biden’s narrow November 2020 win, Georgians returned to the polls on January 5, 2021, for the two Senate runoffs. Ossoff faced Perdue again, while Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where Martin Luther King preached — challenged Republican Kelly Loeffler. Both Democrats won.
The result left the Senate divided exactly in half, 50 Democrats and allied independents against 50 Republicans, with Harris’s vote giving Democrats the majority. The day after the runoffs, on January 6, a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Congress prepared to certify Biden’s victory.
What Georgia’s Shift Means for Future Elections
The sequence — a narrow presidential win followed by twin Senate victories — shows how Georgia moved from a reliably Republican state to a battleground decided by five-figure margins. Suburban growth around Atlanta and Black voter turnout are the forces driving that shift.
Ossoff lost expensive 2017 race before winning Senate seat
Ossoff’s 2017 House race against Karen Handel was among the most expensive House campaigns in U.S. history at that time — and he lost. Three years later, he won a Senate seat in the same state that had just gone for Biden by 11,779 votes.
Pro tip for following Georgia politics
Watch the suburbs north of Atlanta. When a district that had voted red for decades narrows enough for a Democrat to win it a year later, as happened in 2018 with Lucy McBath, it signals the broader realignment that delivered the Senate to Democrats in 2021.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Joe Biden win Georgia by in 2020?
Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes in November 2020, the first Democratic presidential win in the state since 1992.
When did Jon Ossoff first run for office?
Ossoff first ran in 2017 for Georgia’s 6th congressional district and lost the June 2017 runoff to Republican Karen Handel.
What happened in Georgia’s January 2021 Senate runoffs?
On January 5, 2021, Ossoff defeated David Perdue and Raphael Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler, giving Democrats both of Georgia’s Senate seats and a 50-50 Senate majority decided by Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
How old was Jon Ossoff when he entered the Senate?
Ossoff was 33 when he took his Senate seat, making him the youngest member of the Senate.
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