Polls close in Georgia's critical Senate runoffs, candidates in close call

All polls in Georgia officially closed on Tuesdayafter a day of in-person voting in Georgia's closely watched US Senate elections that will determine which party controls the chamber and how Congress could impact Joe Biden's incoming administration.

The runoffs for two Senate seats follow the November 3 election that saw Democrat Biden narrowly win Georgia and defeat President Donald Trump in their bitter White House race.

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After polls closed at 7:00 pm (0000 GMT Wednesday) in the southern state, US news outlets reported the races were too close to call, with Georgia officials saying results may not be known until Wednesday or later.

Georgia's unusual runoff for two Senate seats pits Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff against incumbent Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue respectively.

As polls closed Tuesday evening, preliminary results showed Warnock and Ossoff had jumped to narrow early leads.

Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker, and Warnock, a pastor at a historic Black church in Atlanta, are challenging Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

With about 49 per centof the estimated vote counted, Warnock led Loeffler by 6.8 percentage points, while Ossoff was ahead of Perdue by 6.4 percentage points, according to Edison Research. The early results still heavily reflect Democratic-leaning areas.

The races appeared headed to a close finish, with an Edison exit poll of more than 5,200 voters finding half had voted for Republican President Donald Trump in November and a half for Biden. The voters were also evenly split on whether Democrats or Republicans should control the Senate.

The survey included both early voters and voters who cast ballots on Tuesday.

Democrats must win both contests inGeorgiato take control of the Senate. A double Democratic win would create a 50-50 split in the Senate and give Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote after she and Biden take office on January20. The party already has a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

If Republicans hold onto the Senate, they would effectively wield veto power over Biden's political and judicial appointees as well as many of his policy initiatives in areas such as economic relief, climate change, healthcare and criminal justice.

The state already had relatively complete results for 27 counties inGeorgiawith about 197,000 total votes. Ossoff has done about 0.2 percentage point better than Biden did in those counties, while Warnock is doing about 0.8 percentage point better than Biden did.

The outcome may remain in doubt for days if the margins are razor-thin.

Both Biden and Trump campaigned in the state on Monday, underscoring the stakes.

No Democrat has won a USSenate race inGeorgiain 20 years, but opinion surveys show both races as exceedingly close. The head-to-head runoff elections, a quirk of state law, became necessary when no candidate in either race exceeded 50 per centof the vote in November.

Biden's narrow statewide win in the November3 election,the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, has given the party reason for optimism in a state dominated by Republicans for decades.

More than 3 millionGeorgians voted early by mail or in person, shattering the record for runoff elections even before Election Day arrived. The two races drew nearly half a billion dollars in advertising spending since November3, a staggering total that fueled a tsunami of television commercials.

(With input from agencies)