The future of the US Senate was hanging in the balance early on Wednesday morning, after Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock took a significant lead in Georgia’s run-off election with 97 per cent of the vote counted.
As of 2am US Eastern Standard Time, Mr Warnock had 50.5 per cent of the vote with a lead of roughly 40,000 over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, giving him a commanding edge in one of two Senate elections that will determine which party controls the upper chamber.
In the other Georgia Senate race, Republican incumbent David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff were virtually neck and neck, with the latter leading by about 3,600 votes. Roughly 4.4m votes had been counted by 1am, with many of the remaining ballots expected to come from areas that favour Democrats.
The two run-off elections were triggered after none of the candidates earned more than 50 per cent of the vote in the November 3 general election, and took place in the shadow of Donald…