Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated his opponent, David Perdue (R), in the Georgia Senate runoff election on January 6, giving the Democratic Party control of the Senate for the first time in a decade.

Following the presidential election, in which Georgia was successfully flipped to blue, both major parties fought hard to gain control of the Senate. Considering the youth turnout this year, Democrats successfully won the election.

Rev. Raphael Warnock became the first black Democrat elected to the Senate from the Georgia, while Ossoff is the first Jewish senator from the state, as well as the youngest sitting U.S. senator at age 33. This pair of historic victories comes at a time when America is at its most vulnerable since President-Elect Joe Biden is expected to be inaugurated next week. 

Warnock said in a statement that his Senate victory over the Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler was the result of a decade of work registering hundreds of thousands of Georgians to vote.

He later told NPR, “Welcome to the new Georgia. It is more diverse, and it is more inclusive, and it readily embraces the future. And I am a product of that.”

2020 was undoubtedly an unprecedented year, and with that came a year of racial reckoning. Electing the first black Senator from a major southern state is an accomplishment that signals a major political and cultural shift for many Americans.

“Everybody who cast your ballot, everybody who put your faith and confidence in our democracy’s capacity to deliver the representation that we deserve — whether you were for me, or against me — I’ll be for you in the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff said. “I will serve all the people of the state.”

Ossoff then went on to urge people to emulate the spirit and courage of those who have given so much for the Covid-19 health crisis as we unite to overcome this challenge and “build a republic that lives up to our highest ideals of equality in God’s eyes.”

“My friend John Lewis is surely smiling down on his beloved Georgia this morning, as people across the state carried forward the baton that he and so many others passed down to them,” former President Barack Obama wrote in a statement.

In an Instagram post, Biden wrote, “Georgia voters delivered a resounding message today…they want action on the crises we face and they want it right now. Together, we’ll get it done.”

The news of the win for the Democratic party last Wednesday was quickly soured by the violent attacks on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, throwing the prospects for a peaceful transition of power to Biden into the air.