#More than 2M people have already voted in Georgia’s Senate races

Over 2 million people have already cast their votes in the two critical Georgia Senate run-offs that will decide control of the body.

As of Thursday, about 1.3 million Georgians have voted early at in-person voting places, state data shows, while another 721,000 ballots have been cast by mail.

Nearly 1.4 million Georgians have requested absentee ballots for the Jan. 5 run-offs as of Thursday evening. The state will stop accepting requests on Jan. 1.

About 4 million people voted early in the November election, by comparison.

All eyes have focused on two Senate battles in Georgia, both with GOP incumbents. The current balance of the Senate is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats, meaning that whichever way these two seats go will decide which party controls the upper chamber of Congress.

If Democrats were to win both seats and keep the body evenly split, tie votes would be broken by the vice president, Kamala Harris.

The first race has incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler facing off against Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

Loeffler was not elected to her seat; she was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the vacancy left by Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned in December due to health concerns.

The second race pits Democrat Jon Ossoff against incumbent Sen. David Perdue.

President-elect Joe Biden narrowly carried Georgia over President Trump, marking the first time a Democrat carried the Southern state since Bill Clinton defeated former President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Democratic strategists have said once-red Georgia is within reach for their party, but GOP analysts have argued it will be harder for the left to convince their voters to come out in an election without Trump on the ballot.

In order to carry the state, however, both parties will need to spend heavily to maintain relevance in an increasingly expensive race. Some have speculated that the advertising spending alone could approach $500 million.

With Post wires