Three more races were settled on Election Night and a fourth is leaning toward an upset. Republicans held two open Senate seats — Andy Barr won in Kentucky and Kevin Hern won in Oklahoma — while the Associated Press called Georgia's governor's race for Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms. In South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews leads Republican Senator Darline Graham in a race the AP has not yet called.
In Kentucky, Republican Representative Andy Barr defeated Democrat Charles Booker to win the open Senate seat of retiring Senator Mitch McConnell. The AP called the race with Barr at 53.6 percent, and he widened his lead as the count finished, holding about 54 percent to Booker's 44 percent with roughly nine in ten precincts reporting. Barr, a seven-term congressman from central Kentucky, campaigned on President Trump's agenda — border security, domestic energy production and defending Kentucky values — and will serve alongside Senator Rand Paul, keeping the seat in Republican hands.
In Oklahoma, Republican Representative Kevin Hern, endorsed by President Trump, defeated Democrat N'Kiyla "Jasmine" Thomas to win the state's open Senate seat. Hern succeeds appointed Senator Alan Armstrong in the seat Markwayne Mullin gave up to become Homeland Security Secretary, and the AP's count showed Hern with 486,495 votes as the call was made.
In Georgia, the AP projected at about 9:24 p.m. Eastern that Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, has won the governor's race, defeating Republican businessman Rick Jackson by about 1,935,000 votes to 1,608,000. Bottoms becomes the first Black woman elected governor in American history, Georgia's first Black governor and its first Democratic governor since 1998, succeeding term-limited Republican Governor Brian Kemp — even though Jackson spent more than 200 million dollars of his own money on the race.
The night's possible upset is in South Carolina, where Democrat Annie Andrews leads Republican Senator Darline Graham — the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who was appointed to the seat and is backed by President Trump — by about 918,000 votes to 843,000, with roughly 88 percent of the expected vote counted. The AP still lists the race as too early to call, but CBS News and NBC News have both projected Andrews the winner; if the lead holds, she flips a Republican-held seat in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998.
For voters, these results shape who holds power over the things that reach every household: the Kentucky and Oklahoma holds keep two Senate seats with the President's party, the Georgia result hands a major state government to the Democrats, and a South Carolina flip would be one more seat toward deciding whether the Senate backs or blocks the President's agenda in his final two years.
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