Your Daily Roundup for January 6th

Good morning. As the COVID-19 pandemic takes a toll on life in America, our team at Future Majority is tracking the latest updates: 

A shift in the balance of power:

In the high stakes Georgia Senate runoff elections, the two Democratic candidates are poised to beat the Republican candidates, which would provide a 50-50 tie in the Senate, broken by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. If the vote count continues to trend the way it has been since polls closed Tuesday at 7 p.m., Democrats will be in the majority in the United States Senate, in addition to maintaining their majority in the House and winning the presidency in November. The major news outlets have called the race for the Reverend Raphael Warnock over Senator Kelly Loeffler in the special election, while the regular election for Senator David Perdue’s seat appears to be likely to flip to Democrat Jon Ossoff as remaining votes to be tallied are largely in heavily Democratic-leaning areas. Warnock will become the first Black senator in the history of Georgia, and Ossoff, at only 33 years old, would be one of the youngest U.S. senators if elected.

COVID-19 is raging:

Nearly 240,000 Americans were newly infected with COVID-19 on Tuesday alone, a staggering number as hospitalizations are at sustained record numbers and deaths continue to climb. The hope for defeating the pandemic rests largely in an effective vaccine rollout and ubiquitous uptake among Americans and those all around the world. But delays in administering vaccines have characterized the rollout to date. 

Stimulus payments are delayed for millions of Americans:

The Internal Revenue Service sent direct payments originating from the most recent COVID-19 economic stimulus to more than 13 million bank accounts that were closed or no longer valid. The agency said that the speed at which the new law required them to issue payments led to the inaccuracies. Issues with doling out the payments are leading to delays at a time when struggling Americans need it most.