The two run-off Senate elections in Georgia remain in focus today. About 98% of the votes have been counted as of the writing of this article. Several news outlets have called one of the two races in favor of Rev. Raphael Warnock from the Democratic Party. The second race between Ossoff (Dem.) and Perdue (Rep.) is still hard to predict.
If the Democratic Party wins this election, it will split the Senate evenly. This will make it easier for Joe Biden to pass legislation because even if all 50 Republican votes oppose his proposal, Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaking vote and will certainly back the President.
Meanwhile, current VP Mike Pence is set to preside over the Senate as it certifies the Electoral College votes today. This is the very last step in the process of confirming the election results. Trump has urged Pence to obstruct this process and once again suggest that the election was fraudulent, but experts say that the Vice President does not have such a right. Allegedly, Pence himself said as much to Trump in a private meeting yesterday.
When the Electoral College votes get certified later today, Trump will have nothing left at his disposal to keep clinging to his post as President of the United States. He remains the only US President in modern history who has refused to concede after all votes had been counted.
Different stock indices are showing a mixed reaction to the developments in the United States. European and Asian indices are doing better due to hopes of a more positive relationship with the United States under Joe Biden. In the US, the Dow Jones is slightly up, while both Nasdaq and the S&P 500 indices are down today due to their higher concentration of tech stocks. Tech companies are likely to face more regulation from a predominantly Democratic government in a few weeks, which will affect their profitability.
Stocks to watch out for today include Chinese tech companies such as Tencent (maker of WeChat and QQ) and Alipay, because Trump added them to the blacklist of security-compromising Chinese ventures in the US.
Meanwhile, China is staying in the news for purely negative reasons. First of all, it is proceeding with massive arrests of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, including a US citizen. This is precisely what the world feared when a new security law was introduced last summer in the previously autonomous territory of Hong Kong.
In addition, China is blocking experts from the World Health Organization from entering the country. The team was supposed to go to China to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Because they were denied entry, there is a growing suspicion that the Chinese government has not been as transparent about the virus as the WHO was led to believe last year.
