AP VoteCast: What weighed on the minds of voters in Georgia Senate runoffs?

Voters register before casting their vote during Georgia's Senate runoff elections on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) (Brynn Anderson, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Both Georgia Senate races -- between David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the incumbent Republican senators, and Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock -- will determine control of the Senate for the next two years.

One question the Associated Press asked voters is how that issue weighed on their minds in deciding how to vote -- and clearly, it weighed heavily.

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  • 60% said it was the single most important factor.
  • 34% said it was an important factor, but not the most important.
  • 4% said it was a minor factor.
  • 2% said it was not a factor.

Another question asked how confident voters were that votes were counted accurately in the November 2020 presidential election.

  • 62% said they were very or somewhat confident.

Those voters were overwhelmingly in favor of Ossoff over Perdue -- 78% to 22%. Voters who felt this way also favored Warnock over Loeffler by the same margins.

  • 37% were not too confident or not at all confident that votes were counted accurately.

Most of those voters favored Perdue over Ossoff -- 96% to 4%. In the race between Loeffler and Warnock, nearly all of the voters who felt this way, also favored Loeffler.

Voters were also asked when they voted.

  • 73% said they voted early or absentee.

Those voters favored Ossoff over Perdue -- 56% to 44%. These numbers were identical in the race between Loeffler and Warnock.