U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock is the first Black man to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate. (Photo/NBC
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By Karen Stokes
U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock defeats Walker in the Georgia runoff election on Tuesday (Photo/NPR)
Raphael Warnock has won a full six-year term representing Georgia in the U.S. Senate, fending off Republican nominee Herschel Walker in Tuesday’s runoff.
“After a hard-fought campaign — or, should I say, campaigns — it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock, 53, told jubilant supporters who packed a downtown Atlanta hotel ballroom.
Democrats will add to their already-secured Senate majority, with 51 seats to the Republican’s 49.
Here are some historical takeaways from this final election night in Georgia.
-Raphael Warnock became the first Black senator from Georgia when he won the 2020 election runoff that helped tip the upper chamber into Democratic control, now he adds another distinction, winning a full six-year term in the Senate.
-Biden is the first Democratic president in over 90 years to not lose a single seat in the Senate during a midterm election. This hasn’t happened since Franklin Roosevelt.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted that this year marked the first time since 1934 that every Democratic Senate incumbent won with the party in power.
-Warnock’s win confirms Georgia’s position as a key battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential race and bolsters the argument that Abrams and other Democratic leaders here have pushed for years that the historic blue wave that saw the state’s voters elect Biden in 2020 and Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the Senate in 2021 was not a fluke, but the beginning of a deeper and more sustained movement to flip Georgia blue. Georgia is a swing state until further notice.
-In Georgia, this was the first runoff in history for the U.S. Senate, where the two candidates were African American.
-AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 3,200 voters in the state, showed that Warnock won 90% of Black voters. Walker, meanwhile, won 68% of white voters. With Warnock’s win, the 2022 midterms are officially over.
“I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” declared Warnock.
“Georgia, you have been praying with your lips and your legs, your hands and your feet, your heads and your hearts. You have put in the hard work, and here we are together.”