Democratic Reverend Raphael Warnock won a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia and defeated Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in one of the state’s crucial elections on January 5th.
The race was hosted by Vox’s election partner Decision Desk at 23:13 ET.
Warnock’s victory is historic; he is the first black senator elected in Georgia to fight on the side of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Warnock is the 11th Black candidate ever elected to the Senate, and he will be one of only three black senators in the current Congress, along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC).
“Georgia is the home state of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Warnock said in an interview with Vox this fall. ‘It has long been the point of the spear for change in America. And I think that through this movement that we are building, it will again be a central focus for change. ”
Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, referred to the historic nature of his victory early Wednesday morning. He talked about growing up in a housing project in Savannah, Georgia, ” a son of my late father who was a pastor, a veteran, and a small businessman, and my mother who grew up in Georgia as a teenager, chose someone else’s cotton. ”
“The other day, because it’s America, the 82-year-old who chose someone’s cotton went to the polls and chose her youngest son to be a U.S. senator,” Warnock said in his remarks.
The victory of Warnock means a potential sea change in Georgian politics. It comes a few months after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992. House Democrats also overturned their only 2020 GOP district in the Seventh Congressional District in Georgia, in Atlanta’s suburbs.
The other Senate run-off race between Republican Senator David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff has not yet been called.
This once strongly conservative state has undergone tremendous demographic change in recent years, but also an increasingly organized Democratic Party. Democrats can thank suffrage groups aimed at massively voting voters for Warnock victory powered by non-white voters.
“We knocked on our two millionth door yesterday, we made 5 million calls and 3 million text messages to Georgia voters,” Nsé Ufot, CEO of the voting rights group New Georgia Project, told Vox. “We were all amazed at the outcome of the November election, and I maintain Georgia is a war-torn country.”
What Warnock’s Victory Means for Senate Control and Biden’s Agenda
Elected President Joe Biden won the presidency on November 3, but he does not have much chance of getting on the daring agenda he proposed without buying into Congress.
Biden enters the office facing multiple crises: the Covid-19 pandemic worsens in the US, even as vaccines begin to be brought across the country, and millions of people are still out of work due to coronavirus-related layoffs. After months of biased rhetoric, Congress was able to pass an $ 900 billion economic emergency package before the new year. Biden said he wants more economic stimulus, but whether a future package can succeed will largely be determined by which party the Senate controls.
Either way, the Democrats will have to contend with Senate Republicans. Winning both Georgia seats will give Democrats 50 seats in the Senate, plus elected Vice President Kamala Harris who serves as a vital tiebreaker for ordinary majority votes. (To be clear, Georgia’s other race has not yet been named, so we do not yet know which party will control the Senate).
The catch is that most bills need to clear a super majority of 60 votes in the Senate. Therefore, even though the Democrats have Senate control, they still need about 10 Republican votes to get things done – unless they vote to eliminate the filibuster and change the Senate rules to a regular majority vote for legislation. A number of Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are strongly opposed to this.
Warnock’s victory means Democrats will have to win fewer Republican senators to do basic work; they now have one more reliable vote on routine but important Senate functions such as the confirmation of Biden’s cabinet or judicial nominees.
Warnock’s victory in Georgia brings Democrats one step closer to governance.