Rev. Raphael Warnock is expected to win the US Senate special election in Georgia, turn a Republican seat and bring Democrats one step closer to the united control of Congress and the White House, according to NBC News.
The senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church will defeat current Republican Kelly Loeffler, a former business leader appointed to temporarily fill the Senate.
Warnock is the first black senator elected from Georgia and the first Democratic black senator elected from the South. He will be one of the three Black senators in Congress and the 11th Black senator ever to serve.
“I come before you tonight as a man who knows that the unlikely journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in America could only have happened here,” Warnock said in a speech early Wednesday morning. “I promise you this tonight: I’m going to the Senate to work for the whole of Georgia, no matter who you cast your vote for during this election.”
Even when Warnock led and diminished outstanding votes, Loeffler did not concede on Wednesday morning, claiming ‘we are going to win this election’.
Republican David Perdue, whose first term in the Senate ended Sunday, also had a run-off game against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. NBC News has not yet projected a winner in the race as of Wednesday morning, as Ossoff leads with 98% of the expected votes.
With Warnock’s predicted victory, the Democratic caucus has 49 members in the upper chamber, while Republicans of the Senate have 50 seats. If Ossoff wins the remaining run-off race, the Senate will be divided evenly, giving Kamala Harris, under-elected vice-president, the casting vote. Democratic control of Congress would give President-elect Joe Biden more leeway to set his legislative priorities.
Warnock, 51, and Loeffler, 50, emerged from the busy special election in November as the top two contenders. The seat opened after former Republican senator Johnny Isakson retired early in his term. When no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in November, the election rules in Georgia called for the race to be moved to an end to January.
The special election between Loeffler and Warnock is the second most expensive Senate race ever, just behind the match between Perdue and Ossoff, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. Loeffler and Warnock’s race drew nearly $ 363 million as of Monday.
On the campaign trail, Warnock regularly emphasized his life journey, from growing up in Savannah’s public housing to preaching on the deepened pulpit in Atlanta where Rev. Martin Luther King jr.
Loeffler repeatedly described her opponent as “radical liberal Raphael Warnock”, and tied him to what she said was a socialist agenda, including “Medicare for All”, the Green New Deal and the police discouraged. Warnock himself does not support the policy, although he is campaigning for the expansion of Medicaid, investment in green energy and the reform of criminal justice.
“He’s someone who would fundamentally change this country,” Loeffler told Fox News Sunday. “His values are not in line with Georgia.”
Loeffler’s campaign used phrases from Warnock’s previous sermons to accuse him of being anti-gun, anti-military, anti-police and anti-Israel. The Warnock campaign said the excerpts were ripped out of context and did not reflect his position.
A coalition of black pastors in Georgia wrote an open letter to Loeffler in late December asking her to stop labeling Warnock as ‘radical’ or ‘socialist’.
“We see your attacks on Warnock as a broader attack on the Black Church and faith traditions we stand for,” the pastors said.
Loeffler tried to link Warnock to a visit by Cuban Communist leader Fidel Castro in 1995 to a church where he was a youth pastor. Warnock said he had never met Castro, and PolitiFact found no evidence that he was involved in decisions about the appearance.
Meanwhile, Warnock condemned Loeffler for taking a photo during a campaign event with white supremacist Chester Doles, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the Neo-Nazi National Alliance.
“Kelly had no idea who it was, and if she did, she would have kicked him out right away because we condemned everything he stands for in the loudest way,” Loeffler spokesman Stephen Lawson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.
GOP government Brian Kemp has partially appointed Loeffler to appeal to more moderate suburban women who have stepped down from the GOP in response to Donald Trump’s presidency. While Loeffler once supported Sen. Mitt Mitt Romney, she has strongly committed herself to Trump since becoming a senator, including his unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud.
Loeffler refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory or that President-elect Georgia had won the election. She announced in a statement on Monday night that she would act against the certification of the result of the election college on Wednesday, a maneuver that is expected to fail. The move came after Trump threatened Republican Secretary of State Raffensperger over a phone call and put the election official under pressure to find popular votes that would tip the score in his favor and overturn election results.
“Senator Loeffler has the responsibility to speak out against the unfounded allegations of fraud, to defend the Georgia election and to put Georgia before herself. She has not and never will,” Warnock said in a statement Sunday.
Warnock has repeatedly accused Loeffler, one of the richest members of Congress, of insider trading, saying she used private knowledge given to her as a senator about the coronavirus pandemic to trade advantageous stocks in early 2020.
“She dumped millions of dollars worth of supplies, played them down and when she could help ordinary people, she did not do it. And the people of Georgia saw no relief for months,” Warnock said on December 6. debate against Loeffler.
Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and chairman and CEO of his holding company Intercontinental Exchange, scrutinized in March for trading that sold up to $ 3 million worth of bonds. These sales occurred just before the stock market index fell dramatically in value in response to the spread of Covid in the US
The senator’s investment activities investigated the Department of Justice, but prosecutors declined to file charges. Loeffler has repeatedly denied allegations of illegal or improper stock trading.
Loeffler cites the CARES law and the adoption of the recent $ 900 billion Covid bill as proof that he brought much-needed help to struggling Georgians during the pandemic. Democrats, she said, have thwarted attempts to pass an emergency relief package earlier.
When Trump campaigned for larger $ 2,000 stimulus checks, Warnock took the opportunity to criticize Loeffler for opposing a larger direct payment earlier in the Covid emergency negotiations. Loeffler later broke up with numerous Republicans from the Senate over the president’s quest to support direct 2000 payments to Americans.
The seat will be re-elected by the Senate in 2022 for a six-year term.