Democrat Raphael Warnock defeats Kelly Loeffler in Georgia Senate runoff

Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs
Wednesday, becoming the first Black senator in his state’s history
and putting the Senate majority within the Democrats’ reach.

A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church
where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Warnock defeated Republican
incumbent Kelly Loeffler. It was a stinging rebuke of outgoing
President Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office
to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind Loeffler and the
Republican running for the other seat, David Perdue.

The focus now shifts to the second race between Perdue and
Democrat Jon Ossoff. That contest was too early to call as votes
were still being counted. If Ossoff wins, Democrats will have
complete control of Congress, strengthening President-elect Joe
Biden’s standing as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20.

Warnock’s victory is a symbol of a striking shift in Georgia’s
politics as the swelling number of diverse, college-educated voters
flex their power in the heart of the Deep South. It marks the end
of nearly two decades in which Democrats have been shut out of
statewide office and follows Biden’s victory in November, when he
became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the
state since 1992.

Warnock, 51, acknowledged his improbable victory in a message to
supporters early Wednesday, citing his family’s experience with
poverty. His mother, he said, used to pick “somebody else’s cotton”
as a teenager.

“The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands
that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to
be a United States senator,” he said. “Tonight, we proved with
hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is
possible.”

Loeffler refused to concede in a brief message to supporters
shortly after midnight.

“We’ve got some work to do here. This is a game of inches. We’re
going to win this election,” insisted Loeffler, a 50-year-old
former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a
year ago by the state’s governor.

Loeffler, who remains a Georgia senator until the results of
Tuesday’s election are finalized, said she would return to
Washington on Wednesday morning to join a small group of senators
planning to challenge Congress’ vote to certify Biden’s
victory.

“We are going to keep fighting for you,” Loeffler said, “This is
about protecting the American dream.”

Georgia’s other runoff election pitted Perdue, a 71-year-old
former business executive who held his Senate seat until his term
expired on Sunday, against Ossoff, a former congressional aide and
journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the Senate’s
youngest member.

Trump’s false claims of voter fraud cast a dark shadow over the
runoff elections, which were held only because no candidate hit the
50% threshold in the general election. He attacked the state’s
election chief on the eve of the election and raised the prospect
that some votes might not be counted even as votes were being cast
Tuesday afternoon.

Republican state officials on the ground reported no significant
problems.

This week’s elections mark the formal finale to the turbulent
2020 election season more than two months after the rest of the
nation finished voting. The unusually high stakes transformed
Georgia, once a solidly Republican state, into one of the nation’s
premier battlegrounds for the final days of Trump’s presidency —
and likely beyond.

Both contests tested whether the political coalition that fueled
Biden’s November victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new
electoral landscape. To win in Tuesday’s elections — and in the
future — Democrats needed strong African American support.

Drawing on his popularity with Black voters, among other groups,
Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of
5 million cast in November.

Trump’s claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, while
meritless, resonated with Republican voters in Georgia. About 7 in
10 agreed with his false assertion that Biden was not the
legitimately elected president, according to AP VoteCast, a survey
of more than 3,600 voters in the runoff elections.

Election officials across the country, including the Republican
governors in Arizona and Georgia, as well as Trump’s former
attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed that there was no
widespread fraud in the November election. Nearly all the legal
challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges,
including two tossed by the Supreme Court, where three
Trump-nominated justices preside.

Even with Trump’s claims, voters in both parties were drawn to
the polls because of the high stakes. AP VoteCast found that 6 in
10 Georgia voters say Senate party control was the most important
factor in their vote.

In Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, 37-year-old Kari Callaghan
said she voted “all Democrat” on Tuesday, an experience that was
new for her.

“I’ve always been Republican, but I’ve been pretty disgusted by
Trump and just the way the Republicans are working,” she said. “I
feel like for the Republican candidates to still stand there with
Trump and campaign with Trump feels pretty rotten. This isn’t the
conservative values that I grew up with.”

But 56-year-old Will James said he voted “straight GOP.”

He said he was concerned by the Republican candidates’ recent
support of Trump’s challenges of the presidential election results
in Georgia, “but it didn’t really change the reasons I voted.”

“I believe in balance of power, and I don’t want either party to
have a referendum, basically,” he said.

Even before Tuesday, Georgia had shattered its turnout record
for a runoff with more than 3 million votes by mail or during
in-person advance voting in December. The state’s previous record
was 2.1 million in a 2008 Senate runoff.

fortune.com

Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs
Wednesday, becoming the first Black senator in his state’s history
and putting the Senate majority within the Democrats’ reach.

A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church
where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Warnock defeated Republican
incumbent Kelly Loeffler. It was a stinging rebuke of outgoing
President Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office
to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind Loeffler and the
Republican running for the other seat, David Perdue.

The focus now shifts to the second race between Perdue and
Democrat Jon Ossoff. That contest was too early to call as votes
were still being counted. If Ossoff wins, Democrats will have
complete control of Congress, strengthening President-elect Joe
Biden’s standing as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20.

Warnock’s victory is a symbol of a striking shift in Georgia’s
politics as the swelling number of diverse, college-educated voters
flex their power in the heart of the Deep South. It marks the end
of nearly two decades in which Democrats have been shut out of
statewide office and follows Biden’s victory in November, when he
became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the
state since 1992.

Warnock, 51, acknowledged his improbable victory in a message to
supporters early Wednesday, citing his family’s experience with
poverty. His mother, he said, used to pick “somebody else’s cotton”
as a teenager.

“The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands
that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to
be a United States senator,” he said. “Tonight, we proved with
hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is
possible.”

Loeffler refused to concede in a brief message to supporters
shortly after midnight.

“We’ve got some work to do here. This is a game of inches. We’re
going to win this election,” insisted Loeffler, a 50-year-old
former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a
year ago by the state’s governor.

Loeffler, who remains a Georgia senator until the results of
Tuesday’s election are finalized, said she would return to
Washington on Wednesday morning to join a small group of senators
planning to challenge Congress’ vote to certify Biden’s
victory.

“We are going to keep fighting for you,” Loeffler said, “This is
about protecting the American dream.”

Georgia’s other runoff election pitted Perdue, a 71-year-old
former business executive who held his Senate seat until his term
expired on Sunday, against Ossoff, a former congressional aide and
journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the Senate’s
youngest member.

Trump’s false claims of voter fraud cast a dark shadow over the
runoff elections, which were held only because no candidate hit the
50% threshold in the general election. He attacked the state’s
election chief on the eve of the election and raised the prospect
that some votes might not be counted even as votes were being cast
Tuesday afternoon.

Republican state officials on the ground reported no significant
problems.

This week’s elections mark the formal finale to the turbulent
2020 election season more than two months after the rest of the
nation finished voting. The unusually high stakes transformed
Georgia, once a solidly Republican state, into one of the nation’s
premier battlegrounds for the final days of Trump’s presidency —
and likely beyond.

Both contests tested whether the political coalition that fueled
Biden’s November victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new
electoral landscape. To win in Tuesday’s elections — and in the
future — Democrats needed strong African American support.

Drawing on his popularity with Black voters, among other groups,
Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of
5 million cast in November.

Trump’s claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, while
meritless, resonated with Republican voters in Georgia. About 7 in
10 agreed with his false assertion that Biden was not the
legitimately elected president, according to AP VoteCast, a survey
of more than 3,600 voters in the runoff elections.

Election officials across the country, including the Republican
governors in Arizona and Georgia, as well as Trump’s former
attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed that there was no
widespread fraud in the November election. Nearly all the legal
challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges,
including two tossed by the Supreme Court, where three
Trump-nominated justices preside.

Even with Trump’s claims, voters in both parties were drawn to
the polls because of the high stakes. AP VoteCast found that 6 in
10 Georgia voters say Senate party control was the most important
factor in their vote.

In Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, 37-year-old Kari Callaghan
said she voted “all Democrat” on Tuesday, an experience that was
new for her.

“I’ve always been Republican, but I’ve been pretty disgusted by
Trump and just the way the Republicans are working,” she said. “I
feel like for the Republican candidates to still stand there with
Trump and campaign with Trump feels pretty rotten. This isn’t the
conservative values that I grew up with.”

But 56-year-old Will James said he voted “straight GOP.”

He said he was concerned by the Republican candidates’ recent
support of Trump’s challenges of the presidential election results
in Georgia, “but it didn’t really change the reasons I voted.”

“I believe in balance of power, and I don’t want either party to
have a referendum, basically,” he said.

Even before Tuesday, Georgia had shattered its turnout record
for a runoff with more than 3 million votes by mail or during
in-person advance voting in December. The state’s previous record
was 2.1 million in a 2008 Senate runoff.

fortune.com