Speaking shortly before the result was called, Mr Warnock said Democrats were told we couldn’t win this election”. “But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and with the people by our side, anything is possible.
“Thank you, Georgia,” he said. “I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia, no matter who you cast your vote for in this election.”
Mr Warnock’s victory is another sign of a major political shift in the longtime Republican stronghold, coming nearly two months after President-elect Joe Biden took the Peach State in November. Some Republican officials already were pointing blame at one man.
<p>Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church was an incubator of the fight for voting rights; its current pastor seeks election as Georgia's U.S. Senator.</p>
Georgia Senate Wins by Democrats Followed Years of Party Organizing
State Republicans are left splintered after dual losses with no clear path forward
Jon Ossoff, shown campaigning on Monday, and Raphael Warnock will be the first Democrats to represent Georgia in the Senate since 2005. Photo: jim watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images By Updated Jan. 6, 2021 10:49 pm ET
ATLANTA Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won both Senate runoff races in Georgia, giving Democrats control of the U.S. Senate and easing the path for President-elect Joe Biden’s appointments and legislative agenda.
Mr. Warnock defeated Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, while Mr. Ossoff took the seat held by former Republican Sen. David Perdue, whose term expired over the weekend. The new Senate will be evenly split between the two parties at 50-50, with Vice President-elect
Making History
Warnock will be Georgia s first Black senator and the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate in the South.
His Very Humble Beginnings
When Warnock declared victory early Wednesday morning he took a moment to reflect on his mother’s hands. Before she was a mother of 12 and a Pentecostal pastor, Verlene Warnock spent her summers in Waycross, Ga., picking cotton and tobacco in the 1950s.
“The 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” Warnock said in a live-streamed address. “The improbable journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in America could only happen here.”
Warnock, Ossoff win Georgia runoff elections, giving Senate control to Democrats
Michael Scherer, The Washington Post
Jan. 6, 2021
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1of8Democratic Senate hopeful Raphael Warnock speaks to canvassers in Marietta, Ga., on Tuesday.photo for The Washington Post by Kevin D. Liles.Show MoreShow Less
2of8Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., waves to voters in Fulton County on Tuesday.Washington Post photo by Melina Mara.Show MoreShow Less
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4of8Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff in Atlanta on Tuesday.Washington Post photo by Joshua Lott.Show MoreShow Less
5of8Republican Sen. David Perdue speaks during an airport rally in Atlanta on Dec. 14, with his wife, Bonnie. Perdue spent the last days of the election in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who contracted the coronavirus.photo for The Washington Post by Kevin D. Liles.Show MoreShow Less