The Reverend Raphael Warnock, 53, kept his seat for Georgia, consolidating the majority of Democrats in the Senate (51-49) and giving them more leeway against a lower house controlled since January by conservatives . This victory, by the way, and it is not a small thing, dealt a heavy blow to the aspirations of Donald Trump, who was the one who nominated the Republican candidate Herschel Walker.
Thus ended a horrible day for the former president, who ends a terrible season for him, whose aura as the great helmsman of the Republican Party fades and opens the path for others to dare challenge him in the face of the 2024 presidential elections, for which has already been applied for. Trumpism took a setback, another one since the elections last November.
The victory of the progressive candidate closes an electoral cycle in which the Democrats, despite losing the lower house (by very little), are facing a historic challenge. Repeatedly, the party that occupies the White House usually comes out of the midterm elections. And this has not happened despite the fact that Joe Biden is not exactly a president who enjoys good popularity.
Two African-American candidates faced each other. Face to face, a former successful football player, the Republican Walker, and the Democrat Warnock, pastor at the Ebenezer Babtist Church in Atalanta, where Martin Luther King once preached, and the first black person to 2021 she was elected to the Senate for this state.
Walker accepted his defeat and conceded victory to Warnock, in a gesture that distanced him from the man who chose him, although the party never liked him for his inconsistency. He was defeated by more than 60,000 votes. “There are no excuses in life, I am not going to make any excuses,” he stated. "I believe in the Constitution," he added to his mentor's nonsense in requesting his suspension.
Shortly after Warnock appeared to celebrate his victory. "These are the strongest words that can be said in a democracy: the people have spoken," he maintained to the fervor of his followers. In his thanks to collaborators, friends and family, he had very heartfelt words towards his mother. "In the fifties he was picking other people's cotton or tobacco plantations, but tonight he has helped his youngest son win a seat in the United States Senate," she stressed. And to the gathering he assured them that "the people will not be silenced."
The stakes were high in this runoff, which closes the midterm elections on November 8. It is clear with the data that the two candidates have spent more than 380 million dollars, the most expensive elections this year, according to OpenSecrets, the group that tracks money in politics. This repetition occurred because neither Warnock (49.4%) nor Walker (48.5%) reached the 50% bar required by Georgia regulations on that first occasion.
The reverend's victory will have a more than obvious direct consequence. If Vice President Kamala Harris is already criticized for her little public presence, now she will have even less of her. During these last two years, in her capacity as president of the Senate, she has had to participate in plenary sessions to exercise the right of tiebreaker on 26 occasions. But another era begins. She will no longer have to undo equalities on a regular basis.
That two-seat margin is bigger than it seems. The Democrats, with their boss Chuck Schumer, will have control of the commissions, a very relevant circumstance, for example, to ratify the appointments of judges or government officials. The Senate is the chamber to which this work corresponds.
This majority will also offer them a margin against the pressure of the moderates Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. They will no longer be forced to always give in to their pressure, which in this second stage of the mandate could go further since the two rebellious Democrats are risking their position in 2024 and will have more pressure to convince their potential voters in complicated states like West Virginia and Arizona.
But the political stakes were wider than that margin. The Democrats believe that this victory will be conclusive proof that they have transformed Georgia into an indisputable battlefield, heralding a new era of politics in the so-called "Sun Belt", the sun belt or the territories in which conservative votes were voted. for decades. This represents a reconfiguration of strategies to win the race for the White House.
Georgia confirms the transformation of the southern states. In counties around Atlanta, where until recently the Republicans won by large majorities, today the Democrats thrash. Biden already predicted the Democratic victory when he arrived at the White House on Tuesday night after visiting Arizona. He is also the winner.
The complete opposite of Trump, who has become the protagonist of the day. In these elections, his influence in the Republican Party was at stake. A possible victory for Walker would have been a personal victory for him, another chest-puffing occasion, in a state that was illustrative of his anti-democratic woes and where one of his most aggressive efforts to subvert the election result took place in November 2020. So they gave victory to Biden and the two progressive Senate candidates.
This is a horrible season for Trump. Since he announced his third candidacy for the White House, scandals have haunted him. He hosted the white supremacist Nick Fuentes in his Mar-a-Lago mansion, whom he entertained with a dinner. He has propagated the idea of suspending the Constitution and restoring him in government for electoral theft that only exists in his imagination. And this Tuesday, the commission of legislators investigating the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 announced that it will refer criminal complaints to the Department of Justice, and, although they did not give names, Trump's was on everyone's lips. And a New York jury found his company guilty of continuous tax fraud for fifteen years.
Many Republicans thought this seat was accessible. But the imposition of Walker by Trump made them think that the prospect was bad, for the worse. Walker has starred in a campaign full of vampires, werewolves -he would rather be a werewolf than a vampire, he said at a rally-, lies and inconsistency, especially for his defense of pro-life discourse, with a rhetoric of absolute attack against abortion: a anti-abortionist accused by two ex-partners of financing their pregnancy terminations.
"We know that he has no preparation, that he is not qualified," Warnock said on the eve of his rival's election. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but as a pastor, I am in the business of telling the truth. You are not fit to represent the people of Georgia in the United States Senate,” he added.
Filmmaker Spike Lee attended Warnock's victory party and alluded to his Atlanta roots. He remembered the "deceptions, tricks and subterfuges" of the former president. But he never pronounces his name, for him it is "Agent Orange".
