Raphael Warnock wins crucial Georgia runoff election – as it happened

That’s all from me tonight. Incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock secured victory, and bolstered his party’s lead in the chamber after a hard-fought, expensive, and drawn out race. Trump-endorsed Republican Herschel Walker accepted defeat in a brief, subdued speech.

Warnock, who became the first Black senator to represent Georgia two years ago, secured his his first full, six-year term tonight. In a victory speech, he noted thee significance of the moment. “I am Georgia,” he said. “I am an example and iteration of its history, of its pain and its promise

For more news and analysis on the race, read on:

Joe Biden said he called Raphael Warnock to congratulate him.

‘Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate,” the president said.

“I am Georgia,” Warnock said. “I am an example and iteration of its history, of its pain and its promise … But because this is America, because we always have a path to make this country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together.”

He mentioned his mother, who was a sharecropper. “She grew up in the 1950s … picking someone else’s cotton and someone else’s tobacco, but tonight, she helped pick her youngest son to be a United States senator,” he said.

In an energized speech, Warnock mentioned the importance of protecting voting rights.

“Just because people endured long lines … the rain, and the cold, and all kinds of tricks in order to vote doesn’t mean that voter suppression does not exist,” he said. “It simply means that you, the people, have decided that your voices will not be silenced.”

“It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words spoken in a democracy: the people have spoken,” Warnock told his jubilant supporters.

The senator thanked supporters and family.

“Voting is faith put into action,” he said. “And Georgia, you have been praying with your lips and your legs.”

Herschel Walker spoke to supporters at his election night event at the College Football Hall of Fame, accepting defeat.

“I’m never going to stop fighting for Georgia,” he said, thanking his supporters, donors and team. “We put up one heck of a fight.”

After Walker endorsed Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections, it was unclear if he would accept the results. In his brief speech, Walker did not say whether he had called his opponent to concede.

“I don’t want any of you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the constitution and believe in our elected officials and most of all, continue to pray for them,” Walker said.

Sanity strikes again.

Raphael Warnock’s victory over Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff caps an election season in which the normal, the sensible and the fans of fact regained their voice and gave hope that, after long years in which American democracy was feared to be at death’s door, the patient is rallying.

In simple mathematics, the win gives Democrats 51 seats to Republicans’ 49 in the Senate, speeding up confirmation of Joe Biden’s administrative and judicial nominees and starving the conservative West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin of some of the oxygen he enjoys as the swing vote.

But more philosophically, it serves as another corrective to the notion that all America suddenly went mad on 8 November 2016, the day Donald Trump was elected instead of Hillary Clinton. Looking back, it’s pertinent to recall that Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million and benefited from a unique cocktail of circumstances that included entrenched misogyny and running against the ultimate establishment politician.

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Democrat Raphael Warnock has secured victory in Georgia’s senate runoff, the AP projects.

Warnock, the incumbent senator, has won his first full term and bolstered his party’s lead in the chamber.

Joe Biden is feeling optimistic.

“We’re going to win. We’re going to win Georgia,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews.

With 92% of votes tallied, Warnock is maintaining a narrow lead.

With 87% of the votes tabulated so far, the race remains close.

But much of the remaining vote is in the Atlanta area, which leans Democratic – and will likely be promising for Warnock. At the election night watch party fo the Democrat, director Spike Lee spoke too supporters, as CNN on big screens showed Warnock with a lead.

Meanwhile,Walker’s watch party at the College Football Hall of Fame appeared to be more subdued.

Another column on tonight’s race for those who want to read further as they watch the results crawl in. Robert Reich, former US labor secretary, on how the biggest loser if Raphael Warnock wins tonight won’t be his Republican rival, Herschel Walker…

If Raphael Warnock wins today’s Senate runoff in Georgia, Senate Democrats will gain a 51-49 majority – providing them with some insurance if Arizona voters boot out Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, while at the same time reducing the power of the West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin to control the Democrat’s agenda.

In other words: a win-win.

But it could prove an even bigger Democratic win. That’s because the biggest loser in a Warnock victory won’t be his Republican rival, Herschel Walker.

It will be Donald Trump.

Walker’s entire candidacy was a Trump creation – not unlike Trump University, Trump Airline, Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks.

And like those businesses, the Walker candidacy appears to have sunk under a miasma of ineptitude, lies and embarrassing allegations – in this case, of domestic abuse, semi-secret children and payments for abortions for multiple women.

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Gabe Sterling, the Georgia elections official and aide to the secretary of state who became a national name when he and his boss, Brad Raffensperger, stood up to Donald Trump in his attempt to overturn the presidential election in 2020, has been telling CNN what he thinks the results reported so far say.

He says: “We don’t know what they say. We have a lot of rural counties that have uploaded nothing yet.”

He also reports some drama:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We had one car carrying one of the vote cards damaged, jaws of life out there, both poll workers are OK, they’ve turned down medical attention and going to the hospital but they were able to retrieve that vote card and get it to county headquarters. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that happens on election day because you have thousands of people out there doing their jobs.”

About turnout, Sterling reports that it is very high for a midterms runoff.

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}My nightmare was 1.4 million of turnout today and guess what guys, it was gonna be 1.4 million. It’s a tight race, it’s going to be a while … we’re looking at probably 3.3 million [turnout overall]. These are record numbers, guys, especially for a runoff election. So I’m just excited that so many voters get to express their voice.”

In bad news for tired editors in empty newsrooms, Sterling also said: “I just tweeted out, it’s gonna be a long night and guess what, it’s gonna be a long night.”

Some further reading as the lead changes hands again, Walker nudging a fraction of a point ahead.

Steve Phillips – founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority – on why white evangelicals in Georgia have shown their true colors in voting for Herschel Walker, a Republican mired in unchristian scandal …

Why do we have such low expectations for white voters? The midterm elections brought into stark relief just how many white voters are willing to make a mockery of showing any pretense of concern for democracy, good governance or even the barest qualifications for our country’s highest offices. As unfortunate as that behavior is, what’s even more dangerous for the future of the country is how resigned the rest of the country has become to the anti-democratic and intellectually unjustifiable voting patterns of much of white America.

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