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      ‘The new south’: Raphael Warnock becomes Georgia's first Black senator

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      The Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta has witnessed tides of history ebb and flow during its 134 years. Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights leader, often preached here. Now its pastor, Raphael Warnock, has added a new chapter by becoming the first African American senator from Georgia.The storied church was firmly closed as votes were tallied on Tuesday night and its doors were plastered with coronavirus warnings, but there was a palpable surge outside as expectation turned to elation.“We know that Georgia is in the midst of a great change,” said Cheryl Johnson, a voting engagement activist and community historian. “We believe that we can lead the country forward as we have always led the country in many different ways. We have a history of great leadership. We have always been change makers.”Johnson, 54, has heard the deep-voiced Warnock preach at the church.“He can break it down intellectually but when it comes to talking about the issues that impact our community – social justice issues, homelessness, healthcare issues, police reform – he comes in the tradition of the Baptist church, which is passionate, engaged. He challenges people to think, who are you and, if you say that you are this, what does that mean?” she said.Opposite the church a sign announces the Martin Luther King Jr National Historical Park. Beside it is King’s tomb, surrounded by a reflection pool near an eternal flame. In contrast to the unfolding drama in election offices across the state, the memorial was silent and still on Tuesday night.Warnock’s staff were watching the count anxiously at a campaign office and bar behind the church, which is in the former district of Congressman John Lewis, another civil rights hero who died last summer. Ifeanyichukwu “Chuke” Williams, 24, co-owner of a nearby clothing store and recording studio, said: “There is definitely a connection there: it’s in the ether. In a way Warnock is taking up the mantle, taking up the reins, trying to be the change.”Jalen Smith, 26, a chef at a home for the elderly, added: “I didn’t vote but I’m familiar with the people and probably would have voted for Warnock. It’s good to see more Black politicians getting in and making a difference. He’s done a lot for the Black community and shown that he actually cares about people.”Warnock, 51, defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, an ardent Trump supporter who boasted she was more conservative than Attila the Hun. In a speech to his supporters on Wednesday, Warnock paid tribute to his 82-year-old mother, Verlene Warnock, who as a young woman spent summers on a south Georgia farm picking cotton and tobacco.Georgia, where about a third of the population is Black, voted Democratic at November’s presidential election for the first time since 1992 and is on the verge of delivering the Democrats control of the Senate. It has seen years of voter registration efforts, including to engage liberals from other states who moved to Atlanta for work.It is a state, and a region, in cultural, demographic and political transition. Georgia was a linchpin of the Confederacy during the civil war and bears the scars of slavery, segregation and hundreds of lynchings. But it was also the birthplace of King and a key theatre of the civil rights struggle.It is now home to a booming TV and film industry dubbed the “Hollywood of the South”. Once famous for local author Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, the superhero movie Black Panther, which proved a huge hit with African American cinemagoers, is now a more fitting symbol.After voting on a sunny but crisp Tuesday, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who worked as an intern for Lewis, stood under a tree outside a community centre and told reporters: “I’m a John Lewis Democrat, I’m a civil rights Democrat and that’s the kind of Democrat that’s running in the south right now.“Think about how far we’ve come in the American south that the Democratic standard bearers in these races are the young Jewish son of an immigrant and a Black pastor who holds Dr King’s pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist church. That is the new south.” More

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      'I’ll be for you': Jon Ossoff thanks Georgia as election draws to close – video

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      The Democratic candidate has given a speech thanking the people of Georgia for electing him to the US Senate before the final tally is formally announced.
      In his speech, Jon Ossoff asked the country to unite to beat the coronavirus pandemic and said he would fight both for people who voted for him and those who did not in the second of two runoff elections in Georgia
      US Georgia senate election: latest updates More

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      Who are the key players in the US presidential election certification?

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      Congress is set to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election on Wednesday, but the process is expected to be interrupted by unfounded objections by Republicans trying to curry favor with Donald Trump and the base of voters that support him.Other Republicans have said they will not join efforts to overturn the election result after dozens of state and federal lawsuits, state legislative hearings and elections challenges at the local level have failed to produce a shred of evidence to support Trump’s wild and false claims of voter fraud.From 1pm ET, Congress will begin certifying the presidential election result, state by state. But any state result is subject to objection by any member of Congress – and if both a senator and a member of the House of Representatives sign on to any one objection, the two chambers must retire for up to two hours to debate the objection.Here is a short list of the key players to watch:Senators Josh Hawley and Ted CruzHawley, from Missouri, and Cruz, from Texas, are leading a group of Republican senators who have said they will join objections to state results.Each politician hopes to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, and their willingness to sign on to Trump’s baseless campaign is recognized as being a sign of their political ambitions.Challenges in the House of Representatives to a state’s presidential election result are not uncommon. The House is four times as large as the Senate and, with every member coming up for election every two years, the chamber is subject to constant turnover and the attending ideological turbulence.But the Senate has mostly sat out from past wild assaults on the valid results of presidential elections. Until now.Senators Tom Cotton and Mike LeeThe softness of support among even very conservative-slash-ambitious senators for Trump’s attempt to overturn the election signals the basic weakness of the effort and the series of question marks that lay ahead for the Republican party.Cotton, a blistering conservative from Arkansas, is also expected to run for president in 2024, while Lee is a conservative ally of Trump and a close ally of Cruz. But each senator has announced that he will not support objections to the state electoral tallies. There’s no telling what voters in a presidential primary three years hence will remember of the current episode, but Cotton for one has declined to join the Trump dead-enders.Mitch McConnellThe Republican Senate majority leader asked his caucus not to join challenges to the election result, and he dispatched his top lieutenant on national TV to announce that any such challenge “would go down like a shot dog”.And yet, about a quarter of McConnell’s caucus and a majority of newly elected Republican senators has signed on to Trump’s mission, in direct defiance of the party leader.How will McConnell handle challenges that he does not support from his own party to election results? Some progressives have indulged fantasies of a catastrophic Republican rift playing out on cable TV.In reality, most of America will not be watching and whatever rifts open are most likely to feed an internal party struggle such as it may develop.Nancy PelosiThe Democrat House speaker will be in charge of responding to objections raised in her chamber to state election results. Widely praised for her expedient and effective handling of the 2019 impeachment inquiry, Pelosi is thought to be organizing a united Democratic front with room for Republican recruits. In any case the battle is playing out on her turf of parliamentary procedure and coalition-building expertise.The House RepublicansA number of House Republicans, led by some of the hottest firebrands on Capitol Hill such as Alabama’s Mo Brooks and Texas’ Louie Gohmert, have vowed to object to a number of state election results. Unlike their counterparts in the Senate, some of these House members would appear to be acting not out of a cynical political calculus but as true believers in the Trump cause. Many are return figures from the defense of Trump during his impeachment in the fall of 2019.Mike PenceAs vice-president, Pence is the ceremonial president of the Senate, meaning he will serve as presiding officer for the announcement of Joe Biden’s election victory.As vice president at the start of 2017, Biden filled a similar role for the announcement of Trump’s victory. But unlike Biden, Pence is serving under a president who wishes to overturn the election result, introducing complications for Pence, who would like to stay on Trump’s good side as another potential 2024 presidential candidate.Speculative scenarios for an act of indecision or contravention by Pence abound – and seem largely overblown. Senator Chuck Grassley had suggested that Pence might absent himself from the proceedings, but it appears Pence will preside. Most analysts expect him to certify the presidential election result in accordance with the minor and ceremonial capacity allotted to him by the constitution. More

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      Republicans face test of loyalty to Trump as Congress meets to certify election

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      After four years of defending and emboldening Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress on Wednesday will face their most consequential test of loyalty yet: to indulge the president’s brazen and meritless bid to overturn the results an election he lost, or to uphold the democratic process and certify Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.A handful of congressional Republicans are preparing to object to the certification of the electoral college results when Congress meets on Wednesday, turning what is traditionally a perfunctory affair into Trump’s last stand. Their coordinated rebellion, unprecedented in modern times, is all but destined to fail and Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January.In his increasingly desperate bid to cling to power, Trump, who has not conceded, has spent the last several weeks attempting to enlist allies and pressure public officials to overturn Biden’s 306-232 election win. His machinations escalated this weekend when he pressured the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensberger, to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win in the state.As required by the constitution, the joint session of Congress will meet to count the electoral votes. The votes will be delivered to the chamber in mahogany boxes and read aloud in alphabetical order of the states, with Mike Pence over the meeting. At the conclusion of the count, it is the vice-president who finally, formally declares the winner.Around the Capitol, authorities are bracing for “stop the steal” protests they fear could turn violent. Trump, who has encouraged his followers to join the gathering even as coronavirus cases surge across the country, said he plans to attend, as do several of his allies and a number of far-right groups, including the Proud Boys.Trump has been pressuring Pence to simply reject the vote count. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that “the vice-president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors”. This is false.A handful of Trump loyalists in the House have been planning this showdown for weeks. But in recent days the effort gained support from a quarter of Senate Republicans, first from Josh Hawley, an ambitious first-term Republican from Missouri. Days later, a coalition of Republican senators and senators-elect led by the Texas senator Ted Cruz announced their opposition to certifying Biden’s win unless Congress agrees to a 10-day audit of the election results, which is highly unlikely.On Monday, the Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler, vying to keep her seat, announced that she too would object. (David Perdue, the other Republican candidate in Georgia, supports the effort but will not vote because his term expired on Sunday.)In the House, where the effort is led by the Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, a top Trump ally, Republicans said the plan to voice objections to Biden’s wins in six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.To succeed, an objection must come from both a member of the House and the Senate. Hawley has said he planned to object to the results from Pennsylvania, while Cruz plans to object to the results in Arizona. Both are considered presidential contenders in 2024, seeking to ingratiate themselves with Trump’s fervent base.The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sought to avoid this internecine showdown, keenly aware of the political blowback members of his caucus will face – either for defying the president or attempting to subvert the will of millions of voters. Several Senate Republicans have condemned the effort – more than enough needed to ensure the campaign will fail. The Republican senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has called it a “dangerous ploy”. And Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, one of the states that is expected to draw an objection, denounced what he said was his colleagues “effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others”.All 50 states have certified the election results after a number of closely contested states conducted post-election audits and recounts to ensure their accuracy. Courts at every level, including the supreme court, have rejected dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies to challenge the results.None of the senators who plan to reject the results of the election have come forward with specific allegations of fraud. Instead they have pointed to public opinion polls that show, after weeks of the president and his allies insisting the election was stolen from him, their supporters believe the election was “rigged” as evidence that further investigation was needed. More

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      US congressman who said 'amen and a-woman' prayer hits back at critics

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      A Democratic congressman said he was surprised by the negative response after he ended an opening prayer on the first day of the new Congress by saying “amen and a-woman” – and said conservative critics including Donald Trump Jr had only proved themselves “soiled by selfishness, perverted by prejudice and inveigled by ideology”.Emanuel Cleaver, a United Methodist minister and former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, is beginning his ninth term. He told the Kansas City Star his “A-woman” reference on Sunday was intended to recognize the record number of women serving in the new Congress.There are 144 women serving in the House and Senate. The previous high was 129.But Cleaver’s words spurred a torrent of criticism from conservatives who accused him of misunderstanding the meaning of “amen” – a Hebrew word that means “so be it”.One Republican representative, Guy Reschenthaler, of Pennsylvania, incorrectly stated on Twitter that “amen” had Latin origins, but added: “It’s not a gendered word. Unfortunately, facts are irrelevant to progressives. Unbelievable.”Trump Jr made the same mistake, writing: “It isn’t a gendered word but that didn’t stop them from being insane. Is this what you voted for?”Cleaver said he “concluded with a lighthearted pun in recognition of the record number of women who will be representing the American people in Congress during this term as well as in recognition of the first female chaplain of the House of Representatives whose service commenced this week”.Cleaver led the search committee that selected Margaret Grun Kibben, the former chief chaplain of the navy, for that role.“I personally find these historic occasions to be blessings from God for which I am grateful,” Cleaver said, adding that he was “deeply disappointed that my prayer has been misinterpreted and misconstrued by some to fit a narrative that stokes resentment and greater division among portions of our population.“Rather than reflecting on my faithful requests for community healing and reversion from our increasingly tribal tendencies, it appears that some have latched on to the final word of this conversation in an attempt to twist my message to God and demean me personally.“In doing so, they have proven one point of my greater message – that we are all ‘soiled by selfishness, perverted by prejudice and inveigled by ideology’.” More

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      Georgia voters head to polls in critical Senate runoffs

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      Georgia voters headed to the polls on Tuesday for the final day of voting in a critical election that will determine which party controls the US Senate and what Joe Biden can achieve in the first two years of his presidency.After she cast her ballot on the chilly morning in Atlanta, Stephanie Aluko stood outside her polling place and noted how remarkable it was that the entire world was paying attention to her state.“It made people in Georgia see how important it actually is to vote,” she said outside Antioch Baptist church, where a steady stream of voters were able to quickly cast their ballots. “If the whole world is looking at you and paying attention to you, suddenly, maybe your vote matters.”Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock are trying to oust Georgia’s incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively. If Democrats win, they will win complete control of the US Congress, (the Senate would be evenly split with Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, casting the tie-breaking vote) allowing Biden to enact an ambitious policy agenda on items such as voting rights and the environment.If Republicans win even one seat, they will maintain their majority in the Senate, giving them a powerful veto in government and limiting what Democrats can achieve. A record amount of money has poured into the race, a reflection of its high stakes.The race is also a crucial test of a new emerging political power in Georgia. Long considered a conservative bastion, Joe Biden carried the state in November, the first Democrat to do so in nearly 30 years. The changing electorate is also being driven by efforts from Stacey Abrams and other grassroots groups, many led by Black women, to organize and mobilize voters of color.“To be able to be part of this specific election is memorable because I feel like my vote actually counted this time,” said Gabi Strode, 27, who also voted at Antioch Baptist church on Tuesday morning. “It’s surreal, kind of.”Georgia Democrats have not won a statewide runoff election in decades, according to ABC News, as Democratic turnout typically drops in the second race. But ahead of Tuesday, more than 3 million people had voted early, a record for a runoff election, with significant numbers in Democratic-leaning areas. Black voters have also consistently made up a higher percentage of the early electorate than they did at the same point ahead of the November general election, according to Ryan Anderson, who analyzes Georgia voter data and publishes to the website georgiavotes.comThe early vote data showed Republicans needed to have strong turnout on election day in order to win, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.Meanwhile, there was a jolt in the lead-up to election day after the Washington Post published a recorded phone call in which Donald Trump, who lost Georgia by 11,779 votes, pressured Georgia election officials to change the results from the November election to make him the winner in the state. At a rally in Georgia on Monday evening, the president continued to falsely claim that he won more votes than Biden in the state.Several Republicans have backed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, and several, including Loeffler, plan to object to Congress’s certification of electors in the presidential race on Wednesday“It makes me angry,” Shirley Rosser, 64, a voter in Atlanta said of Trump’s false claims about voter fraud. “It makes me want to kick his behind.”Polls are open until 7pm ET in Georgia and voters are entitled to cast a ballot as long as they are lined up by then. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official, predicted there would be an election result on Wednesday morning, though it could take longer as election workers count absentee ballots. Experts are again urging patience in processing the results – since it may take longer for Democratic-leaning areas with large populations to report vote totals, it may appear that Republican candidates are ahead before all votes are counted.If the race is close, there will probably be an aggressive legal effort to challenge ballots in the days to come.During a rally in Riverdale, Georgia, about 20 minutes outside of Atlanta, on Monday, Warnock used the possibility of post-election litigation to motivate his supporters.“We need to win by a comfortable margin. Because, you know, funny things go on,” he said. More

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      Trump call to Georgia secretary of state electrifies voters in Senate runoffs

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      Some voters not surprised by president’s call but expressed uncertainty over how it would impact the raceAn explosive recording of Donald Trump pressuring Georgia election officials to overturn the election results is further electrifying voters in Georgia’s elections for two US Senate seats, in Tuesday’s runoff that will determine which party controls Congress’ upper chamber.In the call, made public by the Washington Post on Sunday, Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes”, to overturn Trump’s loss there. When Raffensperger refused, Trump suggested he and his aides may be committing a criminal offense. Continue reading… More