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      Republicans reflect and blame after Trump-backed candidate Walker loses

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      Republicans reflect and blame after Trump-backed candidate Walker losesHerschel Walker’s failure to win Georgia runoff is latest in long list of midterm misfires for extremist candidates endorsed by Trump Deflated Republicans were embarking on a period of introspection and blame on Wednesday after Herschel Walker, Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate, fell well short in his effort to capture Georgia’s Senate seat.Raphael Warnock wins Georgia runoff, bolstering Democratic Senate majorityRead moreWalker’s failure in the runoff against the incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock was the most recent of a long list of misfires in the midterm elections for extremist candidates endorsed by the former president, who announced his latest run for the White House last month.It secured Democrats a 51-49 majority in the Senate, leaving Republicans powerless to block key elements of Joe Biden’s agenda, especially judicial appointments, for at least two years.Hours after Walker delivered his concession speech in Atlanta on Tuesday night, an increasing number of prominent party members were suggesting they were ready to look for a future unshackled by Trump and his lie that his 2020 election defeat to Biden was fraudulent.John Bolton, national security adviser during Trump’s single term in office, was forthright in a tweet urging Republican colleagues to cast him aside.“The outcome in Georgia is due primarily to Trump, who cast a long shadow over this race,” he wrote.“His meddling and insistence that the 2020 election was stolen will deliver more losses. Trump remains a huge liability and the Democrats’ best asset. It’s time to disavow him and move on.”John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and Senate minority whip, also blamed his party’s flops on the Trump factor.“Was he a factor? I don’t think there’s any question about that, because a lot of the candidates that had problems in these elections were running on the 2020 election being stolen, and I don’t think independent voters were having it.”Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican seen as a close ally of the former president, did not refer to Trump directly in his own analysis, but saw blame for his party’s lackluster midterms performance in poor-quality candidates, such as Walker, focusing on Trump’s big lie.“Democrats have done a pretty good job of picking issues that motivate their base and that have wider support among the public,” Graham told Politico.“We need to be doing the same thing. I think a lot of people in the Republican party don’t see us doing it as emphatically as Democrats.”Other election-denying, Trump-backed candidates who were defeated included Kari Lake, who was seeking the governorship of Arizona; Blake Masters, who lost his race for that state’s Senate seat; and Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television doctor and conspiracy theorist who was beaten by senator-elect John Fetterman in Pennsylvania as Democrats flipped the previously Republican-held seat.The Lincoln Project, a political action committee consisting largely of disgruntled Republicans, gleefully tweeted a video clip from the rightwing Fox News network, captioned “And the runner-up is …”, showcasing 25 Trump-endorsed losers from various midterm races.Trump himself remained defiant, posting on his own Truth Social network, in all capitals, that “Our country is in big trouble. What a mess!” and without accepting any responsibility for Walker’s defeat.The question now is whether the Republican party, which has remained fiercely loyal despite his two impeachments, the 2020 election defeat and their failure to recapture control of Congress, still sees Trump as the undisputed party leader and the man to lead them into the 2024 presidential race. Many members are proposing to switch allegiance from a man mired in legal problems over the January 6 Capitol riot, his mishandling of classified documents post-presidency and efforts in Georgia to overturn Biden’s victory, to someone more appealing and without that baggage, such as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.Trump’s toxicity at the ballot box, especially among suburban voters, provoked grumbling even before last weekend, when Trump was condemned for hosting dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with the antisemitic rapper Kanye West and the white supremacist Nick Fuentes.Several Republicans, including the usually loyal Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, also spoke out this week when Trump demanded the “termination” of the constitution to accommodate his election lies.Mick Mulvaney, White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, pointed to the party’s mixed performance in Georgia, where the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and senior officials were re-elected comfortably in the generally reliably red state. Trump lost Georgia to Biden in 2020, and watched Democrats take both Senate seats from Republicans he endorsed.“Trump has now lost four races in Georgia in two years. One of his own and three by proxy. Similar stories in [Arizona and Pennsylvania],” Mulvaney tweeted.“He has a swing-state problem for 2024 that is real. Again: those who win primaries, and lose general elections, are still losers.”TopicsGeorgiaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Warnock’s Narrow Victory Over Walker in Georgia

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      More from our inbox:Trump’s Very Bad DayThe Crypto IllusionEncourage BreastfeedingFood Buying That Reflects Our Values Nicole Craine for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Warnock Victory Hands Democrats 51st Seat in Senate” (front page, Dec. 7):Although I am relieved that Senator Raphael Warnock prevailed in the Georgia runoff, I am absolutely disgusted that this election was so close.We have lost our way as a country when we do not see that political leadership takes skill; knowledge of the law, the Constitution and history; the ability to negotiate and cooperate; and a worldview that is larger than your own.I would not be at all qualified to play professional football, and it was clear from the start that Herschel Walker did not have the knowledge or skill to be a U.S. senator.Dawn MenkenPortland, Ore.The writer is the author of “Facilitating a More Perfect Union: A Guide for Politicians and Leaders.”To the Editor:I have new respect for Herschel Walker: He gave a concession speech. He declared that he lost. He called on his supporters to respect their elected officials and to believe in America. He said he had no excuses for his loss because he put up a good fight. This probably reflects both who he is and his football heritage — you win but also lose games fair and square.He may have helped us back to the old pre-Trump norms. We may disagree with his views and abhor his scandals, but the most important thing is that he believes in democracy. Let’s hope Donald Trump watched that concession speech.When Mr. Walker said, “I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all,” it could be the biggest takeaway of the election.James AdlerCambridge, Mass.To the Editor:Raphael Warnock was extremely lucky to win the Senate race in Georgia — lucky because he faced an opponent plagued by ignorance, myriad character flaws and an endorsement by Donald Trump. Almost certainly, a moderate Republican, Black or white, could have defeated Mr. Warnock, perhaps by a margin as large as the seven-plus percentage points that Brian Kemp scored over Stacey Abrams for the Georgia governorship just four weeks earlier.I am very happy about Mr. Warnock’s win, but it should not be interpreted as signaling a major shift in the political landscape of Georgia.Peter S. AllenProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:Every time the Republicans lose an election — most recently Tuesday in Georgia — the Times coverage predicts that the party will engage in “soul-searching,” suggesting that the G.O.P. has a desire to change course. Yet, again and again, the party persists in its pandering to far-right, anti-democratic forces of white nationalism and heteropatriarchy.The G.O.P. has made its soul abundantly clear. Perhaps some Republican voters have done their own soul-searching and decided to reject what their party has become.Pamela J. GriffithBrooklynTo the Editor:As a liberal Democrat I am very pleased with the results of the Georgia runoff and most of the rest of the 2022 U.S. Senate results in competitive races. How do we make sure that Donald Trump continues to influence the choice of Republican candidates for Senate in 2024?Michael G. RaitenBoynton Beach, Fla.Trump’s Very Bad Day Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Tuesday was a Trumpian negative hat trick: a defeat in the Senate runoff in Georgia, the conviction of the Trump Organization on tax fraud and other crimes, and a report of grand jury subpoenas from the special counsel to local officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.Of course the Republican Party has neglected to take any prior offramps to dump Donald Trump, most notably Jan. 6, so unfortunately the latest Trump failures will probably go by the wayside too. And the G.O.P. of yore — the party of Lincoln, T.R. and Ike — will continue to be the clown car it has become.Bill MutterperlBeverly Hills, Calif.The Crypto IllusionFederal authorities are trying to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against the founder of the crypto firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, and others over the company’s collapse.Winnie Au for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “‘It Just Angers Me.’ Crypto Crisis Drains Small Investors’ Savings” (front page, Dec. 6):Is it too early, or far too late, to suggest that “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” in relation to the FTX and BlockFi difficulties? Should this concern be extended to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general?There was a time when people earned the coins in their wallets from the sweat on their brow rather than from a computer program most people can’t understand that creates imaginary coins to be stored in wallets that seem easy to rob or lose. It is, however, sad to read of people who have lost so much in such a short time.As a teacher, I wasn’t that well paid, and so I saved as much as I could to buy a house and set myself up for retirement by sensible, boring approaches. But the gains to be made from Bitcoin are in its questionable uses or in realizing the increase in its value before it drops. For me it seems to have no actual value or use, and I doubt that I am the only one who thinks that.It’s time for me to forget the world of imaginary computer profits and go back to a boring life on my unicorn farm.Dennis FitzgeraldMelbourne, AustraliaEncourage Breastfeeding Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What It Really Takes to Breastfeed a Baby” (news article, Dec. 6):As a pediatrician who spends many hours with new mothers and their babies discussing the challenges and difficulties that come with breastfeeding, I felt that this article was not as positive as it should have been. It focused on following mothers who were having a hard time keeping up their breastfeeding.These days, any literature or news related to breastfeeding should only be encouraging new mothers to breastfeed, not scaring them away from doing it and making it sound so hard while working and raising other children.In my practice, I share my own personal experiences of breastfeeding my three children, each for a year, while working in a busy pediatrics office. My stories are useful and effective in making the breastfeeding experience achievable to the new moms I meet.We need to reverse the steady decline of breastfeeding mothers in this country.Naomi JackmanPort Washington, N.Y.Food Buying That Reflects Our Values Pavel PopovTo the Editor:Re “Help Black Farmers This Holiday Season,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom (column, Nov. 30):New York State’s food procurement laws are an extension of the disenfranchisement of Black farmers. Provisions require that municipalities contract with farmers who sell their produce at the “lowest” cost. This often comes at the expense of small, hyperlocal farmers and bars them from entering negotiations for public contracts — meaning that opportunities to support historically marginalized food producers are currently limited in New York.The Good Food New York bill would democratize local food purchasing decisions by allowing municipalities to galvanize around racial equity, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, nutrition, local economies and workers’ rights — and contract with producers that uphold these values.It is more critical than ever to rectify the wrongs of this country’s past and prepare for a future where the strength of our food systems and supply chains will be tested by the consequences of climate change. New York State legislators, we are counting on you to make the right decision for our food futures.Ribka GetachewTaylor PateNew YorkThe writers are, respectively, director and campaign manager of the NY Good Food Purchasing Program Campaign for Community Food Advocates. More

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      From pastor to politician: what Raphael Warnock stands for – video profile

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      The Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, won the Georgia Senate runoff on Tuesday, securing his first full term and delivering a 51st seat to bolster his party’s majority in the chamber. Here is a look at what the pastor and politician stands for – from abortion to policing and voting rights – in his own words

      Raphael Warnock wins Georgia runoff, bolstering Democratic Senate majority
      Warnock’s win in Georgia is a bad omen for Trump – but there’s no room for complacency More

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      Walker, Trump’s Celebrity Pick, Underscores Trump’s Fall

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      Donald Trump loved Herschel Walker.He told him so when he “fired” him from “Celebrity Apprentice.” As Trump put it: “You know how much I like you. I love you. I love you. I am not a gay man, and I love you, Herschel. Herschel, you’re fired.”As Walker said in an interview years ago, “I’ve known Donald before he became the Donald. I started out with Donald Trump. I tell everyone that little Donald and little Ivanka lived with me during the summer.” He took them to Disney World, Sea World, the Bronx Zoo, “any place.”Walker’s son Christian referred to Trump as Uncle Don.The men were clearly close. Trump believed in Black exceptionalism — but only for athletes and entertainers.When New York’s elite shunned Trump, he found a home in pop culture. He came to understand the currency in it and the power of it. Unlike high society, which thrived on exclusion, entertainment fed on the possibility of inclusion and economic ascendance.Trump learned early the lucrative industry of dream selling. He learned early the power of celebrity as the embodiment of those dreams.To him, celebrities were a class unto themselves, people who could transcend race and wealth, crossing over into the golden plane of the hero. You can admire a Black celebrity, cheer for him, be thoroughly entertained by him and never relinquish your animus for or prejudices against other Black people.As long as those entertainers avoided any mention or invocation of race — other than to discuss their upbringing or praise a parent — even people hostile to Black people could be fans of theirs.This is why Trump could argue that he was not racist — he could always say he had known and been friendly with so many Black entertainers. But he was friendly with them even as he was hostile to other Black and Brown people. Walker has said his warm relationship with Trump dates back to 1982, but it was only a few years later, in 1989, that Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York, so that the Central Park Five, who were just boys at the time, would “be afraid.”The boys implicated in the attack have since been exonerated, but Trump has refused to apologize for his ad.Trump, like many people, is able to compartmentalize on the issue of race, segregating the masses whom he abhorred from the few he idolized.And so, when there was a need for a Republican to run for the Senate seat in Georgia against Raphael Warnock — a man who, with the support of Black voters as well as others, shocked the political establishment in that state when he won his first Senate race nearly two years ago — Trump did a simplistic racial calculation: he knew a conservative Black acolyte who could run against the liberal Black intellectual.He called on his old friend Walker. It didn’t matter that Walker was not a political figure or even a politically engaged person. It didn’t matter that he was wholly unsuited for any form of public office. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t live in Georgia.Trump drafted him, and he agreed. Celebrity, Trump thought, would cover all flaws.In the end, it did not. Trump’s brand, his celebrity worship and promulgation, was not enough to push Walker over the edge. But while Walker failed, Trump failed even worse. Unlike some races this cycle in which Trump simply endorsed a candidate, Walker was one Trump personally chose.And even before Tuesday night, Georgia had rejected Trumpism, choosing some Republicans in November who had defied Trump’s pressure campaign to steal the 2020 election and incurred his wrath because of it.Yes, Walker was a historically horrific candidate, but the Trump brand has also begun to sour in Georgia. This is in no way to excuse the Georgia Republicans who went along with the Walker charade, even after seeing up close that he was not only unqualified to be a senator, but likely incapable of performing the duties. They saw up close his incompetence, intellectual deficiencies and glaring defects, but they still hewed more to their partisanship than to their principles.They twisted themselves into knots to excuse Walker, using a roundabout racism to do so. Some said that what we saw as a lack of intelligence was in fact a regional affectation: Walker speaks the way many Black people in Georgia speak.In their construction of things, deficiency was endemic to Blackness and ubiquitous among Black people. The best that could be hoped for was a Black person who was willing to fall in line and vote with the party. Walker had proven that he would do that. He would be a willing puppet for their ventriloquism.And he came dangerously close to winning.This will remain a stain on the Republican Party. But Walker didn’t win. Cynicism didn’t win. Trump didn’t win.Competence and common sense prevailed.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Warnock Wins, and Once Again Trump Loses

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      The last Senate runoffs in Georgia fell on the 5th of January, 2021, which meant they were immediately overridden in the nation’s imagination by the events of Jan. 6. But everything that’s happened since has somehow brought us back around to where we stood just before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, with yet another Georgia runoff providing yet another case study in why the Republican Party desperately needs to move on from Donald Trump.In the case of the previous runoffs, Trump’s influence on the outcome was flagrant and direct: He made the entire pre-runoff period a stage for his election-fraud dramatics, pushing the Republican Senate candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, into attacks on the integrity of the elections they were trying to win. And he almost certainly dampened Republican turnout with his suggestion that the fix was in — a suggestion amplified by his more lunatic allies, who discouraged Republican voting outright.This time around the Trumpian influence was a little more indirect, but still important. He publicly encouraged his old U.S.F.L. pal Herschel Walker to run for Senate and helped to clear the field with his endorsement, ensuring that the G.O.P. would have a hapless, incompetent and morally suspect candidate in one of the year’s most important Senate races. And then he forced Walker to stagger through the runoff against Raphael Warnock in the shadow of Trump’s own low-energy campaign announcement, which was succeeded by Trump’s dinner with anti-Semites, which was succeeded by Trump’s call to suspend the Constitution in order to restore him to the presidency.All of this predictably helped make the runoff a fractal of the larger 2022 pattern: Under Trump’s influence, with Trump’s preferred candidates, the Republican Party first sacrificed a potential Senate majority and then sacrificed one more Senate seat for good measure.The natural question evoked by the memory of the last runoffs, though, is whether this will make any long-term difference inside the G.O.P. If Republican voters didn’t tire of Trump after he gave away a winnable election and then inspired a mob to storm the Capitol the very next day, why would merely giving away another runoff be a deal-breaker? If Trump somehow managed to remain the 2024 front-runner after the insanity of 2021’s Jan. 6, why would his loyalists abandon him after the mere political disappointments of 2022’s Nov. 8 and Dec. 6?One answer is that the truest loyalists won’t; there will be a strong Trump vote in any imaginable Republican primary where he doesn’t drop out early. But for the Republicans who aren’t the deepest loyalists — the ones who didn’t vote for Trump in the early primaries of 2016, the ones giving Ron DeSantis leads here and there in early primary polling — there are two reasons to suspect that this runoff’s aftermath will be different from the last one’s.The first is just the compounding effect of multiple defeats. Like a miracle sports team, the ’69 Mets or this year’s Moroccan World Cup soccer squad, Trump earned himself a storehouse of belief with his stunning upset in 2016. That the Republican Party then lost the House in 2018 — well, that was to be expected, since incumbent parties generally struggle in the midterms. That the G.O.P. lost the presidency in 2020 — well, there was a plague, mass protests, rejiggered election rules and a general atmosphere of craziness, and anyway the polls were wrong and Trump almost pulled it out in the Electoral College, the miracle juice still there but just not quite enough.But to disappoint again in 2022, in a context where many Republicans expected to do extremely well — and more, to have so many of Trump’s preferred candidates flop while other Republicans won easily — well, at a certain point the memory of 2016 fades, and the storehouse of faith and good will is depleted. At a certain point even a potent demagogue needs to post some actual wins to hold his coalition together. At a certain point — maybe it isn’t here yet, but it’s closer — the leader who loses just starts to look like, well, a loser.The second reason this time might be different is that there will be time for the defeat’s reality and lessons to sink in, for the stink of loserdom to circulate — whereas last time Trump was actually helped in his bid to hold onto influence and power by the way the Georgia results vanished into the smoke of the Capitol riot.Yes, there was a brief moment where his obvious culpability in the mob’s behavior weakened him dramatically, leaving him potentially vulnerable to a concerted push from congressional Republicans. But when that push didn’t come, when the G.O.P. leadership took the cautious (in the case of Mitch McConnell) or craven (in the case of Kevin McCarthy) way instead, their decisions helped to rebuild Trump’s relevance and power.And so did the peculiar nature of Jan. 6 itself, which despite the best efforts of its media interpreters was always destined to be an unstable signifier — a deathly serious insurrection from one vantage point, but from another a more absurd affair, defined more by the spectacle of the QAnon Shaman roaming the Senate floor than by the threat of an actual coup d’état. However shameful some of the spin that Trump defenders settled on to explain away the day’s violence, they had material to work with in the sheer strangeness of the riot, which in a polarized atmosphere inevitably yielded to warring interpretations of its meaning.Stark election defeats, on the other hand, while less serious and less extreme than a violent disruption of the Senate’s business, are also harder to reinterpret in ways that make your own side out to be martyrs rather than just losers.Trump’s election fraud narrative managed that kind of reinterpretation once. But if Trump has to run in 2024 against DeSantis, he’ll be facing a rival who won’t need to reinterpret defeats as stolen victories, because he himself won easily when Walker and so many other Trumpian picks and allies lost. And the old rule that if you’re explaining, you’re losing, may apply especially to a situation where Trump has to explain to primary voters why the winning he promised them turned into so many unnecessary defeats.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Raphael Warnock Is a Pastor and Politician Who Sees Voting as Prayer

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      Raphael Warnock, a son of Savannah public housing who rose to become Georgia’s first Black senator, secured a full six-year term and a spot among Democrats’ rising stars.Follow our latest updates on the Georgia Senate runoff.He likened voting to a “prayer for the world we desire,” and called democracy the “political enactment of a spiritual idea,” that everyone has a divine spark.He invoked the legacies of civil rights heroes and “martyrs” who fought and sometimes died for the right to vote, even as he promised to pursue bipartisanship in pressing his policy ambitions.Exulting in his victory Tuesday night, Senator Raphael Warnock showcased the dualities that have defined his career in public life.He is a man of deep faith, the senior pastor at the Atlanta church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. And he is also a political tactician who has long believed that “the church’s work doesn’t end at the church door. That’s where it starts.”“I am Georgia,” Mr. Warnock said after winning Tuesday’s runoff election, nodding to both the hopeful and the dark aspects of the state’s past. “I am an example and an iteration of its history. Of its pain and its promise. Of the brutality and the possibility.”He is also now poised, some Democrats say, to be a more prominent national figure, as an ardent supporter of voting rights, a next-generation voice in the party — or, as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey put it, a leader who can speak to “a lot of the hurt in our country.”“I don’t think America has fully discovered the leadership potential of Raphael Warnock, because he got elected and then was immediately in another election season,” said Mr. Booker, who has worked with Mr. Warnock on legislative issues including health equity matters, and who has campaigned for him. “He has the ability to do both the poetry and the prose of politics in a way that I think is rare.”Mr. Warnock, a son of Savannah public housing who rose to become Georgia’s first Black senator, secured re-election on the strength of a strikingly broad coalition that reflected the party’s greatest political ambitions, winning a full six-year term after previously prevailing in a special election runoff.Mr. Warnock’s election night party on Tuesday in Atlanta erupted when his victory was projected.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesHe won over young progressives on college campuses and, polling before the runoff showed, Black voters across the board. He performed strongly in Atlanta’s racially and ethnically diverse suburbs, and secured support from some Georgians who voted for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, but split their tickets to back Mr. Warnock — reviving a crossover voting practice that some political observers had assumed was all but extinct.In significant part, that coalition was driven by opposition to Herschel Walker, the football legend nominated by the G.O.P. and backed by Donald J. Trump, whose Senate campaign floundered in the face of a barrage of allegations concerning his personal conduct, especially with women. His candidacy left some Republicans publicly concerned and privately apoplectic.But Mr. Warnock, who blended his image as a social justice-minded pastor with a sense of humor and an emphasis on bipartisanship, also showed how a Georgia Democrat could win in a difficult political environment, even as every other statewide candidate in his party collapsed.“‘Remaining the reverend’ was the phrase we used,” said Adam Magnus, Mr. Warnock’s lead ad maker. “It means remaining the unique person Raphael Warnock is. That is a combination of a moral sincerity, an empathy, a hard-working life story from where he started from to where he is now, and a relatability and a sense of humor.”Raphael Gamaliel Warnock was born on July 23, 1969, the 11th of 12 children, to a family of modest means. His father was a pastor who also “hauled junk, mostly abandoned cars,” offering the metal in exchange for cash, he wrote in his 2022 memoir “A Way Out of No Way,” while his mother took care of the family at home, later becoming a pastor.“She grew up in the 1950s in Waycross, Ga., picking somebody else’s cotton and somebody else’s tobacco,” Mr. Warnock said in his victory speech. “But tonight she helped pick her youngest son to be a United States senator.”He gave his first sermon at the age of 11, and was deeply inspired by the legacy of Dr. King, whose church — Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — Mr. Warnock now leads.Mr. Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. Kevin D. Liles for The New York TimesMr. Warnock, a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, graduated from Morehouse College in 1991 before heading to New York City to study at Union Theological Seminary, staying in the city for about a decade.It was in New York, former classmates said, that he deepened his instincts to put the teachings of his faith into practice in the public square. He studied under, among others, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cone, a founder of Black liberation theology, which emphasizes the experiences of the oppressed.And at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Mr. Warnock became assistant pastor, he immersed himself in a world of Black civic and political activism. He was arrested at a protest for the first time in New York, objecting to the police killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Guinean immigrant. His own brother was sentenced to life in prison, in a nonviolent drug-related offense involving an F.B.I. informant, a turn of events that shaped Mr. Warnock’s views of the criminal justice system. (His brother was released in 2020.)It was during his time in New York, Mr. Warnock later wrote, that the idea of running for Congress first occurred to him. But it would be years before he did so. Instead, he built a preaching career that eventually brought him to Atlanta, and to Ebenezer.As a pastor, Mr. Warnock condemned police brutality and racial injustice and championed expanding Medicaid. Encouraged by Georgia’s changing demographics, he wrote, he considered running for the Senate in the 2014 and 2016 cycles before seeking the seat vacated when Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican, announced his retirement. He won after a January 2021 runoff that helped to deliver control of the Senate to the Democrats.In that contest, as in this year’s, Mr. Warnock leaned heavily into his identity as a pastor, making it harder for Republicans to cast him as a generic Democrat.“He’s literally in Martin Luther King’s pulpit every weekend,” said Jason Carter, a Warnock ally and Ebenezer congregant who ran for governor in 2014. “He has credibility that is unshakable in certain contexts that allow him to run his own kind of a race.”In the 2020 Senate campaign, Republicans unsuccessfully tried to use Mr. Warnock’s career and past sermons to paint him as radically left wing. This year, they focused more on linking Mr. Warnock to President Biden. They also tried to make an issue of Mr. Warnock’s relationship with his ex-wife, with whom he has two young children.Mr. Warnock’s team emphasized character and fitness for office and cast the race as a choice, rather than a chance to vent at the party in power.And some Republicans conceded that Mr. Warnock effectively defined himself in a way that allowed him to both keep the Democratic base energized and to engage the middle.Republicans “did not neglect to argue that his voting record doesn’t match his moderate rhetoric, they didn’t neglect to mention that he votes with Biden,” said Brian C. Robinson, who was a spokesman for former Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican. “His brand was stronger. It was a shield that deflected accurate attacks.”Mr. Robinson called Mr. Warnock “the best performer I’ve ever seen in Georgia politics,” adding: “He’s up there with, as far as sheer talent, up there with Clinton and Obama.”Mr. Warnock also campaigned on his ability to work with conservative hard-liners like Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.“I’ve spoken with more conservative Democrats who are really excited, I’ve spoken with very progressive Democrats on college campuses that are really excited,” said Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the 25-year-old elected in November to the House from Florida, who campaigned with Mr. Warnock on Monday. “That’s the future of our party.”Mr. Warnock’s victory will undoubtedly prompt questions about his own future, as the country awaits Mr. Biden’s decision on whether to seek re-election and Democrats chatter about which midterm stars could emerge as party leaders.“A lot of people want to move someone like him, they want to move him around the board like a chess piece,” Mr. Carter said. Asked if he thought Mr. Warnock had any ambitions beyond the Senate, he replied flatly, “I don’t.”“He wants to do a good job as a senator,” Mr. Carter said, “but his children, his faith, his church — those things are really, really important to him.”With a six-year term now his, Mr. Warnock sounded impatient to get started.“Let’s dance because we deserve it,” he told his celebrating supporters. “But tomorrow, we go back down into the valley to do the work.” More

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      Warnock’s Victory Forges Democrats’ Path Through the New Battlegrounds

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      Forget about Florida and Ohio: Georgia and Arizona are poised to be the next kingmakers of presidential politics.Follow our latest updates on the Georgia Senate runoff.For decades, Florida and Ohio reigned supreme over presidential politics. The two states relished their role crowning presidents and spawning political clichés. Industrial Cleveland faced off against white-collar Cincinnati, the Midwestern snowbirds of the Villages against the Puerto Rican diaspora of the Orlando suburbs.But the Georgia runoff, the final note of the 2022 midterm elections, may have said goodbye to all that. The Marietta moms are in charge now.Senator Raphael Warnock’s win over Herschel Walker — his fifth victory in just over two years — proved that the Democratic surge in the Peach State two years ago was no Trump-era fluke, no one-off rebuke of an unpopular president. Georgia, with its storied civil rights history, booming Atlanta suburbs like Marietta and exploding ethnic diversity, is now officially contested ground, joining a narrow set of states that will select the next president.Mr. Warnock’s race was the final marker for a 2024 presidential road map that political strategists, officials and politicians in both parties say will run largely through six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The shrunken, shifted battlefield reflects a diversifying country remade by the polarizing politics of the Trump era. As white, working-class voters defected from Democrats, persuaded by Donald J. Trump’s populist cultural appeals and anti-elitist rhetoric, demographic changes opened up new presidential battlegrounds in the West and South.That is not good for Mr. Trump, who lost all six of those states to President Biden two years ago, as he begins to plot his third presidential bid. Other Republicans have found more success pulling together winning coalitions in states defined by their growth, new transplants, strong economies and a young and diverse population. But if the party wants to reclaim the White House in 2024, Republicans will have to improve their performance across the new terrain.“You’re going to have your soccer moms and Peloton dads. Those college-educated voters, specifically in the suburbs, are ones that Republicans have to learn how to win,” said Kristin Davison, a Republican strategist who worked on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia, a once-red state that, until Mr. Youngkin’s victory, had turned a more suburban shade of blue. “It’s these growing, diverse communities combined with the college-educated voters.”“I secured my vote!” stickers at a polling place in Georgia.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesVoters at Morningside Presbyterian Church in Fulton County on Tuesday morning.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesIn most of the six states, midterm elections brought out deep shades of purple. In Arizona, Democrats won the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006, but a race for attorney general remains too close to call. In Nevada, the party’s candidate won re-election to the Senate by less than one percentage point, while Republicans won the governor’s office. The reverse happened in Wisconsin.Mr. Warnock narrowly defeated Mr. Walker on Tuesday. But Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, handily toppled Stacey Abrams, a Democratic star, in his re-election bid last month.Only Pennsylvania and Michigan had clean Democratic sweeps in statewide offices.Republicans, meanwhile, swept Florida, with Gov. Ron DeSantis winning re-election in the state by easily the largest margin by a Republican candidate for governor in modern history. In Ohio, Representative Tim Ryan, widely considered to be one the Democratic Party’s strongest candidates, lost his bid for Senate by six percentage points.That new map isn’t entirely new, of course. Since 2008, Democrats have hoped that demographic changes and millions of dollars could help put the growing pockets of the South and West in play, allowing the party to stop chasing the votes of white, working-class voters across Ohio and Iowa.But the party has made inroads before, only to backslide later. When Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, pundits and party officials heralded the arrival of the Democratic revival in the New South. President Obama lost the state four years later and Mr. Biden was defeated there by a little more than a percentage point.Democrats argue their victories in Georgia will be more resilient. Mr. Warnock’s coalition looked very similar to Mr. Biden’s — an alliance of voters of color, younger voters and college-educated suburbanites.For Republicans, the winning formula requires maintaining their sizable advantage among rural voters and working-class, white voters, without fully embracing the far-right stances and combative politics of Mr. Trump that could hurt their standing with more moderate swing voters. Mr. Kemp followed that path to an eight-percentage-point victory.But Mr. Walker was in no position to expand his voting base. He was recruited to run by Mr. Trump, despite allegations of domestic abuse, no political experience and few clear policy positions, and spent much of his campaign focused on his party’s most reliable voters.While votes were still being counted late Tuesday, Mr. Warnock appeared to improve on Mr. Biden’s margins in the suburban counties around Atlanta, including Gwinnett, Newton and Cobb County, home to Marietta.Herschel Walker and his team after a campaign stop in Dawsonville, Ga.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesGreeting supporters at a Dawsonville restaurant.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesDemocrats recognized the rising influence of the Sun Belt in a high-profile way last week, when the Democratic National Committee advanced a plan to replace Iowa, a former battleground state that has grown more Republican recently, with South Carolina and add Nevada, Georgia and Michigan to the early-state calendar.“The Sun Belt delivered the Senate Democratic majority,” said Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada who will face her first re-election campaign in 2024. “The party needs to invest in us and that’s what they’ve done by changing the calendar.”Already, investment in these new battlegrounds has been eye-popping. In Georgia, $1.4 billion has been spent by both parties on three Senate races and the one contest for governor since the beginning of 2020, according to a New York Times analysis.The flood of political activity has surprised even some of those who have long predicted that their states would grow more competitive.“We all thought Arizona would probably be a battleground state at some point like a decade or so down the road,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research with the polling firm OH Predictive Insights, which is based in Phoenix. “It’s mind-blowing that it came so quickly to be quite honest.”Political operatives in Ohio and Florida insist that their states could remain competitive if Democrats would invest in organizers and ads. But for presidential campaigns, the goal isn’t to flip states but to identify the easiest route to 270 electoral votes.David Pepper, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, acknowledged that the changed politics had created a national political dynamic that’s bad for Ohio but better for his party. “The fact that Ohio is less essential than it used to be is a good thing because it means there are other states that are now winnable that weren’t 10 years ago. Colorado and Virginia were Republican so you had to win Florida and Ohio,” he said, evoking the predecessor to the cable news interactive maps. “That’s why Tim Russert had them all over his white board.”Senator Raphael Warnock with the rapper Killer Mike at a campaign event on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe Warnock campaign visited Georgia Tech on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe country wasn’t always so dependent on such a small group of deciders. In the 1980s, presidential candidates competed across an average of 29 states. That number fell to 19 during the 2000s, according to data compiled by FairVote, a nonpartisan advocacy group that works on election practices. In 2020, there were just eight states where the margin of victory for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump was under 5 percent.The shrinking map leaves one clear loser: The bulk of American voters. About 50 million Americans live in the six states poised to get most of the attention, giving about 15 percent of the country’s nearly 332 million people an outsize role in determining the next president.For nearly 11 million Georgians, the political attention showered on their state during the midterm elections won’t be gone for long. More