Hyundai Motor Co

Hyundai’s huge new plant outside Savannah could be a model for bipartisanship and a central achievement for Raphael Warnock, whose biggest efforts otherwise fell short. But Republicans aren’t giving him credit.The groundbreaking ceremony in October for the Hyundai electric vehicle plant under construction outside Savannah should have been a moment for bipartisan bonhomie, with the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and a Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, both shoveling dirt to begin the largest economic development project in the state’s history.Instead, in this hyperpartisan moment in a bright-purple state, that triumph has been tarnished by a multipronged and acrimonious debate. Should state economic incentives or federal climate legislation get the credit? Did federal electric-vehicle tax breaks help or hurt the project? Above all, how should the brief Senate record of Mr. Warnock play in voters’ calculations ahead of his runoff election on Tuesday against Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee?Mr. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, has only two short years of experience in elective office. Democrats say he has much to show for it: not a lot of flash, they concede, but the hard work and demonstrated skill of a legislative professional.His accomplishments are mainly modest but meaningful: science funding for historically Black colleges and universities, new access to grants for Georgia transit authorities, funding to replace aging highway-rail intersections, and new programs to improve maternal health care.His biggest achievement may have been his relentless push for a $35-a-month out-of-pocket cap on insulin costs, which survived for Medicare recipients in the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in August, but was blocked by Republicans for those with private health insurance.There is no doubt that where Mr. Warnock swung hardest, he missed: He dearly wanted to expand health insurance access for the working poor in Georgia and other Republican-led states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Tax credits for low-income workers to buy private policies made it through the House under Mr. Biden’s Build Back Better bill but died in the Senate.Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, with Mr. Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia last year. Senate Democrats say Mr. Warnock is needed as a key 51st vote for the party in the chamber.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMr. Warnock was also the torch bearer for voting rights legislation that fell to a filibuster in the Senate. Promoted by Democratic leaders as the passionate heir to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who once preached from the same Ebenezer pulpit, Mr. Warnock was given ample floor time to make his case in the loftiest of terms, and his vulnerable position in the 2022 election was supposed to add urgency to his appeals.But he could not persuade two Democratic colleagues, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to reshape filibuster rules to let expanded access to the polls pass with a simple majority.One of Mr. Warnock’s earliest campaign ads this year featured him allowing: “A magician? I’m not. So in just a year in the Senate, did I think I could fix Washington? Of course not.”What to Know About Georgia’s Senate RunoffCard 1 of 6Another runoff in Georgia. More