ATLANTA – Democrats took a big step toward taking control of the Senate on Wednesday morning, when Georgia voters elected Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church, in a run-up run-off dispute for President Trump’s false statement alleging electoral fraud in the state.
Warnock’s victory over current Republican Kelly Loeffler was announced by the Associated Press on Wednesday. It represented a milestone for African-Americans in politics, as well as for Georgia: he became the first black Democrat elected from the south to the Senate.
In order for Democrats to take over the Senate, which is crucial for approving President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first term on the agenda, they also need to win Georgia’s other second round of the Senate, held on Tuesday. With an estimated 98 percent of the votes counted in this dispute as of 4 am on Wednesday, Republican candidate David Perdue lost his Democratic rival, Jon Ossoff, by 12,806 votes.
Participation in rural, predominantly white counties, where Republicans needed a strong display, was left behind without Trump on the ballots, and many of Georgia’s heavily black towns saw levels of participation that approached those of the presidential race in November.
Although Warnock’s victory was a big win for his party – he is the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate by Georgia since 2000 – the two political parties remained on the verge of Ossoff-Perdue’s unresolved dispute and its implications for the next two years in American politics. The party that wins this race will control the Senate, with Republicans counting on Perdue’s victory and giving them the ability to curb Biden’s political ambitions.
Ms. Loeffler has rebranded herself as a loyal hardliner to Trump to defend herself against a challenge from the right in the first round of voting. In the past few weeks, she has continued to embrace the president, even using a rally on the eve of the election with Trump in northwest Georgia to proudly declare that she would oppose certifying her loss to Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday.
Warnock and Ossoff functioned as a virtual package, as did the two Republicans, often attending events together and crafting similar messages about the serious consequences for the nation if the other side won. Republicans used much of the second round to focus on Warnock’s sermons, a line of attack that seemed to mobilize African-American voters, especially in more conservative rural Georgia, where the church is a pillar of many communities.
Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat also robbed Ms. Loeffler of what might have been her best argument in what is still a slightly right-leaning state – that she would be a brake on liberal excesses in a government fully controlled by Democrats.
Even before the polls closed on Tuesday, senior Republican campaign officials blamed the president, noting that his polls testified to the power of the “check and balance” argument the party was unable to do because of Trump’s denial .