- During his victory speech on Wednesday morning, Senator-elect Raphael Warnock paid tribute to his mother and his journey from growing up in Jim Crow South to voting for his son.
- “The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old pointers who used to pick someone else’s cotton went to the polls and chose their youngest son to be a United States senator.”
- Warnock’s mother, Verlene, worked as a Pentecostal preacher along with her father, Jonathan.
- The Georgia Democrat defeated Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler on Tuesday night in the second round of the Peach state election, as called by the Decision Desk Headquarters and Insider.
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Democratic senator-elect Raphael Warnock paid tribute to his mother on Wednesday morning during his victory speech, putting the occasion in a historical perspective.
Along with his partners at the Decision Desk HQ, Insider declared Warnock the winner in his runoff in Georgia’s runoff against Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler just before 11:15 pm Tuesday night.
Warnock gave a victory speech about an hour after midnight.
“The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick someone else’s cotton went to the polls and chose their youngest son to be a United States senator,” said Warnock of his mother, Verlene.
—Haleigh Hoffman (@HaleighHoffman) January 6, 2021
Warnock won a historic victory against Loeffler. He will be the first black senator representing Georgia in the state’s history, and only the second southern black senator since the reconstruction, the first being Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Following in the footsteps of his mother Verlene and father Jonathan, Warnock pursued a career as a preacher, working for the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the same congregation that was once led by Martin Luther King Jr.
“So I come before you tonight as a man who knows that the improbable journey that took me to this place, at this historic moment in America, could only happen here,” said Warnock. “We were told that we could not win this election, but tonight we prove that with hope, hard work and the people at our side, anything is possible.”