The Georgia Senate runoff has finally come to a close, giving Democrats their 51st Senate seat, The New York Times reported.
Senator Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, in a Senate runoff election that capped a grueling and costly campaign, secured a 51-seat Democratic majority, and gave the first Black senator from Georgia a full six-year term.
In the last battle of the 2022 midterm elections, Warnock dealt another blow to former President Donald J. Trump, whose handpicked candidate, Walker, was outspent and outmatched.
Warnock’s victory was called late Tuesday evening as the senator’s lead was expanding to 51 percent compared with Walker’s 49 percent.
It finally drew to a close a marathon midterm election cycle in which Democrats defied history, as they limited the loss of House seats that typically greets the party that holds the White House and now gain a seat in the Senate.
Warnock, basking in cheers of “six more years” and the glory of a hard-fought re-election victory, evoked the civil rights movement during his soaring victory speech, as he praised Georgians, whether they voted for him or not, for rising above the “folks trying to divide our country.”
One big takeaway from the election was that the slate of former president Donald Trump has suffered yet another blow.
Walker’s loss has only added to the mounting criticism in Republican circles that former Trump cost the party dearly in the midterm elections by backing unelectable candidates.
At the beginning of the midterm election cycle, Republicans hoped they would easily take control of both chambers of Congress, as they only needed to add gain one seat to break the 50-50 Senate deadlock.
Instead, they watched as Trump-endorsed candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire went down to defeat. All were ostensibly winnable races.
Meanwhile, the estranged son of Walker, Christian Walker, unleashed a string of fiery tweets after his father was defeated in the race. The right-wing social media influencer lashed out as both his father and Republican leadership, accusing them of betraying the party, Reuters reports.
He also wrote that former President Donald J. Trump courted his father for months, “DEMANDING that he run.”
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