Democrat Raphael Warnock became Georgia’s first black senator. Reverend Raphael Warnock beat Republican Kelly Loeffler against all odds. “We were told that we could not win this election. But tonight we have proven that with hope, hard work and people at our side, anything is possible,” said the 51-year-old Baptist pastor at a press conference on Twitter.
The Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock beat in the state of Georgia the Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in a double senatorial election on the night of Tuesday 5 to Wednesday 6 January 2021. He led the election after counting more than 95% of the votes. He now marks the political history of this city of a long history of slavery.
This election is crucial for the start of the mandate of the future president, Joe Biden, who is due to take office on January 20 to be able to control the Senate, the upper chamber of the American Congress composed of 100 members, two by States, elected by direct universal suffrage for six consecutive years.
Raphael Warnock is a pastor at a church in Atlanta where the civil rights fighter, Martin Luther King, officiated. He will thus become the very first black senator elected in this Southern State.
Jon Ossoff is the other Democratic candidate in the running, and he also seemed to be able to create a surprise by narrowly winning in this traditionally conservative southern state of the United States against the other outgoing Republican senator, David Perdue.
This Tuesday’s election is historic in many ways. Raphael Warnock will become the first black senator in Georgia’s history. Jon Ossoff would become the youngest Democratic senator since Joe Biden (1973) at the age of 33.
Meanwhile, U.S. outgoing President Donald Trump, who was defeated in the November 2020 election, continues to talk about conspiracy theory, shouting “electoral fraud” and refusing to admit defeat. This double victory of the Democrats in this consecrating state sounds like a hammer for him.
Democracy will have 50 seats in the Senate, like the Republicans. More than three million voters were able to vote in advance, or some 40% of those registered in the state. A record participation for a partial Senate in this southern state. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent organization, $832 million was spent on the campaign.
