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Raphael Warnock
Georgia
"Fighting for a better Georgia"
Challenged by Herschel Walker
“This race comes down to two things: competence & character. The choice is clear, Georgia. Let's show up and win this thing again!!! ”
In January 2021, Raphael Warnock made history when he won the first of Georgia’s two run-off elections with over 90,000 more votes than Loeffler. His win in this closely contested run-off election made him the first Black man to represent a former state of the Confederacy in the Senate.
This Savannah-born Baptist preacher’s victory as well as his colleague’s, Jon Osoff, upended the familiar political equation in Georgia. Their wins made them the first two Democratic senators elected to represent Georgia since 2000, following Joe Biden’s lead when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.
Born in 1969, Warnock grew up in Savannah’s Kayton Homes public housing projects. Warnock’s father was a veteran, small businessman, and preacher, and he instilled Warnock and his 11 siblings with a desire to work hard from a young age. “Whatever it is, be ready,” Warnock remembers his father saying to him. Warnock has carried this advice with him his entire life.
Graduating from Morehouse College with a B.A. in psychology, Warnock earned his Ph.D. from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. After graduating, Warnock was ordained in the ministry and offered the position of senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, known as “America’s Freedom Church,” and the former church of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 2005. For the past 15 years Warnock has used his pulpit as King did, to preach the word of God and address issues going on in American politics. And though he now holds the titles of both pastor and senator, Warnock’s work in and outside of the church hasn’t changed.
Last March, in Warnock’s first congressional address he addressed the issue of voter suppression. “Ours is a land where possibility is born of democracy. A vote, a voice, a chance to help determine the direction of the country and one’s own destiny within it. Possibility born of democracy. That’s why this past November and January, my mom and other citizens of Georgia grabbed hold of that possibility and turned out in record numbers, 5 million in November, 4.4 million in January.”
“But then, what happened? Some politicians did not approve of the choice made by the majority of voters in a hard-fought election in which each side got the chance to make its case to the voters. And rather than adjusting their agenda, rather than changing their message, they are busy trying to change the rules. We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen since the 1960's. This is Jim Crow in new clothes.”
—Elizabeth Winn
Elizabeth Winn is a freelance writer who grew up in Bluffton, South Carolina. Since moving to New York City in 2017, Winn has been published in the New York Daily News, BUST Magazine, the Brooklyn Paper, Religion Unplugged, and others.
Voting Record
Since he assumed his seat in the Senate, Warnock has placed an emphasis on bills concerning working families, racial equity, and healthcare. Some of Warnock’s recent sponsored bills include the Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act and the Kira Johnson Act, two bills that aim to address the nation’s maternal mortality crisis, specifically for Black mothers, through providing bias prevention training for doctors and nurses working with Black pregnant and postpartum individuals, and the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act of 2021, which calls upon the Secretary of Agriculture to provide monetary assistance to farmers and ranchers from socially disadvantaged groups.
Policy Positions
Healthcare
As a staunch believer that healthcare is a human right, Warnock has made it a priority to improve upon the Affordable Care Act and expand Medicaid so that Georgians aren’t forced to decide between buying food or medicine. “If the people are sick, the economy will be sick,” Warnock said on Twitter. “If the people are healthy and strong, good American ingenuity and ambition will get the economy roaring again.”
Jobs
In the post-coronavirus economy, Warnock wants to ensure that small business owners and businesses do not get overlooked by big government programs like the Paycheck Protection Program. To do this, he promises to fight regulations that harm rather than help new and small business owners. He’s an outspoken advocate for workers’ need to be paid a living wage and also promises to support pay equity for all Georgians. Warnock also promises he will revoke outsourced jobs in order to support Americans and American businesses.
Criminal Justice Reform
Warnock aims for a more equitable criminal justice system and calls for an examination of the relationship between communities and the cops who are meant to protect them. During 2020’s protests against police brutality, Warnock openly advocated for equal protection under the law and gratefully accepted the support of Kelly Loeffler’s WNBA Atlanta Dream team when Loeffler denounced Black Lives Matter. As Georgia Senator Warnock pledged to hold police departments accountable for their actions, reform the bail system, put an end to mass incarceration, and ensure that those who come out of the U.S. prison system have access to the resources and support they need in order to reenter society.
Endorsements
Human Rights Campaign
Collective Building Black Political Power
League of Conservation Voters
Giffords
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NRDC Action Fund
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Peace Action
Progressive Turnout Project
Sierra Club
Voter Protection Project
Barack Obama
:"Reverend Warnock’s someone I’ve known for years. He’s a man of great moral integrity, a leader in the truest sense of the word. He’s spent his life pushing for justice, fighting to expand health care, protecting voting rights and the dignity of work. You don’t find a lot of people in Washington like Reverend Warnock. And that’s exactly why we’ve got to get him there."
Kamala Harris
:“Georgia families deserve someone in the U.S. Senate who will expand their access to health care, fight for working people, and combat voter suppression. I’m proud to endorse Reverend Warnock’s campaign.”
Challenged by Herschel Walker
Raphael Warnock’s surprise victory in the hotly contested 2020 election allowed Democrats to take control of the Senate by a razor thin margin, and holding on to their majority could once again come down to Warnock. The two leading polls in Georgia have Warnock and leading Republican challenger Herschel Walker neck and neck.
Walker rose to fame as a top college athlete turned NFL star. He has never before run for public office and has lived in Texas for the last several decades, moving to Georgia only one week before announcing his candidacy. His political career launched recently when he leveraged his notoriety by endorsing questionable Republican candidates including his long time friend, former president Donald Trump and Warnock’s 2020 opponent Kelly Loeffler. Perhaps more infamous than Walker himself is his son Christian, a rising TikTok star known for using his platform to espouse racism, homophobia, and other alt-right views.
Walker's ex-wife, Cindy Grossman has accused him of "physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior"and he himself admits to domestic violence including holding a gun to her head. In business, he has greatly exaggerated the success of his chicken processing company, claiming he employed hundreds of Georgians though his Paycheck Protection Program application reported only eight employees.
His political positions are just as toxic as his violent past. He supports the “Big Lie” theory, claiming that President Biden could not have won the 2020 election, and urged Trump and his followers (who Walker called “true patriots”) to carry out a “total cleansing” of supposedly falsified election records. The Republican establishment clearly has no concerns about Walker's checkered past, he has already been enthusiastically endorsed by Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Josh Hawley. In Hershel Walker, the Republican party has succeeded in supporting a candidate just as unfit for office as Trump.
State: Georgia
The birthplace and home of Martin Luther King Jr., Georgia served as the spiritual capital of the Civil Rights Movement. The state has since become a hotspot of commerce, playing host to corporate headquarters like Coca-Cola, CNN, and UPS, and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (the world’s busiest airport). The Georgia peach is perhaps one of the most highly recognizable symbols of the American South, and barbecue is a popular pastime and sport, with pit masters competing for prizes and acclaim in some of the nation’s biggest barbecuing competitions. Georgia has also contributed greatly to the national culture, producing such authors as Alice Walker and Margaret Mitchell, and musicians and bands such as R.E.M. and Ray Charles.
A state with an economy largely driven by the agriculture industry and located squarely along America’s Bible belt, Georgians have reliably voted Republican on both a state and national level from 1972 to 2016. But when Georgia voted Democrat in both the 2020 presidential and senatorial elections, it became a battleground state for the first time in 50 years.
