Writer: Gabriela Enamorado
2 min read December 2022 — After an intense runoff battle, Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock, defeated his Republican opponent, football star Herschel Walker, with Warnock capturing 51% of the vote. The win gives Democrats a slim majority over Republicans in the Senate and a leg up on pushing forward their legislative agenda.
In the November midterm election, Warnock led Walker with 37,000 votes out of the 4 million ballots cast but ultimately fell short of the 50 percent threshold that was needed to secure victory, forcing a runoff. This is the second time Warnock has come out on top in a runoff. In 2021, he defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
The victory solidified the Senate majority for Democrats, who also flipped an open seat in Pennsylvania despite low approval ratings for President Joe Biden and his administration. Throughout the campaign, Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, distanced himself from Biden, choosing instead to campaign with former President Barack Obama in the days before the runoff vote.
Pundits also saw Walker’s loss as a big blow for former President Donald Trump, who endorsed the candidate and who has also announced a third bid for the White House. Trump endorsed three GOP Senate hopefuls: Walker, celebrity physician Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and investor Blake Masters in Arizona. All three lost their races. A number of other Trump picks for House and gubernatorial seats also lost their races.
The Democrats’ expanded majority in the Senate — 51-49, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding a tie-breaker vote — means that Democrats will no longer have to rely on power-sharing deals with Republicans, a boost for Biden’s agenda. The Democrats now have more room to push through legislation and nominations over the next two years, ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
Warnock addressed supporters as they chanted “six more years” following the victory. “After a hard fought campaign, or should I say campaigns, it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock said.
In his concession speech, Walker urged supporters to continue voting in elections. “There’s no excuses in life,” Walker said. “And I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight.”
Walker’s rocky campaign was shrouded in controversy. Walker is anti-abortion, saying he believes that it weakens families, but he was plagued by accusations that he paid for two former girlfriends to have abortions. Walker’s son, Christian Walker, also accused his father on Twitter of domestic violence against his mother.
