From our correspondent in Washington
On Tuesday, the victory of Raphael Warnock, re-elected senator from Georgia, gives the majority in the Senate to the Democrats. The Nov. 8 runoff was the latest in a string of midterm elections that saw Democrats perform better than expected in what is traditionally a difficult election for the president’s party. The Republicans got only a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. Warnock’s win gives Democrats a crucial seat in the Senate, compared to the upper chamber split two years ago, which was evenly split between 50 Democratic senators and 50 Republicans. Only the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris ensured the dominance of the Democrats.
The Baptist pastor won after a close election over his Republican opponent, former American football champion Herschel Walker. “After a difficult struggle, or rather after campaigns, I have the honor to say the most powerful words in a democratic country: the people have spoken.”Warnock told cheering fans Tuesday night in Atlanta. Since 2020, Warnock has run in five elections in two years: a primary, then two rounds against a replacement senator who resigned to complete two years of his term, then two rounds this year against Walker. Warnock had already beaten his rival by 37,000 of the nearly 4 million votes cast in the last November 8 vote, but he fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Warnock, Georgia’s first black senator, is currently serving a six-year term.
“Voting is a form of prayer”
” Voting is a form of prayer for the world we want for ourselves and our children.said Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King preached.“ I am from Georgia. I am the example and the result of his story, pain and promise, cruelty and possibilities.,’ recalls Warnock, whose parents lived through an era of racial segregation. “ My mother grew up in the 1950s picking cotton and tobacco for someone else. But tonight he helped elect his youngest son to be a United States Senator. »
Warnock’s victory is also a setback for Trump, who supported Herschel Walker in the Republican primaries. This choice was criticized by many elected members of the party. “The quality of the candidates is important.”, Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, commented. Walker’s fame, the legendary champion of American football, was not enough to ensure his political success. Questions were quickly raised about his fitness for the job, and his personality quickly sparked controversy.
His campaign was also marred by a series of incriminating allegations. In addition to some factual liberties taken with his biography, Walker, who campaigned for the abortion ban, had seen testimony from two of his ex-girlfriends who claimed he had encouraged them to have abortions by paying himself. But Walker did not follow the example of his mentor Donald Trump. On Tuesday night, he conceded defeat as soon as the predictions gave his opponent victory. “The numbers just don’t seem to add upsaid the former football player. There are no excuses in life and I’m not going to make any now because we fought like hell.»
Trump, who has announced his third bid for the White House in 2024, has been counting on the candidates he has endorsed to strengthen his grip on the Republican Party. Walker’s defeat weakens his position even more. While a number of elected Republicans hint at the possibility of supporting other candidates in 2024, the former president’s series of failures is working against him. Trump, who endorsed Walker’s campaign last month, was conspicuously absent in the runoff.
Georgia is a disputed state
With Georgia, Democrats defeated all Republican candidates for Senate and Donald Trump-backed governors in the five key states that swung in his favor in 2016 before Joe Biden took over in 2020: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. , Georgia and Arizona. But the victory doesn’t completely derail Georgia, which remains a contested state between Democrats and Republicans.
In 2020, Biden became the first Democratic candidate for President of the United States to win Georgia in thirty years. A few months later, in January 2021, when Trump contested the results of the presidential election, the election of Warnock and the other Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, gave his party extreme control of the Senate. But Georgia also re-elected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Nov. 8 by a comfortable margin, and a number of elected Republicans, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Both mainstream conservatives had resisted Trump’s push to overturn Georgia’s presidential election.
For Democrats and Joe Biden, the new Senate majority provides welcome relief. The party will no longer have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote to break even. Democrats will no longer depend on the removal of a single senator to pass their bills or confirm their nominations, as they have in the past two years, when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Sen. Kirsten Sinema of Arizona. Biden and his party have repeatedly been forced to revise their bills under pressure from these dissenters. The Democrats will also have a majority in the Senate committees, which are currently divided with the Republicans.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.