Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock spent most of his campaign in suburban Georgia, a traditionally Republican district. Churches, supermarkets, football stadiums and even shooting ranges were favorite targets in the hunt for undecided voters.
Instead of focusing on the party’s agenda (abortion, Trump, the economy), the former pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church wanted to convince moderate voters that he was someone they could trust, unlike his Republican opponent Herschel Walker.
The strategy paid off. Last night, in the second round of voting, he amassed nearly 100,000 more votes than his rival, who in turn received 200,000 fewer votes than Governor Brian Kemp, his party mate, who took the spot back about a year, a month ago.
“Our governor and Senator Warnock are good men, whom we can trust and who will represent the state of Georgia with dignity. I wouldn’t say the same if Walker won,” says Amy Steigerwalt, vice chair of political science at Georgia State University.
Throughout the race, disagreements and missteps of Walker, the candidate chosen by the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, accumulated. The former American football star was accused of paying for abortions for former lovers. Although he is against voluntary abortion, it has become his staunchest enemy.
So much so that television commercials for Warnock’s campaign repeated shots to the opponent’s feet. In one, Walker is seen spending nearly a quarter of an hour explaining to a stunned audience that he’d rather be a werewolf than a vampire.
The loss of credibility alienated the conservative candidate, which led to fewer rallies and street runs, with the team of advisers increasingly ignoring requests for clarification sent by journalists.
“a lot of money”
Warnock’s victory could have disastrous consequences from a political point of view, above all a legislative one. “It doesn’t mean a little different,” Sen. Chuck Schumer explained yesterday in an NBC interview. And the leader of the Democrats in the Senate was referring to the new majority of 51 Liberals against 49 Conservatives, as a result of the victory of the former Pastor, ending the tie that existed and that forced the Vice President, Kamala Harris, to break the continuing deadlock. .
As proof of this, nearly $500 million was spent on the campaign for this Senate seat. It was the most expensive race of this year’s election cycle. “The party leadership and associated groups spent this amount of money because they knew the outcome would have a critical impact on the future of Congress,” says Casey Lee Waldron, advisor to Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick.
The new cadre in the Senate provides a small cushion facilitating the approval of bills, the oversight of legislative committees, and the elimination of problems with organizing the Senate bureaucracy.
The Judicial Affairs Committee, for example, has 22 members. Even today, it’s split between 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats. From January 20, the new inauguration date, the party will have a majority of 12 to 10 of the competing force.
It is for this reason, Schumer recalled, that Warnock’s victory is “over 1%,” meaning he no longer needs to share power with Republican Minority Representative Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The short margin also allows the White House options to pass through the Senate without major obstacles, without leaving any concern to satisfy the wishes of Democrat Joe Manchin.
The senator representing West Virginia has often been accused of holding the party hostage to its demands, which run counter to its supporter base, an ultra-conservative constituency typical of the “Midwest.”
“With 51 we will be able to be more assertive and show Americans what really moves us,” says Expresso Jerry Crawford, former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for the US presidency in 2016.
Crawford believed that the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives (the lower house of Congress) would be irrelevant on major issues, such as appointing judges. “I expect an avalanche of nominations
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