Democrats secure 51-49 Senate majority with Warnock’s runoff win

As White House officials reflected on the final Democratic victory of a history-defying midterm election cycle, one constant has been a sense of validation. 

For President Joe Biden, the expanded Senate majority clinched by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection in Georgia on Tuesday night served as a capstone driven in large part by two years of cornerstone legislative wins. 

Legislative success will be much harder to come by in the two years to come, even with an additional Senate vote, officials acknowledge. Republicans will soon take the majority in the House and have made clear their opposition to Biden — and his agenda — will serve as an animating feature of their policy and political priorities in the months ahead. 

Still, the two years of unified Democratic control, even with the barest of majorities, played a critical role in not just blunting sweeping GOP wins, but actually gaining a seat in the Senate, according to Biden aides and congressional Democrats.

As Republicans grappled with the ever-present, disruptive and defining grip of former President Donald Trump, Democrats had an advantage in campaigns driven by legislative accomplishments. Even Democrats, like Warnock, who sought to distance themselves from Biden and his sagging approval ratings, pointed to their legislative successes. 

The victories for Biden’s agenda included trillions of dollars touching nearly every aspect of the US economy, manufacturing, infrastructure and climate policy, all of which have been broadly popular when taken in isolation. 

Herschel Walker, left, and former President Donald Trump

Donald Trump was hoping for a win on Tuesday amid the slow start to his latest presidential campaign, believing a victory for his longtime friend and hand-picked candidate Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff would mitigate calls for new Republican leadership following a spate of losses for his endorsed candidates in high-profile 2022 races.

Instead, Trump’s first cycle as a so-called GOP kingmaker ended with one final blow to his scorecard.

Walker lost by nearly 3 percentage points to Sen. Raphael Warnock, handing Democrats a wider Senate majority than they’ve had the past two years and plunging the former president into deeper scrutiny as the GOP’s only declared 2024 contender.

“OUR COUNTRY IS IN BIG TROUBLE. WHAT A MESS!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after several networks called the race for Warnock late Tuesday night.

One source close to Trump said the Georgia results were likely to further damage the 2024 Republican hopeful’s third presidential campaign, which has been marred by a series of self-inflicted wounds and legal troubles in the three weeks since Trump announced he was running.

“This is really, really bad,” this person said.

Many in the former president’s orbit are concerned that this will boost demand for other Republicans to challenge him for the party’s presidential nomination.

In the six states where Trump’s MAGA Inc. political action committee spent tens of millions boosting candidates with his backing, he notched only one victory: Sen.-elect J.D. Vance in Ohio, a state that has trended Republican in recent years.

Trump aides insist he remains pleased with his roughly 80% success rate for the 250-plus endorsements he doled out this cycle — many of which went to heavily favored incumbents, Republican hopefuls running for reliably red seats, or candidates who ran unopposed — even as the former president has privately complained to allies about the blame he’s facing for elevating low-caliber candidates and suggesting that many of them could have run better campaigns, sources said.

Read more here.

US Sen. Raphael Warnock, right, speaks to the media as he walks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the US Capitol on Wednesday.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock credited the people of Georgia when asked how much he benefited from Donald Trump’s involvement in selecting his opponent,

He then walked into the Senate chamber with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

US Senator Raphael Warnock walks on stage at his election night event in Atlanta on Tuesday.

A coalition of Georgia-based activist groups who worked to turn out the vote in communities of color across the state during the Senate runoff are taking a victory lap following incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection Tuesday. He defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

The coalition, which includes New Georgia Project Action Fund, Care in Action and the Asian American Advocacy Fund, among others, say they’ve collectively knocked on nearly 6 million doors in just three weeks. 

“We know that Georgians are ready for progressive change. And they made that clear in this election,” said New Georgia Project Action Fund CEO Kendra Cotton.

Warnock was able to successfully appeal to independents and moderates without alienating progressives, something Cotton said is seen in the senator’s track record.

CASA in Action, a Latino and immigrant advocacy group, had members from Pennsylvania, Virginia and other states to canvass for Warnock in the runoff. Additionally, Asian American Advocacy Fund Executive Director Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood said her organization was knocking on doors and helping voters get to the polls up until the last minute on Tuesday.

“The future looks bright for Georgia, in the sense that as this coalition keeps on building, we are going to be able to win statewide elections,” said Luis Zaldivar, the Georgia state director for CASA in Action, before calling for federal legislation to protect voting rights. 

“We’re a battleground state. We’re here to stay. And we’ve just got to keep doing the work,” said Hillary Holley, executive director of Care in Action. 

Organizers said they expect Warnock to continue advocating for student loan forgiveness, supporting immigration reform that protects DACA recipients and playing a key role in advancing Biden’s judicial appointments.

The final total for ad spending on the Georgia Senate race – including the primary, November general election and runoff – totaled $338.5 million, according to AdImpact data.

It was the most expensive contest of the 2022 cycle, ahead of the Pennsylvania Senate race, which saw $272.8 million in ad spending. 

Over the course of the entire Georgia race, Democrats outspent Republicans, about $194.4 million to $144 million. Incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock led all advertisers by a significant margin, spending just over $100 million alone on the campaign. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference on Tuesday.

Democrats have now secured a slim 51-49 majority over Republicans in the Senate.

The party will have significant governing advantages compared to the 50-50 split in the current Congress, during which a power-sharing agreement gives Republicans considerable leverage over Democrats despite being in the minority.

The White House is seen on October 20.

The results of the 2022 midterm election point toward a 2024 presidential contest that will likely be decided by a tiny sliver of voters in a rapidly shrinking list of swing states realistically within reach for either party.

With only a few exceptions, this year’s results showed each side further consolidating its hold over the states that already lean in its direction. And in 2024, that will likely leave control of the White House in the hands of a very small number of states that are themselves divided almost exactly in half between the parties – a list that looks even smaller after this month’s outcomes.

Five states decided the last presidential race by flipping from Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats have already won six of the eight Senate and governor races decided across them this month and could notch a seventh victory if Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeats Herschel Walker in a Georgia run-off in December.

Still, the results also showed Republicans tightening their grip on Ohio, Iowa and Florida: though Democrats won all three in both of Barack Obama’s presidential victories, each now appears securely in the GOP’s column for 2024 (and likely beyond).

These offsetting and hardening partisan strengths could, once again, provide the power to decide the White House winner to a few hundred thousand voters in a very few closely balanced states. That’s a windfall for the owners of television stations who will be deluged with television advertising in states such as Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona

But it’s also another reason for the prodigious stress in our fraught modern politics. Each side in an intensely polarized nation of 330 million recognizes that the overall direction of national policy now pivots on the choices of a minuscule number of people living in the tiny patches of contested political ground – white-collar suburbs of Atlanta and Phoenix, working-class Latino neighborhoods in and around Las Vegas and the mid-sized communities of the so-called BOW counties in Wisconsin.

Senate GOP Whip John Thune talks to CNN's Manu Raju on Wednesday.

GOP senators were noticeably upset about their 2022 problems in the aftermath of their loss in the Georgia Senate runoff, calling for better candidates and contending that former President Donald Trump caused a problem on the trail.

Here’s how some Republicans are reacting after last night:

Senate GOP Whip John Thune said Trump’s presence on the campaign trail created a contrast when they party wanted to keep the race focused on President Joe Biden and his policies.

Asked if Trump was a problem for their party, Thune indicated he was.

“Well, he was of course very active in the primaries and even in the general election because he was a presence out there and in an election year where it should have been a referendum on the current admin and their policies. The Dems were in many cases able to turn it into a choice election because of Trump’s presence out there — so was he a factor? I don’t think there’s any question about that,” he said.

Thune added that candidates shouldn’t have campaigned on the bogus notion the election was stolen.

“A lot of the candidates who had problems in these elections were running on the 2020 election being stolen, and I don’t think independent voters were having it,” he said.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of GOP leadership, told CNN there’s a basic problem for Republicans: “We need better candidates.”

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said, “We didn’t get our vote out for sure.” 

Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN that the GOP needs to improve its online fundraising and stop demagoguing early voting. 

Graham also said that Trump has to prove he can win if he’s to clinch the nomination for 2024.

“He’s still very popular in the party. People appreciate his presidency. They appreciate his fighting spirit. But there’s beginning to be a sense, ‘can he win?’ So his number-one job, I think, in these early primary states is to put together a team — a winning team — and convince people that he can close the deal in the general election. He’s still the odds-on favorite, because there’s a lot of goodwill in the Republican Party about Trump, but the question is about winning, we want to win. Time will tell,” he said.

Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said GOP Georgia candidate Herschel Walker’s loss on Tuesday is “just one more data point in an overwhelming body of data that the Trump obsession is very bad for Republicans.”

“It’s just one more data point in an overwhelming body of data that the Trump obsession is very bad for Republicans but normal Republicans are doing extremely well,” he said.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah lambasted the former president’s involvement in GOP primaries, warning that the party should learn that a Donald Trump endorsement “can be the kiss of death” 

 “I think President Trump has had a very substantial impact on who’s going to win a primary and it hasn’t worked out well,” he said.

“Hopefully we’ll recognize that his endorsement can be the kiss of death,” Romney said.

US Sen. Rick Scott walks through the US Capitol on November 29.

Sen. Rick Scott, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, told CNN that the election losses were “frustrating” and said the GOP needs to do a better job of explaining their message. He said they need to have a “good national message” as he pushed a national agenda that Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell resisted. He said Republicans also need to improve their performance on early voting.

He defended the committee’s decision not to intervene in primaries. And even as other Republicans have been critical about their candidate quality, Scott said their candidates were “good, quality people.”

Asked if they should have engaged in primaries when the NRSC stayed out of it, he said they shouldn’t.

Scott also steered clear of criticism of Trump and said this when asked if candidates should avoid claiming the election was stolen. “When I talked to voters, and I didn’t run this time but it’s good getting out there to talk to people. What they wanted to know is their votes never gonna be diluted.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer talks to reporters on Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke Wednesday morning to congratulate Raphael Warnock on a “great” win in Georgia.

Schumer pointed out that with Warnock’s win, it is the first time since 1934 that “every Democratic incumbent won with the party, and with being the party in power.”

On why the Democrats performed so well in this midterm cycle, Schumer praised the “great candidates” in his party but also said he believed their success came in part because of several negative things about “MAGA Republicans” that turned off voters.

“First, in May and June, the public began to realize how far right these MAGA Republicans had gone,” Schumer, citing the Dobbs decision in the Supreme Court on abortion — as well as decisions by SCOTUS on concealed carry and on “limiting what we could do to stop coal plants from poisoning” communities.

Schumer added that he believes the Jan. 6 hearings led to a positive effect for Democrats in the midterm elections.

Former President Donald Trump speaks in Casper, Wyoming, in May.

The highly touted red wave in last month’s midterm election failed to develop largely because it hit a wall of resistance among independent voters, especially across the key battleground states. And that presents difficult questions for Republicans looking forward to 2024.

The GOP’s disappointing showing among independents this year marked the third consecutive election in which the party has underperformed with those critical swing voters. Although Donald Trump ran competitively among independents in his first presidential race in 2016, since he took office, the GOP has consistently faced broad opposition among them, especially those who are women or hold four-year college degrees.

The GOP’s 2022 struggles with independents were especially striking because they came even as most of those voters expressed negative views of both President Joe Biden’s job performance and the state of the economy – sentiments that typically cause most swing voters to break for the party out of the White House. To many analysts in both parties, the reluctance of so many independents to support Republican candidates despite such discontent underscores how powerfully the Trump-era GOP has alienated these voters.

“There’s a huge lesson here, which is if you talk like Trump or remind voters of Trump, particularly at a personality level, it’s pure poison to independent voters,” John Thomas, a GOP consultant, said flatly. “It might have been effective in 2016 because voters were looking for something new and a change, but it hasn’t been useful since then.”

For Republicans, the results underscore the electoral risks of the party’s continuing refusal to repudiate Trump, even as he has openly associated with two antisemites who praised Adolf Hitler, praised the January 6, 2021, US Capitol rioters and publicly called for the “termination” of the US Constitution to restore himself to power.

Here are some numbers from midterm exit polls:

Most importantly, the exit poll showed Democrats winning independents in the national vote for the House of Representatives only by a narrow 49% to 47% margin. That was a significantly smaller advantage than the double-digit lead among independents Democrats enjoyed in both the 2020 presidential race and the 2018 contest for the House.

“These results weren’t necessarily an endorsement of Democrats,” says Democratic pollster Matt Hogan. “But they disliked Republicans and viewed them as even more extreme.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said there was “no truth” to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s claims of voter suppression.

“Well, there’s no truth to voter suppression. Yesterday, we had 1.6 million people show up to vote. That’s more than we had a month ago. It’s also more than we had in November 2020. We had record turnout. But then the total turnout we had for a runoff, that’s the largest turnout we’ve ever had for a midterm election. And so yesterday, the average wait time was about two minutes. The longest wait times we saw typically were 12 to 14 minutes,” he told CNN Wednesday.

Raffensperger pointed to Republican weakness in the suburbs as an area to improve in order to win elections going forward. 

“Honestly, as Republicans, if we want to do soul searching. We have to win back the suburbs. We’re really strong in the rural area, farming communities, hard-working people like that, but people work hard in the suburbs, too,” he said.

Raffensperger also weighed in on President Biden’s proposal to move Georgia up in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary. 

“I like the idea that Georgia is moving up in the rankings because we’re continuing to grow in population and … it increases our importance and our significance as a state,” he said, adding that whatever be the action, it should come from both political parties. “And whatever we do, it’s going to be based on what is in state law.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock is joined on stage in Atlanta by his family after a projected win in the runoff election between Warnock and Herschel Walker.

President Joe Biden and his advisers had already breathed a big sigh of relief upon learning last month that Democrats would maintain control of the Senate. Now, four weeks later, they are celebrating once more: a victory for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in his runoff race against Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia that hands Democrats a 51-49 majority in the upper chamber. 

Biden and his advisers have been keenly aware of what a significant difference that single extra seat can make – a valuable “cushion” that means Democrats can afford to lose one vote in the Senate and still have simple majority, and which spares Vice President Kamala Harris the need to cast a tie-breaking vote if all senators that align with Democrats fall in line. 

Biden called the victorious senator after arriving back in Washington, and tweeted: “Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate. Here’s to six more years.”

Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain also congratulated Warnock and tweeted that Biden becomes “the first President since FDR 1934 to see every Senator in his party re-elected (who was seeking re-election.). 51!” 

Heading into Tuesday’s runoff, party leaders and officials were sensitive to the unpredictable nature of a runoff race. White House officials believed that in a race that could potentially be very close, operating with the assumption that “every little bit counts” was the right way to go. Letting voters know that there is another election happening – particularly around the holidays when people might be less engaged — was a top priority for party operatives. 

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan speaks from his desk on the floor of the Georgia State Senate in Atlanta in February 2020.

After Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was projected to win over Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff, the recriminations arrived swiftly for the GOP late Tuesday night.

“The only way to explain this is candidate quality,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said on CNN, noting the delta between Gov. Brian Kemp’s November victory and where it appears that Walker will end up when all the votes are counted.

Many Republicans attributed the closeness of the race on Tuesday night to the fact that Kemp came to Walker’s rescue in the runoff after keeping his distance during last month’s general election. He not only campaigned for him but put the muscle of his own turnout operation into efforts to help the GOP Senate nominee.

Democratic control of the Senate next year was already settled by hard-fought contests in states like Nevada, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto clung to her seat despite economic headwinds, and in Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman picked up a GOP-held seat.

The Senate has been evenly divided 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. That has given inordinate power to moderate figures like Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have often single-handedly curbed the ambitions of their party. Warnock securing a full six-year term will allow Democrats to dispense with the current power-sharing agreement with Republicans, while making it easier to advance Biden’s nominees.

Sen. Raphael Warnock poses for a picture with supporters during a visit at a campaign office in Norcross, Georgia, on Tuesday.

Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia Senate runoff last night will also serve as vindication for President Biden on a different front: His recent push for party leaders to make major changes to the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

Biden last week asked Democratic National Committee leaders to strip Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status, and instead, make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, with Nevada and New Hampshire coming a few days later – then, followed by none other than the state of Georgia. 

Now that Warnock has defeated Republican Herschel Walker in the Senate runoff, a Democratic official tells CNN this morning that the result only bolsters Biden’s case for bumping up Georgia too much earlier in the primary calendar. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee approved the plan last week and it now must be approved by the full committee early next year.

There’s no question now that it is simply “the right thing to do,” the official said. 

The state is not only made up of critical demographic groups that are core to the Democratic coalition – Black voters and suburban voters, growing Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Latino populations — the fact that Warnock has now been on the ballot four times in the last two years and that Biden made history by winning the state in 2020 (making him the first Democrat to win the state in almost three decades) undeniably solidifies Georgia’s battleground state status, the Democratic official said.

In other words: Going forward, Georgia would no doubt be counted on by Democratic presidential candidates as a state that can help put them over the top.

In his letter to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee members explaining his decision to ask for changes to the 2024 primary calendar, Biden emphasized the importance of giving voters of color a bigger voice.

“Just like my Administration, the Democratic Party has worked hard to reflect the diversity of America - but our nominating process does not,” the president’s letter said. “For fifty years, the first month of our presidential nominating process has been a treasured part of our democratic process, but it is time to update the process for the 21st century.”

Herschel Walker speaks during an election night party in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Morale among GOP candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign staff hit an all-time low in its final days as it became clear to them their candidate would likely lose his race to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, according to multiple people familiar with Walker’s campaign. 

Several of Walker’s staff members became frustrated as the runoff election progressed over the last month, sensing their advice for the embattled candidate wasn’t being heeded as outside voices with little political experience were empowered. 

In addition to dealing with a slew of scandals, Walker’s campaign tried to adjust his message to more closely align with the successful one Gov. Brian Kemp ran on, but ultimately felt their candidate declined to take strategic advice, was reluctant to hit the campaign trail and largely declined media interviews in the final days. 

“He’s so proud he doesn’t like taking advice,” one person familiar with the campaign told CNN, adding that he instead leaned on his wife Julie Blanchard for most decisions rather than empowering his team. Walker had no scheduled events for five critical days at the end of the race when early voting began as his wife argued behind the scenes that he should focus on wooing Black voters. 

Walker did get critical help in the end from a powerful GOP ally — the governor — including a joint rally, private fundraisers and a voter turnout apparatus Kemp’s team spent months building. But ultimately it wasn’t enough to pull him across the finish line. 

US Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks to supporters on Tuesday night.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will win Georgia’s Senate runoff, CNN projects, giving Democrats greater leverage in the Senate next year and delivering a critical blow to former President Donald Trump after a defeat of yet another one of his hand-picked candidates.

With Warnock’s defeat of Republican challenger Herschel Walker, Democrats will control 51 seats to the GOP’s 49.

The race closes out a difficult midterm cycle for Republicans, who won the House majority but saw their hopes for Capitol Hill dominance dashed by the troubled candidacies of some Trump-backed Senate nominees.

“There are no excuses in life, and I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight,” Walker told supporters after calling Warnock.

The runoff was a final midterm test of the former president’s influence as he embarks on a third White House bid. It was also a sign that – in the wake of President Joe Biden narrowly carrying the state in 2020, combined with two Senate runoff wins that handed him a Democratic Senate in 2021 – Georgia is now definitively a purple state.

In his victory speech, Warnock alluded to the fact that the runoff was his fourth campaign in two years. “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,” he said.

President Biden placed a congratulatory phone call to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock shortly after he returned to the White House Tuesday. The White House posted a photo of the call on Twitter. 

Vice President Kamala Harris also congratulated Warnock on Tuesday night.

As Warnock becomes the state’s first Black senator to win a full term, Harris’ historic tie-breaking role in the Senate will likely be less necessary because of the additional vote.

US Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks to supporters at his election night party in Atlanta.

Sen. Raphael Warnock remains undefeated. After being pushed to another runoff in November, the Democrat asked voters in Georgia to put him over the top “one more time” in December – and, once again, they delivered.

Since November 2020, Warnock has been the leading vote-getter in four consecutive Georgia Senate elections. But because of state law requiring statewide candidates to get a majority to win a general election, Warnock had to double the feat in both his 2020 special election and his 2022 bid for a full six-year term.

His victory in this head-to-head contest with Republican nominee Herschel Walker means Democrats will add to their already-secured Senate majority, with 51 seats to the GOP’s 49, and solidify the Peach State as a potentially decisive 2024 presidential battleground.

As the 2022 midterm cycle spins to its end, here are key takeaways from this final election night in Georgia:

51st seat gives Democrats true majority: Democrats had already clinched control of the Senate, with 50 seats secured last month, which would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote as she does now. But winning a 51st seat, thanks to Warnock’s victory Tuesday, comes with important benefits for the Democrats running the Senate and for President Joe Biden’s administration.

The party will now enter 2023 with a true Senate majority – one that won’t require the power-sharing agreement that has been in place over the last two years in an evenly divided chamber. That outright majority means that Democrats will have the majority on committees, allowing them to advance Biden’s nominees more easily.

Georgia is a swing state until further notice: As long as former President Donald Trump remains an influential figure in Republican politics, Georgia is poised to be a crucial Election Day battleground – especially when federal offices are on the ballot.

If there was any doubt before Tuesday, it’s been erased now. Walker was Trump’s hand-picked candidate to take on Warnock and he flamed out despite first running on a ticket with a popular Republican governor and then, this time, with that same governor’s express endorsement and support on the campaign trail.

Kemp’s inability to pull Walker over the finish line says less about him – or even Walker, a flawed candidate in any setting – than the state’s shifting partisan alignment. Changing demographics, an evolving economy and strategic, tenacious organizing by Democrats have made a beacon of the Old South a legitimate swing state.

On now to 2024.

The Democratic turnout machine strikes again: After the 2020 election, Georgia Republicans passed a controversial law that, among other things, reduced the amount of time between a November election and potential runoff, creating a condensed timeline that narrowed the window for mail-in voters and reduced the number of days to vote early in-person.

It didn’t matter.

The Democratic turnout machine in Georgia over the past four weeks – with a running start that goes back years and owes heavily to the groundwork by Stacey Abrams and her allies – once again delivered in a hotly contested race that attracted tens of millions of dollars in spending by the campaigns and national organizations.

Read more takeaways here.