At this years NABWMT’s Convention Speakers Mack and Ken Scott Baron predicted that the Democrats would win a majority of 51-49 Senate seats.This came true as Warnock beat Walker in Georgia, giving Democrats this 51st Senate seat. We thank the team for helping to point out candidates policies that align with the values of the NA.
Warnock used the cadences and language he honed as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church to ask Georgia voters to rise above the acrimony and division of Donald J. Trump’s politics.
He said “because this is America, because we always have a path to make our country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together.”
Warnock wrote the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that capped insulin prices for Medicare patients.
He also supported the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which boosted federal funding for Georgia’s roads and bridges, and the expanded Child Tax Credit, the single largest tax cut for middle- and working-class families in America.
The senator is one of just three Black lawmakers now serving in the Senate. He will remain part of a stunningly small group: Of the more than 2,000 people who have served in the United States Senate, only 11 have been Black.
Mr. Warnock won with overwhelming support from Black voters, who expressed disappointment, and anger, at what they saw as an effort to manipulate them to support a flawed, Black Republican candidate who they believed had been selected because of his race by political figures who would dictate his actions.
So what are the lessons learned from this campaign?
First, Walker’s loss to Senator Raphael Warnock showed that flawed candidates with extreme views, cannot always rely on partisan loyalties to lift them.
Mr. Warnock not only gave Democrats some breathing room in a closely divided Senate, but also showed that values and character matter. The Warnock campaign wanted to make the race a contrast between a reverend, and a running back with poor policy statements.
For example, at a rally Mr. Walker said that “Jesus may not recognize transgender people if they seek to enter heaven.”
Walker’s speeches were fixated on culture war issues, such as transgender athletes, nonbinary gender identity, and pronoun usage.
Georgia will again be a key state on the presidential map in 2024. There is an explosive growth of metropolitan Atlanta over the last decades, and especially the surge in Asian American and Latino voters.
But our work in Georgia and the US is still not done. Republicans won every statewide office in Georgia, other than senator, by an average of about seven points.
We must work hard to win the 270 Electoral College votes in 2024. We must win every swing state in the Midwest plus Nevada and New Hampshire, and keep Arizona and Georgia blue just in case. And the NABWMT should determine the policies of candidates whose policies align with the NA’s values.
As and example, the Democrats’ have a durable coalition in Nevada, the core of which is unionized casino workers in Las Vegas. But Democrats have assembled a no less formidable turnout operation in Georgia, a much more populous and more geographically complex state.
Thus, we must help to run not just a metro-centric outreach, but help build organizing infrastructure across the all states with patience. Networks of organizers should stick together for years, building relationships across states and prioritizing local roots.
We must overcome restrictive new voting laws, hoping that some may backfire in some respects.
Anticipating long lines at the polls, civil rights groups can plan “parties to the polls” in states. African Americans in Georgia know how to mobilize, but one shouldn’t have to out-organize voter suppression.
So, celebrate the wins then turn to the future where we always have to fight.
Write letters, send postcards and texts and phone bank. The are of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
The NA has fought for over 40 years for a better life for people at the margins, lets do so for and stand on the shoulders of our leaders, present and past.