Sen. Raphael Warnock wins Georgia runoff

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) has held onto his seat, defeating Republican Herschel Walker in a runoff race, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, and The Associated Press project.

With about 95 percent of votes in, Warnock has 50.6 percent of the vote, while Walker has 49.4 percent. This runoff was held because neither candidate received more than half of the vote during November's election, when a third candidate was also on the ballot.

Warnock, who won a special election runoff in January 2021 to become Georgia's first Black senator, will serve a full six-year term, and his win gives the Democrats a 51-49 Senate majority. He is a senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Walker, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump, was a football star at the University of Georgia and later in the NFL. Over the course of the campaign, two women came forward and accused Walker of paying for their abortions, and his son Christian said he threatened to kill him and his mother.