The southern shepherd of the Democratic Party

There is a saying in the African American community that goes, “I am living my ancestor’s wildest dreams.”

After a bruising, long and historically expensive campaign season in Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection as one of Georgia’s two Democratic US Senators. He made history in 2021, when he was elected as the first African American US Senator from the Peach State, but it was only to complete the term for the recently deceased Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson.

On December 6, Warnock again made history – this time as the first African American US Senator to be elected to a full term in the history of Georgia. While this might sound redundant, had he lost, Warnock would have been relegated to a historical footnote, ignominiously known as one of the shortest serving Senators in US History, serving just a few months longer than the person he defeated, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

Instead, Warnock stands as one of only 11 African Americans to ever serve in our nation’s highest legislative chamber, and he did it in a cycle where Democrats across the southeast suffered defeat after defeat.