Sen. Raphael Warnock Reelected, Gives Democrats A 51-49 Senate Majority

Raphael Warnock has defeated Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate four times in two years in the red state of Georgia. Candidate quality matters. And Donald Trump is toxic to voters.

Trump’s endorsed candidates for governors and senators in the “battleground” states all lost this year, with the exception of J.D. Vance in Ohio, who required a massive infusion of money from his puppet master Peter Thiel and Mitch McConnell’s PAC to win his race. (He will be a miserable senator in the mold of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley).

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, Warnock defeats Walker, giving Democrats 51-49 majority in Senate (excerpt):

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock fended off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker to win a full six-year term that broadens the Democratic majority in the chamber after a turbulent runoff campaign that sharpened partisan divides in one of the nation’s most politically competitive states.

Warnock’s victory Tuesday was a rare bright spot for Democrats in Georgia after a midterm that ended in triumph for every other statewide Republican candidate, and his win prevented an outright reversal just two years after Democrats swept the U.S. Senate runoffs and helped Joe Biden win the White House.

The $401 million race was the nation’s most expensive. The victory gives Democrats 51 seats in the Senate, meaning they can claim a majority on committees and exert more influence without having to depend exclusively on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.

In a subdued concession speech Tuesday night, Walker made no mention of Warnock but urged his supporters to “believe in our elected officials.”

“There’s no excuses in life, and I am not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight,” Walker said.

“Krazy Kari” Lake could learn a lesson from Walker. I’m sure it cheesed off Big Lie election denier Trump.

Jonathan Bernstein explains, In the Senate, 51 Votes Is a World Apart From 50:

[W]hether there are 50 Democratic senators, as there are now — or 51, as there would be if Senator Raphael Warnock wins re-election — wouldn’t seem to matter all that much.

Don’t be fooled. One additional Senate seat would make a huge difference for Democrats — for judicial and executive-branch nominations, for oversight, maybe even for legislating.

With a 50/50 Senate, any tie votes are broken by the vice president, while the committees operate under a power-sharing agreement and are evenly split. So the Judiciary Committee, for example, which considers all judicial nominations, has 11 senators from each party. … But [with the] Warnock win, Democrats will organize the Senate and have majorities on each committee.

That will smooth the way for more rapid confirmation of judges and executive-branch nominees. Republicans in the current Congress haven’t had the votes to defeat any of them as long as every Democrat stayed onboard. But tie votes in committee gave them extra procedural tools to slow things down. There’s no proxy voting on the Senate floor — if for any reason a Democrat cannot make a vote, it might need to be delayed. And while Democrats have stayed unified behind almost all of President Joe Biden’s selections during the past two years, 51 Democrats will give the White House just a bit of breathing room.

High-priority nominations, such as for cabinet secretaries and appellate judges, will get confirmed regardless of Republican foot-dragging. But district court judges and less prominent executive-branch positions are important too, and they’re far more likely to be confirmed if there are 51 Democrats.

Committees with Democratic majorities will also find it easier to conduct oversight investigations that Republicans object to. Not all oversight is partisan. But plenty of it is perceived that way by the minority party, and a clear majority will make hearings and investigations at least marginally smoother. And with the Republican-majority House preparing its own partisan hearings, Democrats might welcome the opportunity to have more control over Senate hearings.

[Tuesday’s] election will do more than determine committee slots in January. For one thing, there’s the possibility that Democrats could lose a senator to resignation or death over the next two years; having a 51st senator is valuable insurance.

And of course senators are elected to six-year terms: Georgia’s voters will be selecting someone this week who will serve in the next three Congresses. The current Democratic majority is just as much a result of Michigan Senator Gary Peters’s narrow win in 2020, and Montana Senator Jon Tester’s close call in 2018, as it is a product of John Fetterman’s win in Pennsylvania last month. Even if Biden wins re-election in 2024 and Democrats recapture the majority in the House, it will still be hard for them to retain the Senate, where they will be defending 23 seats compared to 10 for Republicans. So having 51 seats instead of 50 would help.

One last thing: While it’s true that major legislation in the next Congress remains unlikely regardless of what happens in Georgia, individual senators still have a fair amount of influence. Warnock may offer amendments, in committee or on the Senate floor, that other Democrats, even those who broadly share his views on major issues, would not have proposed. He may negotiate for provisions in bills that other Democrats wouldn’t have.

My argument isn’t that he could be the difference in passing major Social Security reform or a gun-safety bill. But even relatively minor legislation can still affect the lives of many millions of people. It’s important not to discount the importance of any senator to future legislative outcomes, even if he or she doesn’t determine the majority.

Yes, [Georgia’s] election is for just one seat in a chamber that the Democrats will control regardless. At the same time, the outcome of [Tuesday’s] runoff will have major consequences for the next two years, and possibly even longer.

I would argue that this neutralizes hillbilly coal baron Joe Manchin. Even if he votes with Republicans to create a tie, Vice President Harris can vote to break the tie.

This leaves our prima donna Democratic diva Kyrsten Sinema. She did nothing to help Democrats in Arizona get elected in November. “She only cares about herself”: Ruben Gallego rips Kyrsten Sinema for doing “nothing” to help Dems:

In an article published by The New Republic on November 14, journalist Prem Thakker reports that Gallego is “going after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for being ‘nowhere to be found’ leading up to the midterm elections.” On November 13, Gallego (who was reelected in the midterms) tweeted, “We fought as a team in Arizona and we won. Senator Sinema was nowhere to be found, at all. We did not see her at one public event for anybody… she did nothing. Because she only cares about herself.”

My theory is that Sinema was waiting to see if the Republicans won in Arizona and took back the Senate. This would have given her cover to switch parties, for which she would have been rewarded by her friend, the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell. The Democrats’ big wins in Arizona and the Senate put the kibosh on her personal survival plan.

With Democratic control of the Senate, she must now remain in the Democratic Party, where she can either continue to be a disruptive outlier, or fall in line and play nice with her Democratic colleagues (this would seem to be against character type).

Sinema has low public approval, and will face a primary challenge in 2024, likely from Rep. Gallego. The best way to keep her in line is to keep constant constituent pressure on her.

The best solution would be for her to resign and take that sweet highly paid lobbyist job she has been angling for, and permit Gov. Hobbs to appoint a real Democrat to fill the remainder of her term, and give that appointee a head start on 2024. This would be a win-win for both her and Arizona.