By Jonathan Weisman and Maya King

ATLANTA — Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, in a runoff election Tuesday (6) that capped a gruelling and costly campaign, secured a 51-seat Democratic majority and gave the first Black senator from Georgia a full six-year term.

Warnock’s victory, was called by The Associated Press, late Tuesday evening as the senator’s lead was expanding to 51% compared with Walker’s 49%. It ended a marathon midterm election cycle in which Democrats defied history, as they limited the loss of House seats that typically greets the party that holds the White House and now gain a seat in the Senate.

Throughout one of the most expensive Senate races in American history, Warnock used the cadences and lofty language he honed as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to ask Georgia voters to rise above the acrimony and division of Donald Trump’s politics.

“I am Georgia,” Warnock proclaimed Tuesday night in Atlanta, invoking the martyrs and heroes of the civil rights movement and the small towns and growing cities of his childhood. “I am an example and an iteration of its history, of its peril and promise, of the brutality and the possibilities. But because this is America, because we always have a path to make our country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together.”

He uttered what he called the four most powerful words in a democracy: “The people have spoken.”

The defeat of Walker, who was hand-picked by Trump, culminated a disastrous year for the former president, who set himself up as a Republican kingmaker only to watch his Senate candidates in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — as well as his picks for governor in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia — go on to defeat in primaries or in last month’s general election.

Walker’s loss will almost certainly lead to soul-searching for a Republican Party that must decide heading into the 2024 election how firmly to tether itself to a former president who has now absorbed powerful political blows in three successive campaign cycles. An exhausted-looking Walker spoke only briefly after his defeat, asking his supporters at an event at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, “We’ve had a tough journey, have we not?” He added, “God is good”.

The Georgia result also holds a bold message about race in the rising New South.

Warnock was the first Black person from Georgia to be elected to the Senate when he won a 2021 runoff. Republicans chose another Black candidate to try to deny him a full term — a former football star with no political experience and little ideological depth — elevating the role of race and identity in a contest where the Republican candidate denied the existence of racism and the Democrat spoke of painful injustices that have yet to be remedied.

Now, with six years ahead of him in the chamber, Warnock will remain part of a stunningly small group: Of the more than 2,000 people who have served in the US Senate, only 11 have been Black. Of the Senate’s 100 current members, three are Black: Warnock; Cory Booker, D-NJ; and Tim Scott, R-SC.

Warnock’s campaign officials said Tuesday that they intentionally treaded lightly on the racial dynamics of the matchup against Walker, understanding that a heavy-handed message on race could alienate moderate white voters. Warnock was also wary of running a negative campaign while maintaining his post behind the pulpit of a high-profile church.

Instead, in the final weeks of the general election campaign, the Warnock team segued to a violent episode from Walker’s past. The campaign and allied groups poured more money into advertisements highlighting the account of Walker’s ex-wife, who said he had threatened her life.

In the general election in November, Warnock, 53, finished ahead of Walker by about 37,000 votes. But neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold needed to win, sending the race into a runoff. Under Georgia’s new election law, the runoff period was shortened to four weeks from nine, giving both campaigns little time to regroup, adjust their strategies and mobilize voters to return to the polls.

Warnock and his Democratic allies funnelled millions of dollars into the race, outspending Walker by a more than 2-to-1 margin in less than a month. By the final week of the runoff campaign, Warnock had topped $53 million on the airwaves while Republicans had spent $24 million. That was just a fraction of the $400 million spent in total on the race by the candidates, their committees and outside groups during the midterm election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks money in politics.

Warnock won with overwhelming support from Black voters, who make up one-third of Georgia’s electorate and are integral to its Democratic base. Black voters in Georgia expressed disappointment, even anger, on Tuesday at what they saw as an effort to manipulate them to support a flawed Republican candidate whom they believed had been selected because of his race by political figures who would dictate his actions.

But Warnock also won a key slice of support from moderates in the state, a group he paid extra attention to in the runoff campaign. Luke Maran, 23, an independent voter and mechanical engineering student at Georgia Tech, said he agreed with conservative economic principles of efficiency and low taxation, and had his qualms about the extremes of liberal social policies. But ultimately, he said, he voted for Warnock as the more qualified candidate.

Republicans struggled to articulate a message to galvanize their voters after Democrats secured Senate control during the general election. And while Walker, 60, used his fame to vault to the top of the Republican candidate field, he made a series of missteps and contended with a near-constant flow of damaging headlines about his personal life and business career.

He did not dispute his ex-wife’s previously aired accusations of domestic violence. But he was also accused, for the first time, of fathering children he had not previously disclosed, exaggerating and lying about his business prowess and urging women he was in relationships with to have abortions. His campaign denied all of these claims.

An array of Republican figures visited the state regularly to bolster Walker’s campaign during the runoff period, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida. But in the final days, Walker held few events — and he disappeared from the campaign trail altogether during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, baffling his GOP allies who saw it as a crucial window. By election day, he appeared to be unable to encourage a sizable portion of moderate voters, particularly those who had supported Gov. Brian Kemp in the general election, to turn back out for him.

-New York Times