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Trump suffers defeat as Democrat wins Georgia runoff

By Oluwaseun Akingboye, Bureau Chief US and North America
08 December 2022   |   6:53 am
The former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has suffered another political defeat as the Democratic Candidate, Senator Raphael Warnock, won Georgia's midterm election runoff for December Tuesday 6, 2022.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on February 26, 2022 former US President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference 2022 (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida. – Lawmakers probing the 2021 attack on the US Capitol voted on October 13, 2022, to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify on his role in the violence, in a major escalation of the sprawling inquiry weeks before it is due to wind up. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)

The former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has suffered another political defeat as the Democratic Candidate, Senator Raphael Warnock, won Georgia’s midterm election runoff for December Tuesday 6, 2022.

Warnock beat Trump by defeating his imposed candidate under the Republican Party, Herschel Walker, who was outwitted and outspent politically at the poll in Georgia to give the Democratic Party clear control of the Senate.

He pulled 1,814,841 votes to win over his opponent, Walker, a former football player, who scored 1,719, 387, giving the Democrats a solid control of the Senate in the poll recording 51.4 per cent victory over the latter which has 48.6 per cent.

The Tuesday win gives Democrats 51 seats to tower above the Republicans that have 49 seats in the Senate, and a majority that won’t necessarily have to wait greatly on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

It also affords the Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, more control of key committees and some slack in potentially-divisive judicial and administrative confirmation fights.

The November 8 2022 midterm election was at a loggerhead, not only for the Georgia candidates but also for the two major political parties: The Democratic and Republican parties, as none had clear control of the Senate.

In the inconclusive poll, Warnock had a sizeable lead ahead of his Republican opponent with about 37,000 votes but none of them had the 50 percent political landmark to win, berthing the runoff poll on Tuesday.

Not only was it a poll that gave the first Black senator a full six-year term from Georgia, it was also one of the most keenly contested and expensive elections in the political history of America.

The Guardian reports that Senator Warnock is the first Black politician from Georgia to be elected into the Senate after winning a 2021 runoff election, making him the third Black man in the current Senate of 100 members.

Others are: Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina; Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey. They are part of the only 11 Black senators produced in the United States of America out of over 2000 that had been in the Senate.

As gathered by The Guardian, Walker was a political strategy by the Republicans, as championed by Trump who just declared a third-time Presidential race, to stop a Black person from getting a full six-year term.

However, it was a poll for all the Black Americans to rally around the Democrats who, to them, seem to have a soft spot and policy for them though the runoff election time was reduced from nine to four weeks in line with Georgia’s new electoral law.

Warnock and his allies, especially in the Democratic Party and amongst the Blacks, outspent the Republicans as his campaign pooled $53 million to dislodge the latter who could only raise only $24 million by the final week of the campaign.

The $400 million election, as revealed by a group that tracked the total money spent by candidates, committees and outside groups for the midterm election, showed the political stance of the Black people ahead 2024 Presidential election.

The Democratic Party and its candidate, Warnock, won the runoff through the tremendous support enjoyed by the Black voters in Georgia, who constitute one-third of Georgia’s electorate and integral of its Democratic base.

According to the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, “2022 is the first midterm since 1934 that the party in power successfully defended every incumbent Senate seat.” Warnock’s victory makes him the first Southern Senate Democrat to win reelection since Mary Louisiana did it in 2008.

Shortly after the results were announced, Warnock addressed the people, saying: “I am Georgia, 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,” Warnock said.

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