"Raphael Warnock’s victory Tuesday night is historic, heralding a litany of firsts. In a Senate that remains almost solely the province of white men, he'll be the first Black Democrat from Georgia, the first Black Democrat from the South, the first Black pastor and only the second Black senator ever elected from a state below the Mason-Dixon line since Reconstruction... Warnock’s win... negates the longstanding, quietly kept idea that Black candidates don’t stand a chance running for the Senate in the South...Just seven African Americans have ever been elected to the Senate. Warnock will be the eighth. And though it was the New South that propelled Warnock into office, he preaches — and campaigns — from the old school, prophetic tradition, which criticizes America’s greatest societal ills. On the campaign trail, it was hard to separate the preacher from the politician. His stump speeches mirrored his sermons, interspersing calls for Medicaid expansion and criminal justice reform with allusions to scripture. Like Barack Obama, Warnock downplayed race on the campaign trail, running on a platform that appealed to a wide swath of the electorate. In addition to Black voters, Asian Americans and Latinos supported him and Jon Ossoff in droves during both the November and January elections. And he made a concerted effort to target rural and first-time voters, having already engaged the groups extensively as chair of the New Georgia Project, a position he held from 2017 until 2020."

“My friend John Lewis is surely smiling down on his beloved Georgia this morning, as people across the state carried forward the baton that he and so many others passed down to them. I want to congratulate Reverend Raphael Warnock on his election as Georgia’s next U.S. Senator — and while we're still waiting on final results in the other runoff, is clear that last night’s showing... is a testament to the power of the tireless and often unheralded work of grassroots organizing...”

“Senator-elect Warnock has actually been a part of the same movement that has helped to catapult him to the U.S. Senate as the prior board chair for the New Georgia Project, through work that he’s done through the Ebenezer Baptist Church around public health or through ending mass incarceration back in June of 2019. He was a part of a group of multifaith leaders who held an ending mass incarceration conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church. And so, we saw imams, we saw Jewish faith leaders, we saw rabbis, we saw preachers and pastors from across the South and across the country, come together to address these very critical issues. So, that’s the type of convener he’s already been. And that’s what has resonated with folks on the ground who are doing the work, because they’ve worked alongside him.”

“Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator.”

“Georgia voters sent the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church to the U.S. Senate. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior shepherd of the same congregation once led by Martin Luther King Jr., will become the first elected Black Democratic senator – not just from Georgia, but from the entire South. Without stepping outside his campaign headquarters, Warnock this morning was making the rounds on morning news shows.”

“We were told that we couldn’t win this election, but tonight we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible. May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold of the American dream. And so, Georgia, I am honored by the faith that you have shown in me. And I promise you this tonight: I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia, no matter who you cast your vote for in this election.”

“Verlene Warnock spent her summers picking cotton and tobacco as a teen in Waycross, Georgia, in the 1950s before becoming a pastor. "Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator," Warnock said... Her story was not uncommon. In the Jim Crow South, many poor Black people built savings by working in the fields because it was almost impossible for them to own land... At 82, Verlene Warnock still preaches at Bible and Prayer Ministries, her church in Savannah. And her son, the 11th of 12 children, is going to Congress.”