Black voters showed up in record numbers for Georgia’s Senate runoff election on Tuesday, handing the Democratic Senate candidates the Rev Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff decisive victories against the Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, respectively.
According to the Associated Press, more than 4.4m votes were cast, about 88% of the number who voted in November’s contest, when turnout was 68% overall.
Just weeks after flipping the conservative stronghold in the general election, local strategists and community organizers across the state are being credited with once again galvanizing a voting bloc critical in delivering Democrats’ victory.
“Black runoff turnout was phenomenal and the [Donald] Trump base just couldn’t keep up,” the political analyst Dave Wasserman tweeted shortly after being one of the first to call the race for Warnock.
Tuesday’s win makes the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist church the first Black senator from Georgia and the first Black Democrat in a former Confederate state since Reconstruction. The milestone is considered by some analysts to be a factor in the surge in participation.
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, given the stakes of the race and the political moment, but this was a remarkable and high turnout. I mean, yea, there was probably slightly more Trump vote dropoff--see the result--but the turnout in >80% Trump areas was still at 88% of general
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) January 6, 2021
Black voters in the state were the deciding force in both Democratic victories, particularly in urban and rural communities with large Black populations. Typically, these groups are less likely to vote in state and local contests than their white counterparts.
The runoffs garnered national attention after Black voters – along with new Georgia residents of all races – successfully flipped the state from reliably Republican to a competitive purple in November, with the Democrat Joe Biden narrowly winning over the incumbent president by more than 11,000 votes.
“The margins are so small that every action, including your vote, matters and will make a difference,” Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, told CNN. “Black voters got that message. Black voters recognized that we need to complete the task.”
According to exit polls, turnout for the Senate races was high overall, reaching more than 80% of the turnout in the November general election. That rate was slightly higher in predominantly Black districts.
Roughly 93% of Black voters supported Ossoff and Warnock. Ossoff earned 92% of Black voters in Tuesday’s contest compared with 87% in November. According to NBC data, Warnock won 92% of Black voters against Loeffler.
Meanwhile, although Republicans Loeffler and Perdue received 71% of the white vote, turnout was slightly down from the general election.
“Democrats need to get at least 30% of the white vote to be competitive in any race,” Andra Gillespie, political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, told the Guardian. “But Black voter turnout, when reaching record levels, will ultimately decide the race every time.”
Gillespie noted that as Georgia continues to attract young, more liberal populations, residents will see many competitive election cycles to come. According to Pew Research Center, the Black voting bloc has grown to make up a third of Georgia’s electorate in the last two decades. Other analysts also credit new Black residents with making more southern states like North Carolina, and Texas and Florida more competitive.
Black women did this—but this isn't just "Black Girl Magic." This is the result of pure organizing, labor, and love that Black women have poured into GA.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 6, 2021
Gratitude to every one of my sisters who willed the possibilities of this moment into existence. We see you and we love you.
Front and center amid post-election praise are the former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and the Black Voters Matter founder LaTosha Brown, who, along with Black grassroots organizations, have led campaigns to reach hundreds of thousands of Georgia residents since November’s general election.
“Across our state, we roared,” Abrams tweeted as votes were counted, calling on Georgians to “celebrate the extraordinary organizers, volunteers, canvassers & tireless groups that haven’t stopped going”.
Adopting a strategy that Brown called “meeting voters where they are”, voting rights activists spent the last weeks traveling to typically low-turnout areas to knock on doors, register voters and combat an onslaught of conservative disinformation attempts.
Many advocates say these get-out-the-vote efforts were effective in driving Black voters who otherwise wouldn’t have voted, or perhaps didn’t in November. According to a state vote tracker, more than 100,000 Georgians who didn’t vote in the presidential requested a mail-in ballot for the runoff.
Georgia residents largely rejected Republicans Loeffler and Perdue, who backed Trump’s conspiracy theories questioning the election’s legitimacy. Just this week, leaked audio revealed that the president had urged Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” votes that would overturn the election.
The president and campaign surrogates have launched dozens of legal challenges, primarily in cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit, alleging fraud.
In the same vein, both Loeffler and Perdue have refused to concede so far, challenging election results and calling on officials to count every legal vote.
Meanwhile, Raffensperger has maintained that the election was secure and the results accurate.
Black. Voters. Matter.
— LaTosha Brown (@MsLaToshaBrown) January 6, 2021
Activists argue schemes to toss out votes in primarily Black, Democratic strongholds follow a history of Republican efforts to disenfranchise primarily African Americans.
For Georgia activists, Black voters flipping the state and reclaiming Democratic control of the Senate reinforces African Americans’ influence in the conservative south when they show up to the polls.
“Black voters matter,” Brown succinctly tweeted.
This article was amended on 7 January 2021 to clarify that Warnock is the first Black Democratic senator from a former Confederate state since Reconstruction. South Carolina Republican Tim Scott preceded him.