Twitter Is Celebrating Stacey Abrams As A Voting Rights Queen After The Georgia Runoffs
As ballots from the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections in Georgia are still being counted, people all over the country are already saluting the tireless organizing efforts of one Democrat in particular. A political pioneer, Stacey Abrams is perhaps the most prominent example of the Black women who have been organizing in the American South for ages — and with the results from the Georgia runoff leaning in favor of Democrats, the impact of Abrams' work is overwhelmingly clear. These tweets about Stacey Abrams after the Georgia Senate runoffs are cheering her success, which is definitely something to celebrate.
On Wednesday Jan. 6, Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock was projected to defeat Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler for one of the two highly contested seats in Georgia's Senate runoff elections, per The New York Times. Warnock's win makes him Georgia's first Black U.S. senator, a historic achievement for the state, which is 32% Black. As of noon ET on Wednesday, the race between Ossoff and Perdue had not yet been called, but seemed likely to lean in favor of the Democrat.
It's a huge shift for Georgia, which swung for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election after not voting for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. People all over the country are crediting Warnock's historic win — not to mention Georgia's shift towards blue — to the grassroots organizing efforts of Abrams and other Black organizers, such as LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter. Abrams has garnered praise in the past for aiding in Georgia's landmark blue flip during the 2020 presidential election by combating voter suppression. People all over the internet are congratulating her on breaking long-held barriers in American South.
While the full election results still have yet to be called, people are celebrating these progressive wins within the historically conservative Southern state. Ahead of the runoff election, Republicans held a 51-48 majority in the Senate, when factoring two Independents who caucus with the Democrats. If both Warnock and Ossoff win, the majority would effectively flip to Democrats, as future Vice President Kamala Harris would serve as the tie-breaker in a 50-50 party match. So far, 2021 is shaping up to be just as wild as 2020 — at least when it comes to politics.