Biography

Raphael Gamaliel Warnock (born July 23, 1969) is an American Baptist pastor and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Georgia since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he assumed office on January 20, 2021, the same day as the Inauguration of Joe Biden. Since 2005, Warnock has been the senior pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church. He was the senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church until 2005. Warnock came to prominence in Georgia politics as a leading activist in the campaign to expand Medicaid in the state under the Affordable Care Act. On January 30, 2020, Warnock announced his candidacy in Georgia's 2020 United States Senate special election, seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler. No candidate received a majority of the vote on election day, so Warnock faced Loeffler again in a January 5, 2021 runoff election, which he won by more than 93,000 votes. With Warnock's win and Jon Ossoff's victory in the concurrent regularly scheduled election, Democrats won control of the Senate for the first time since 2012. Warnock and Ossoff are the first Democrats elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia since Zell Miller in 2000. Warnock is the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate, and the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from a Southern state. He was reelected to a full term in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Herschel Walker.