(Forsyth County, GA) With just over two weeks until the December 6 Runoff Election, Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) made a campaign stop at Fowler Park in Forsyth County on Saturday, November 19, drawing a crowd of about 300 people. Warnock, the incumbent, faces challenger Herschel Walker (R) in the runoff for the U.S. Senate seat since neither candidate won 50 percent of the vote in the November 8 General Election.
Several other local and state Democratic names spoke to the crowd before Warnock made his appearance, including Forsyth County Democrat Party Leader Melissa Clink, former District 5 candidate for the Forsyth County School Board Elaine Padgett, former candidate for State Senate District 48 Josh Uddin, former candidate for US Representative District 6 Bob Christian, and vice-chairman of the Georgia High School Democrats Avi Dhyani. Ruwa Romman, who won the race for State House District 97, also spoke. According to CNN, Romman is the first known Muslim woman in the state house and the first Palestinian American to serve in any office in Georgia.
Voting, healthcare, infrastructure, abortion and his opponent, Walker, were among the topics Warnock discussed during his campaign stop.
Warnock criticized Walker’s stance on abortion as well as his character, saying that Walker has lied about many things in his past.
“Imagine somebody walking into your office applying for a job, you read their resume and everything on their resume is a lie,” Warnock said. “Well, that is the situation that the people of Georgia are confronted with right now. Everything my opponent is saying about the basic facts of his life is a lie.”
He said there are good people on both sides of the abortion debate and expressed his “deep reverence for life,” and as a man of faith, his “deep respect for choice.”
“I think that a patient’s room is too small and cramped a space for a woman and her doctor and the United States government, that’s just too many people in there,” Warnock said. “It does not consider the full range and complexity of the situations that women are faced with every day. The last thing you need is a bunch of male politicians in the room.”
The day the first Black woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court, Warnock said Vice-President Kamala Harris suggested they write a letter to someone who comes to mind about the importance of that moment.
He said he instantly thought of his young daughter, as well as everyone’s sons and daughters, saying it occurred to him later that public policy and legislation are just that - letters to your children.
“We ought to ask ourselves what we want that letter to say,” Warnock said. “I want my letter to say that I stood up in this defining moment in America. I want my letter to say I stood up for that American covenant ‘E pluribus unum, out of many, one.’ I want my letter to say I was part of a broad multi-racial, multi-religious coalition of conscience that pushed us closer to our ideals. I want my letter to say that I stood up for workers, that I stood up for women, that I stood up for the most marginalized members of the human family, that I stood up in order to build a greater Georgia, a better America and a more sustainable planet.”
Walker made two campaign stops in Forsyth County in September and October.
The General Runoff Election is on December 6. For information on voting in Forsyth County, click here.
If you have a news tip in Forsyth County, contact Justine Lookenott at justine.lookenott@newsbreak.com.
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