criminal chargers. we begin this morning with the senate runoff in georgia. amra walker is in atlanta. amra, it s quite a win for warnock. break it down. reporter: nearly $400 million was poured into this competition. senator raphael warnock prevailed, winning a six-year term. his win underscores several things. first off, georgia truly is a swing state. it s something georgia democrats have been watching closely. they ll use this win as a blueprint for 2024. it highlights the democrats ground game. that was set up by stacey abrams. georgia after the 2020
elections in two years, some tight ones and in tough circumstances. is warnock himself a rising star in the democratic party? i think you have to say that he is. i think, you know, the candidate quality idea cuts both ways, right? when democrats succeeded in recruiting raphael warnock, himself a political newcomer, you could draw a parallel to herschel walker in the sense he s a well-known local celebrity with solid roots in the community and a lot of credibility with georgia voters. he was successfully recruited by the democrats for this very tough race two years ago and chose to take it on, probably in part because there was not a trump-like figure out there. this was a recruit ing win for the democrats and now it s
atlanta, but the counties surrounding atlanta. boy, have they changed over time. let s go to gwinnett county. it has urban areas, but largely s suburban. raphael warnock won that by 25 points. 10 years ago it was d plus 21. for joe biden it was d plus 18. now 2016 let s go back. hillary clinton won, but it was d plus 6. go back to 2012 and mitt romney, the republican won by almost 9 points. you heard what brad raffensperger says. little by little, 2012, 2016,
2020, 2021, 2022, little by little republicans are losing ground in the suburbs and democrats are gaining ground to the point where a democrat is winning by 25 points. it s not just in northeastern, it s southeastern as well. raphael warnock, plus 23 in that county. back to mitt romney, he won by over 4 points. huge demographic changes there as the population grows in these areas. it s becoming more democratic. if republicans want a chance, they have to do better there. they don t have to win, but do better. cobb county, brian kemp lost by
presidential election passed that controversial new voting law that shortened the time period between the general election in november and this runoff. it also reduced the number of early voeting days. we saw the gop pushing to ban that saturday voting after thanksgiving. that clearly backfired as we saw a surge in early voting. this is what raphael warnock was hoping for, that surge would give him that cushion for election day. that s exactly what happened. the last thing that it highlighted was the turnout in georgia. interest in this election was immense. 3.5 million people turned out. earlier this morning the georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger talked about and touted the turnout, but also reflected on the loss for his party. listen.