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Georgia Runoff: Early Voting for Warnock-Walker Round 2

In-person early voting for the last U.S. Senate seat is underway statewide in Georgia’s runoff, with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock working to get the jump on Republican challenger Herschel Walker who is putting less emphasis on advance balloting. 

After winning a state lawsuit to allow Saturday voting after Thanksgiving, Warnock spent the weekend urging his supporters not to wait until December 6 to vote. Trying to leverage his role as pastor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church and Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator, Warnock concentrated his efforts Sunday among Black communities in metro Atlanta. 

“What we are doing right now is soul work,” Warnock said at Liberty International Church southwest of downtown, where he rallied supporters before leading a march to a nearby early voting site where he cast his ballot. “We are engaged in a political exercise,” Warnock continued, “but this is moral and spiritual work, and for us that has always been based on the foundation of the church.” 

Walker, in contrast, did not hold public events over the long Thanksgiving weekend, and he has not emphasized early voting in his runoff campaign appearances, even as the Republican Party and its aligned PACs attempt to drive voter turnout after Walker underperformed other Georgia Republicans in the general election. Walker finished the first round with about 200,000 fewer votes than Governor Brian Kemp, who easily won a second term. Walker resumes his campaign Monday with stops in small-town Toccoa and suburban Cumming. 

Early in-person voting continues through Friday. Runoff Election Day is December 6. 

Warnock led Walker by about 37,000 votes out of about 4 million cast in the general election but fell short of the majority required under Georgia law, triggering a four-week runoff blitz. Warnock first won the seat as part of concurrent Senate runoffs on January 5, 2021, when he and Senator Jon Ossoff prevailed over Republican incumbents to give Democrats narrow control of the Senate for the start of President Joe Biden’s tenure. Warnock won a special election and now is seeking a full six-year term. 

This time, Senate control is not in play, with Democrats already having secured 50 seats to go with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote. That puts pressure on both Warnock and Walker to convince Georgia voters that it’s worth their time to cast a second ballot, even if the national stakes aren’t as high. 

As of late Sunday, almost 200,000 ballots had been cast in the relative handful of counties that opted to have weekend voting. That total was built on long lines in several heavily Democratic counties of metro Atlanta, enough to give Democrats confidence that their core supporters remain excited to vote for Warnock. But the total remains a small fraction of the nearly 2.3 million early in-person voters ahead of the November 8 general election. 

And Democrats remain cautious given that the early voting window is much shorter than two years ago, when the second round spanned two months between the general election and runoff. Voting on Saturday was allowed only because Warnock and Democrats sued amid a dispute with the Republican secretary of state over whether Saturday voting could occur on a holiday weekend. 

The senator followed up with a parade of Black leaders for weekend rallies and a march reminiscent of voting rights demonstrations during the civil rights movement. 

“We have one vote here that can change the world,” Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor and onetime aide to King, implored Black voters on Sunday. Rising from his wheelchair to speak, the 90-year-old former congressman and U.N. ambassador reminded the assembly of the congressional compromise that ended post-Civil War Reconstruction and paved the way for Jim Crow segregation across the South. 

“One vote at the end of the Civil War pulled all of the Union troops out of the South and lost us the rights we had fought for in the war and that people had fought for us,” he said, starting “a struggle that we have been in ever since.” 

Warnock was shifting to a suburban focus late Monday with an evening concert headlined by the Dave Matthews Band. 

Walker, for his part, has drawn enthusiastic crowds in the early weeks of the runoff, as well, and his campaign aides remain confident that he has no problem among core Republicans. His challenge comes with the middle of the Georgia electorate, a gap highlighted by his shortfall compared with Kemp. 

“I feel Herschel Walker benefited by having Brian Kemp in the original election on November 8, and I think Kemp not being there will hurt the Republicans a little bit,” said Alpharetta resident Marcelo Salvatierra, who voted for Republican Kemp and Democrat Warnock and still supports the senator in the runoff. 

 
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The Somali Diaspora and its Journey to Political Victories in the West

From refugees to elected office, 14 Somali Americans have won legislative seats across the U.S. this year. Some also have been elected to city councils, school boards and the boards of parks and recreation in their respective cities. The U.S. midterm elections have proved to be historic for Somalis, with more women elected to public offices than ever before.

VOA Somali Service’s Torch Program explains how Somalis who arrived as migrants and refugees to the West have made their way into politics.

Hashi Shafi, executive director of the Somali Action Alliance, a Minneapolis-based community organization in the northern U.S. state of Minnesota, says the campaign that led Somalis to shine in U.S. politics started right after 9/11 with a community-based voter registration program.

“In the beginning, Somalis were thinking about returning back to Somalia. They had their luggage ready; the artists were singing with songs giving the community a hope of immediate returning, but after 9/11, the community activists realized that such a dream was not realistic, and the Somalis needed to find a way to melt into the pot. Then, we started registering community members to encourage them to vote,” Shafi said. “Somali Americans’ rise in political power has come with its difficulties.”

Tight-knit community

Abdirahman Sharif, the imam and the leader of the Dar-Al-Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis says another reason Somalis have risen in U.S. politics is because they are a tight-knit community.

“When Somalis came to [the] U.S., they moved to a foreign country where they could not communicate with people. So, for them, being close to people from their country meant having someone to communicate with and that helped them to unite their votes, and resources for political aspirants,” Sharif said.

The state of Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the country, mostly in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. According to U.N. estimates from 2015, there are about 150,000 Somalis, both refugees and nonrefugees, living in the U.S.

The first wave of Somalis came to Minnesota in early 1990s after civil war broke out in their country. Another wave of refugees followed, and the community thrived, thanks to the state’s welcoming social programs. It’s the biggest Somali community in North America, possibly in the world outside of East Africa.

Similarly, job opportunities and a relatively low cost of living have drawn Somali immigrants to Columbus, Ohio. Ohio has the second largest Somali population in the United States, with an estimated 45,000 immigrants.

Communities have grown significantly in both states. Somali-owned restaurants, mosques, clothing stores, coffee shops and other businesses have opened in several neighborhoods in Minneapolis, called Little Mogadishu, named after Somalia’s capital.

Large communities of Somalis are also concentrated in Lewiston and Portland, Maine, as well as Seattle in Washington state, and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

Analyst Abdi-Qafar Abdi Wardere says such concentrations have helped Somalis to gather their strength as a community.

“Somalis are bound together by intimate social or cultural ties that helped them to live together and concentrate [in] certain states or neighborhoods in the diaspora. About one-third of Minnesota’s Somali residents came directly from refugee camps; others settled first in another state and then relocated to Minnesota. I can say they are somehow a tight-knit community,” Wardere said.

Canada and Europe

It’s not only in the United States but Somali immigrants have also found their place in Canadian and European politics. They have gathered in big numbers in major cities to have an impact and exert influence.

In Toronto, Canada, Somalis have made breakthroughs by winning elections and political offices. Ahmed Hussen, a lawyer and community activist born and raised in Somalia, is among the most influential Somalis in Canada. He was first elected as a member of parliament in 2015 to represent York South – Weston. He has previously served as minister of families, children and social development, and minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship. Now he is Canada’s minister of housing, diversity and inclusion.

Faisal Ahmed Hassan, who is a Somali Canadian politician, was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2018 until his defeat in 2022. He thinks for Somalis in the diaspora, there are two reasons they run for political office.

“One reason is that the community wants someone to represent their new homes and second is that Somalis inspire one another to doing something. If one of them does something good, others are encouraged that they can do the same,” Hassan said.

In the Nordic region of Europe, the first Somalis arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later, as Somalia’s civil war became more intense, new arrivals joined.

In recent years, the first generation of Somali refugees has been making its mark in politics, from the local council level to the national stage.

In Finland, Suldaan Said Ahmed has been the first Somali-born member of the Finnish parliament since 2021 and he is also the country’s special representative on peace mediation in the Horn of Africa, the northeastern region, where Somalia is located.

In Sweden, Leila Ali Elmi, a former Somali refugee, made history in 2018 becoming the first Somali-Swedish Muslim woman elected to the Swedish parliament.

Last year, Marian Abdi Hussein became the first Somali MP in Norway’s history.

Both women also became the first Muslims to wear hijabs in their respect houses of parliament.

In Britain, Magid Magid, a Somali-British activist and politician who served as the mayor of Sheffield from May 2018 to May 2019, became the first Somali elected to the European Parliament.

Mohamed Gure, a former member of the council of the city of Borlänge, Sweden, said there are unique things that keep Somalis together and make them successful in the politics in Europe.

“The fabric of Somalis is unique compared to the other diaspora communities. They share the same ethnicity, color, language, and religion. There are many things that keep them together that divide them back home. So, their togetherness is one reason I can attribute to their successes,” Gure said.

Gure says the fear of migrants and refugees stoked by politicians has been setting a defining narrative for elections in the West.

“One other reason is the fear of a growing number of migrants and refugees in the West. As they are trying to melt into the pot, such fear created by nationalist politicians continues to set a tone for electoral victories that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago,” Gure said.
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