76 Facts About Raphael Warnock

Raphael Gamaliel Warnock is an American Baptist pastor and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Georgia since 2021.

Raphael Warnock was the senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church from 2001 to 2005.

Raphael 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.

Raphael Warnock was the Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States Senate special election in Georgia, defeating incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler in a runoff election.

Raphael Warnock was a reliable supporter of Joe Biden's legislative efforts during his presidency.

Raphael Warnock was reelected to a full term in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Herschel Walker.

Raphael 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.

Raphael Warnock was born in Savannah, Georgia, on July 23,1969.

Raphael Warnock grew up in public housing as the eleventh of twelve children born to Verlene and Jonathan Warnock, both Pentecostal pastors.

Raphael Warnock's father served in the US Army during World War II, where he learned automobile mechanics and welding, and subsequently opened a small car restoration business where he restored junked cars for resale.

Raphael Warnock's mother picked cotton and tobacco in the summers in Waycross, Georgia, as a teenager and became a pastor.

Raphael Warnock then earned Master of Divinity, Master of Philosophy, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary, a school affiliated with Columbia University.

Raphael Warnock began his ministry as an intern and licentiate at the Sixth Avenue Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, under the civil rights movement leader John Thomas Porter.

The church hosted Fidel Castro on October 22,1995, while Raphael Warnock was youth pastor.

In January 2001, Raphael Warnock was elected senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

Raphael Warnock had demanded that the counselors have lawyers present when being interviewed by police.

The charges were later dropped with the deputy state's attorney's acknowledgment that it had been a "miscommunication", adding that Raphael Warnock had aided the investigation and that prosecution would be a waste of resources.

Raphael Warnock said he was merely asserting that lawyers should be present during the interviews and that he had intervened to ensure that an adult was present while a juvenile suspect was being questioned.

Raphael Warnock stepped down as the church's senior pastor in 2005.

On Father's Day 2005, Raphael Warnock was named senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.

Raphael Warnock has continued in the post while serving in the Senate.

In March 2019, Raphael Warnock hosted an interfaith meeting on climate change at his church, featuring Al Gore and William Barber II.

Raphael Warnock presided at Representative John Lewis's funeral at Ebenezer Church in July 2020.

The tweet was deleted that afternoon, with a spokesperson for Raphael Warnock saying, "the tweet was posted by staff and was not approved" but declining to say whether it reflected Raphael Warnock's beliefs.

Raphael Warnock came to prominence in Georgia politics as a leader in the campaign to expand Medicaid in the state.

In March 2014, Raphael Warnock led a sit-in at the Georgia State Capitol to press state legislators to accept the expansion of Medicaid offered by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Raphael Warnock actively campaigned for Georgia Democrats to increase outreach to low-income communities.

In 2015, Raphael Warnock considered running in the 2016 election for the United States Senate seat held by Johnny Isakson as a member of the Democratic Party.

From June 2017 to January 2020, Raphael Warnock chaired the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan organization founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams and focused on increasing voter registration.

Raphael Warnock supports expanding the Affordable Care Act and has called for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Raphael Warnock opposes the concealed carry of firearms, saying that religious leaders do not want guns in places of worship.

In January 2020, Raphael Warnock decided to run in the 2020 special election for the United States Senate seat held by Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed after Johnny Isakson's resignation.

Raphael Warnock was endorsed by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Brian Schatz, and Elizabeth Warren; the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; Stacey Abrams; and former presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter.

The closing argument of Raphael Warnock's campaign focused on the $2,000 stimulus payments that he and Ossoff promised to approve if they were elected and thus gave Democrats a US Senate majority.

On January 27,2021, Raphael Warnock announced that he would seek election to a full term in 2022.

Since no candidate received a majority of the vote in the general election on November 8,2022, Raphael Warnock faced Walker in a runoff election on December 6, and won.

Raphael Warnock became the first Georgia Democrat to win reelection to the Senate since Sam Nunn in 1990 and the first Deep South Democrat to win reelection to the Senate since Mary Landrieu of Louisiana in 2008.

On January 20,2021, Raphael Warnock was sworn into the United States Senate in the 117th Congress by Vice President Kamala Harris alongside newly elected Senator Jon Ossoff and former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

On February 13,2021, Raphael Warnock voted to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

In January 2022, when Johnny Isakson, a former US senator from Georgia, died, Raphael Warnock introduced a Senate resolution to honor Isakson, which was enacted with bipartisan support.

Raphael Warnock called Isakson "a patriot, a public servant" who "knew how to show up for people".

In October 2022, a bill by Raphael Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff was enacted into law, naming a United States Post Office building in Atlanta, Georgia after John Lewis, who was a US representative for Atlanta until his death in 2020.

In September 2023, Raphael Warnock was the only Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee to vote against the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act, which provides a safe harbor for legal state-level marijuana dispensaries and growers to access federally regulated banks.

Raphael Warnock has been assigned to the following committees for the 117th United States Congress:.

Raphael Warnock worked with Senator Tommy Tuberville to reduce barriers to trade for peanut exports in order to assist peanut farmers in Georgia.

Raphael Warnock unsuccessfully attempted to stop the execution of death-row inmate Troy Davis, who had been convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.

Raphael Warnock has helped to obtain millions in funding for the Port of Savannah and for the new Northeast Georgia Inland Port in Hall County, Georgia.

Raphael Warnock supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

In 2022, Raphael Warnock emphasized the importance of the national climate bill within his campaign.

Raphael Warnock referenced the contaminated water and air in Black and brown communities, such as the water crises in Jackson, Mississippi, and Flint, Michigan, and the burden placed on low-income families that pay a larger portion of their income on utilities.

Raphael Warnock said, "I've put forward a lot of legislation focused on creating a green energy future, everything from electric vehicles to electric batteries being manufactured in the state to investing in solar manufacturing".

Raphael Warnock was a cosponsor of the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act of 2022, a bipartisan bill that "requires the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a pilot grant program for improving recycling accessibility in communities".

Raphael Warnock received a grade of "F" from the NRA Political Victory Fund during his Senate campaign.

Raphael Warnock's bill allocated $50 million for integrated healthcare services grants, $45 million to innovation grants, $25 million for training of healthcare workers, and approval of a study on how to teach health professionals to reduce discrimination.

Raphael Warnock said, "Georgia is dead last when it comes to women and their access to healthcare" and that the bill's aim was "to make sure that when women are trying to bring a child in this world, they don't have to do so with one foot in the grave".

Raphael Warnock criticized Trump's "shithole countries" comment in 2018 and his subsequent signing of a proclamation honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2025, Raphael Warnock was one of 12 Senate Democrats who joined all Republicans to vote for the Laken Riley Act.

Raphael Warnock was endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign in 2020 and 2022 for his views on LGBTQ rights.

Raphael Warnock supported and cosponsored the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify same-sex and interracial marriages, but was absent for the final vote due to campaigning.

In September 2021, Raphael Warnock worked together with Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith to introduce legislation designating September 19 to 25 as Gold Star Families Remembrance Week nationwide, to honor sacrifices made by families of servicemen who died serving the United States; the legislation passed the Senate unanimously.

In November 2021, a bill of Raphael Warnock's was enacted that approved a government study into whether there were racial disparities in benefits provided by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

Raphael Warnock has said that passing legislation to expand voting rights is important enough to end the Senate filibuster.

On March 17,2021, Raphael Warnock said in a Senate floor speech that voting rights were under attack at a rate not seen since the Jim Crow era.

Raphael Warnock has expressed a range of views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Raphael Warnock has criticized Israel's actions, particularly in a May 2018 sermon where he discussed Israel's shooting of nonviolent Palestinian protesters, comparing the Palestinian cause to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Raphael Warnock emphasized the struggle for human dignity and the Palestinians' right to self-determination, while advocating for a two-state solution where "all of God's children can live together".

In 2019, after a visit to Israel and the West Bank, Raphael Warnock signed a statement with other clergy that was critical of Israel's military occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Raphael Warnock reversed course on some of these positions during his Senate campaign in November 2020, calling the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel "anti-Semitic" and a refusal to acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

Raphael Warnock has said that he does not believe that Israel is an apartheid state and that he recognizes Israel's significance as a democracy in the Middle East and its importance as America's partner in the region.

Raphael Warnock has expressed a commitment to working toward ensuring Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon and has voiced his opposition to conditioning US assistance to Israel.

In October 2023, Raphael Warnock publicly condemned Hamas's acts of violence against Israel at the start of Israel-Hamas War.

In February 2024, Raphael Warnock delivered a Senate speech emphasizing American leadership in achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Raphael Warnock called for a negotiated ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, the release of hostages, and opening humanitarian corridors to aid Gaza, and he underscored the need for a two-state solution based on peace, security, and self-determination for both peoples.

In March 2024, Raphael Warnock was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Biden administration urging the United States to recognize a "nonmilitarized" Palestinian state after the war in Gaza.

In November 2024, Raphael Warnock voted for all three Israel-related measures proposed by Bernie Sanders: to block sales to Israel of JDAMS, tank rounds, and mortar rounds.

Raphael Warnock married Ouleye Ndoye in a public ceremony on February 14,2016; the couple had held a private ceremony in January.