Sen. Raphael Warnock responded Monday to an op-ed by Georgia's secretary of state that known as him an "election denier" over his remarks on voter suppression.
"I need to spend lots of time capturing down false claims about our elections in Georgia," Brad Raffensperger wrote in The Wall Avenue Journal Sunday. "Normally they arrive from losers. However generally even victorious candidates make false claims about our elections."
Raffensperger referred partly to Warnock's victory speech after successful a runoff for Georgia's Senate seat earlier this month, through which Warnock mentioned, "Simply because folks endured lengthy strains that wrapped round buildings some blocks lengthy, simply because they endured the rain and the chilly and every kind of methods with a view to vote, doesn't suggest that voter suppression doesn't exist."
Raffensperger wrote, "I believed I had heard each conspiracy concept there was after the 2020 election, however the concept Republicans management the climate to make it tougher for Democrats to vote is a brand new one. ... And I do not even know what Mr. Warnock means by 'every kind of different methods.'"
In an unique interview with "CBS Mornings" on Monday, Warnock responded, saying, "The truth that folks have needed to overcome obstacles doesn't suggest these obstacles do not exist."
"We actually noticed faculty college students and seniors in strains that had been hours and hours and hours lengthy," he mentioned. "Possibly [Raffensperger is] proud of that. I am not. I feel we will do higher than that."
Warnock's runoff election victory this month gave Democrats their 51st seat within the Senate and gave him his first full six-year time period, after having beforehand received a particular election for the seat in 2021. He's the primary Black American to characterize Georgia within the Senate and the primary Black Democrat elected to the chamber from a southern state.
His win got here amid what he and different Democrats seen as voter suppression efforts from Republicans, who've pointed to the state's excessive voter turnout to rebut these claims.
Republicans within the state mentioned after Warnock's win that issues over a 2021 regulation imposing new restrictions on voting had been overblown. Democrats, nonetheless, consider voters made their voices recognized regardless of these obstacles.
The Related Press contributed to this text.