AP Photo/John Bazemore
Georgia voters on Tuesday sent Sen. Raphael Warnock back to Washington, DC, for a full six-year term after the Democratic lawmaker defeated Republican Herschel Walker by nearly three points in the Senate runoff election.
With nearly all votes in, Warnock led Walker 51.4%-48.6%, with nearly 97,000 votes separating the two candidates out of more than 3.5 million ballots cast.
The race had long been predicted to be close, with Warnock and Walker duking it out in a Southern swing state that in recent years has featured some of the highest-profile political contests in the country. But there were questions leading up to the November midterms about whether or not the youth vote would be a major force at the polls this year.
But young voters — with Gen Z and younger millennials flexing their political power — emerged as a critical demographic in the Georgia Senate race.
In the November general election, voters 18 to 29 years old made up 13% of the electorate and went for Warnock 63%-34%, according to CNN exit polling.
And according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State's office, voters under 30 cast roughly 156,000 early ballots in the runoff; more than 91,000 Gen Z voters aged 18 to 24 voted early in-person or by absentee ballot, surpassing 25 to 29-year-olds, who cast nearly 65,000 of the same ballots.
With young voters overwhelmingly supporting Warnock and other Democrats across the country this year, the results reflect how this bloc has responded to candidates who have focused on issues like climate change, abortion rights, and student loan relief.
Looking at the Georgia Senate runoff results, what actually happened to get more young voters to the polls?
Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led voter-engagement nonprofit organization, sent 2.5 million calls and texts to young Georgia voters urging them to participate.
The organization partnered with Plus1Vote to offer complimentary Uber rides to young voters in all of Georgia's 159 counties, a game-changer for those who lacked reliable transportation to their polling locations.
And Voters of Tomorrow also partnerned with 11 colleges and universities across the state — including the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, and Oglethorpe University — to hold canvass events and provide young voters with the information that they would need to navigate the voting process.
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Last year, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law SB 202, the Georgia voting bill that tightened election regulations and also condensed the length of runoff contests from nine weeks to four weeks. With the changes, organizers knew it was imperative for young voters to be cognizant about the deadlines for voter registration and absentee ballot applications, along with having awareness about early-voting periods.
Jack Lobel, a spokesperson for Voters of Tomorrow, lauded "the hard work of our on-the-ground organizers and our volunteers across the country" in assessing the turnout among young votes.
"It looks like our efforts paid off, judging by the high voter turnout trend in the runoff," he told Insider. "I think this is momentum that's only going to continue to grow in Georgia and in every state."
For young voters, health care, college affordability, climate change, and reproductive rights are all major issues that can boost turnout, but many lawmakers have either paid little attention to such matters or are ideologically on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
Baby Boomer politicians have debated the aforementioned issues for decades, but only recently has Gen Z been able to truly become a part of the governing process.
Democratic Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress, spent time in Georgia earlier this week to rally young voters on behalf of Warnock — who worked to engage with this demographic before the November general election and during the runoff campaign.
—Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) December 5, 2022
Frost on Monday headlined a "Students for Warnock" rally at Georgia Tech in Atlanta alongside Warnock and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, praising the enthusiasm of the students he encountered during the event.
"Had an amazing time at Georgia Tech this afternoon with @ReverendWarnock and @ossoff getting young people out to vote! We have the passion, we have the energy, and we have power to re-elect Reverend Warnock," the 25-year congressman-elect tweeted.
Many of those very same voters helped carry Warnock across the finish line in the runoff.
But it will take continued engagement with young voters to ensure robust participation in the future, especially in non-presidential election cycles.
"We're not stopping here," Lobel told Insider. "We're going to continue to work to harness the political power of young people through advocacy initiatives at every level of government."
