A Pastor and Politician Who Sees Voting as a Form of Prayer

Mr. Warnock, a son of Savannah public housing who rose to become Georgia’s first Black senator, secured re-election on the strength of a strikingly broad coalition that reflected the party’s greatest political ambitions, winning a full six-year term after previously prevailing in a special election runoff.

He won over young progressives on college campuses and, polling before the runoff showed, Black voters across the board. He performed strongly in Atlanta’s racially and ethnically diverse suburbs, and secured support from some Georgians who voted for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, but split their tickets to back Mr. Warnock — reviving a crossover voting practice that some political observers had assumed was all but extinct.

In significant part, that coalition was driven by opposition to Herschel Walker, the football legend nominated by the G.O.P. and backed by Donald J. Trump, whose Senate campaign floundered in the face of a barrage of allegations concerning his personal conduct, especially with women. His candidacy left some Republicans publicly concerned and privately apoplectic.

But Mr. Warnock, who blended his image as a social justice-minded pastor with a sense of humor and an emphasis on bipartisanship, also showed how a Georgia Democrat could win in a difficult political environment, even as every other statewide candidate in his party collapsed.

“‘Remaining the reverend’ was the phrase we used,” said Adam Magnus, Mr. Warnock’s lead ad maker. “It means remaining the unique person Raphael Warnock is. That is a combination of a moral sincerity, an empathy, a hard-working life story from where he started from to where he is now, and a relatability and a sense of humor.”

Raphael Gamaliel Warnock was born on July 23, 1969, the 11th of 12 children, to a family of modest means. His father was a pastor who also “hauled junk, mostly abandoned cars,” offering the metal in exchange for cash, he wrote in his 2022 memoir “A Way Out of No Way,” while his mother took care of the family at home, later becoming a pastor.