AP: “Indeed, the preacher-turned-politician spent the Independence Day recess hopscotching from an inland port in the conservative Appalachian foothills to liberal Atlanta’s urban microbreweries and sprawling public hospital, then the suburban defense contractors in between. At each stop, he highlighted the federal money he’s routed — or is trying to route — to his state for health care, national security research, rural broadband and urban walking paths, among other projects.
“We as Georgians should be proud of all that happens in the state,” Warnock said at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, cheerleading ongoing projects and arguing for more federal spending. “I had some sense of it before becoming a senator. But what I have been able to see firsthand is impressive.”
The high-wire act will test whether Warnock, who will seek his first full Senate term next year, can again stitch together a diverse, philosophically splintered coalition that tilted Georgia to Democrats in 2020. He’s still the high-profile freshman whose election gave Democrats unified control in Washington, but now he’s angling to be seen as a “senator for all Georgians” delivering for the state with nuts-and-bolts legislative work.
The approach is part necessity given Georgia’s toss-up status: Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff, also a freshman, each won their seats by less than 100,000 votes out of 4.5 million runoff ballots; Democrat Joe Biden topped Republican Donald Trump in the presidential contest by less than 13,000 votes out of 5 million last November.”