Sen. Raphael Warnock says Black voters overcame gerrymandering, but the fight isn’t over

In an exclusive interview with theGrio, the Georgia senator says historic Black voter turnout helped Democrats overcome redrawn congressional maps, but warns that Congress must act to restore voting rights protections.

Despite Black voters overcoming election barriers this past midterm election and delivering a resounding “Black-lash” against the Trump White House and Republicans, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock says the fight to combat gerrymandering and safegaurd voting rights isn’t over.

“Black people showed up in historic ways and created historic margins that crushed the plan of gerrymandering in this moment,” Warnock told theGrio during a recent post-election interview. “While we celebrate those victories, we should not take from that to mean that we don’t need to address gerrymandering.”

In August 2025, President Donald Trump ordered Republicans to unprecedentedly redraw congressional maps mid-decade ahead of the 2030 U.S. Census to give his party more seat advantages in U.S. House of Representatives. Then, in April 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing Republican-led states to dismantle districts with majority or sizable Black populations.

While Democrats like Rep. Shomari Figures in Alabama and Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina pulled out impressive wins in spite of their districts being redrawn to benefit their Republican opponents, Warnock told theGrio, “We cannot leave these gerrymandered districts intact.”

The U.S. senator pointed to the race in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, where Democrat Justin J. Pearson lost by just 1% in a “highly gerrymandered district.”

“The Black people of Tennessee had one chance in the whole state to elect someone of their choice, and still that was one too many for the Republicans,” said Warnock. “They gerrymandered that district to jimmy-rig the outcome they wanted to, without which he’d [Pearson] be sitting in Congress along with these other new members.”

That is why Warnock is calling on the new Democratic majority in the next Congress to pass legislation to restore and protect voting rights. The Georgia U.S. senator said he plans to re-introduce the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as a lead sponsor to restore protections of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Warnock also plans to introduce a bill to ban the political gerrymandering of maps, which have primarily targeted Black and Latino voters. He slammed the court for pouring “fuel on the fire” of partisan gerrymandering, resulting in state legislators this election cycle “convening and literally drawing and redrawing lines as people were voting.” He added, “It’s a vulgar sight.”

Senator Warnock told theGrio he would also like to see Congress “deal with dark money in our politics,” and “diminish and mute the voices of corporate power in our politics and give the people their voice.”

While Democrats would need votes from at least a handful of Republicans in the Senate and President Trump’s signature to pass any voting rights legislation in the 120th Congress, Warnock believes the seismic pushback of the midterms—powered by the high turnout of Black voters—could shift the political temperature in D.C.

“I might have some Republican takers this time…I hope they’ll join me, and I hope the president will sign it,” he told theGrio.

Warnock, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, says Democrats are basking in the “radiant glory of those results,” however, he added, “We recognize that while we have this mountaintop experience, there is work that we must do in the valley.”