Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff Are People Too, You Know

The two Georgia Senate candidates are Democrats’ last hope for Senate control. But they’re also a lot more than that.

For the first seven years after moving to Athens, Georgia, from New York City, most of my old friends back in NYC had little interest in my new home. They kept thinking that Athens meant Atlanta (it doesn’t), that I by definition lived in a deep red county (not since 1984, baby), that I was somehow going to really get into golf or something (god no). But once Election Day came and went, and it became increasingly clear that the only way the Senate could end up in the hands of Democrats (and not have everything Joe Biden is trying to do constantly obstructed) would be for Georgia’s two runoff races to go the Democrats’ way … well, suddenly my friends out east and up north suddenly became very interested in my adopted state.

I don’t blame them for this: Control of the Senate is a really big deal! But it still feels like the immense interest in this race is more about that Senate control than, you know, the actual two Democrats who are running and who would become the actual seated Senators. They are the Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and if they win, they will become United States Senators. It’s probably worth learning a…