The Georgia U.S. Senate election is over, finally.

Raphael Warnock retains his Senate seat.

Herschel Walker did the right thing.

He conceded the election.

While his concession speech did not mention Warnock by name, and he did not specifically congratulate him, Walker did say the people of Georgia should believe in their elected leaders and pray from them.

Those words were gracious.

Walker said he was not going to make any excuses and he made no accusations.

He did not claim the election was stolen. He did not allege fraud or wrongdoing. In fact, he said being his party’s nominee and running the statewide campaign was the honor of his life.

That is really something to say for the Heisman Trophy winner and one of the greatest college football running backs of all time.

On the gridiron, Walker did not win every game, though he certainly won most of them. When his Bulldogs did not come out on top, he did not blame the fans or the officials. In politics, we must all believe in the process and in the outcomes of elections.

Elections are not run by political parties.

In fact, the people who work hard to secure trustworthy elections are your friends and neighbors.

From poll workers to staff to elections officials, the people who work in local elections are people we know, not some secret cabal with nefarious intent.

In his acceptance speech, Warnock pointed to the most powerful and important words in democracy: The people have spoken.

Clearly, about one half of Georgia voters supported Walker and a little more than half supported Warnock. That’s pretty much the way most local, state and federal elections are these days.

But we do not elect people to represent half of the electorate. Warnock must make good on his bipartisan pledges and realize that he represents a diverse electorate.

Elections have consequences and the majority has spoken.

Walker was right to deliver a concession speech and everyone who voted for him would be right to now want our U.S. senator to be successful in ways that benefit all the people of Georgia.

Warnock is not the Democrat senator or the Republican senator; he is Georgia’s senator.