Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican football legend Herschel Walker were locked in a tight race Tuesday night in their runoff election that will decide the final U.S. Senate seat.
With votes still being counted, Warnock was notching a strong performance in and around the Democratic stronghold of Atlanta, while Walker maintained his advantage in Republican-leaning rural areas.
This year’s runoff has lower stakes than the two in 2021, when victories by Warnock and fellow Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff gave Democrats control of the Senate. The outcome of Tuesday’s contest will determine whether Democrats have an outright 51-49 Senate majority or control a 50-50 chamber based on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.
President Joe Biden expressed confidence about the race on Tuesday night, telling reporters at the White House: "We’re going to win. We’re going to win Georgia."
As the polls opened Tuesday morning, cold, rainy conditions greeted voters in the Atlanta area. At an elementary school in suburban Johns Creek, voters lined up before the polls opened to cast their ballots, undeterred by a 40-degree wind chill and steady rain. The line moved swiftly.
By early afternoon, a little over 800,000 Georgians had come out to cast their ballots in person, according to state election official Gabriel Sterling.
"You can add that to the 1.9 million, approximately, who [...] early voted and absentee voted," Sterling added. "There's going to be a few thousand that come in today. [...] So we're feeling pretty good about that."
Overall, the state will likely receive between 1.1 million. - 1.3 million Election Day votes by the end of Tuesday, Sterling told reporters in an afternoon press conference, meaning the total votes cast in the runoff will likely fall slightly short of the near-4 million total in the Nov. 8 election.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, the average wait time at polls across the state hovered around one minute, Sterling reported in a Tweet.
The runoff brings to a close a bitter fight between Warnock, the state’s first Black senator and the senior minister of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, and Walker, a former University of Georgia football star and political novice who has waged his bid in the mold of former President Donald Trump.
A victory for Warnock would solidify Georgia’s status as a battleground heading into the 2024 presidential election. A win for Walker, however, could be an indication that the Democratic gains in the state might be somewhat limited, especially given that Georgia Republicans swept every other statewide contest last month.
In that election, Warnock led Walker by about 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast but fell shy of a majority, triggering the second round of voting. About 1.9 million votes already have been cast by mail and during early voting, an advantage for Democrats whose voters more commonly cast ballots this way. Republicans typically fare better on voting done on Election Day, with the margins determining the winner.
Last month, Walker, 60, ran more than 200,000 votes behind Republican Gov. Brian Kemp after a campaign dogged by intense scrutiny of his past, meandering campaign speeches and a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims that he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions — accusations that Walker has denied.
Warnock, whose victory in 2021 was in a special election to serve out the remainder of GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term, sounded a confident note Monday during a packed day of campaigning. He predicted that he had convinced enough voters, including independents and moderate Republicans who supported Kemp, that he deserves a full term.
“They’ve seen that I will work with anybody that helps me to do good work for the people of Georgia,” said the 53-year-old senator. “I think they’re going to get this right. They know this race is about competence and character.”
Fifty-four percent of Georgia midterm voters said they considered party control of the Senate to be the primary factor in their vote in the general election. But that’s no longer at stake.
Democrats flipped a Republican-held Senate seat in Pennsylvania to maintain their thin advantage in the chamber without relying on the outcome in Georgia.
In the general, many supporters of both candidates were motivated by party control, and they’ll need to be persuaded to vote a second time around when it doesn’t hang in the balance.
It’s a challenge for Walker in particular, whose supporters were slightly more likely than Warnock’s to say control of the Senate was their chief consideration, 57% vs. 52%. A Walker victory in the Senate would keep the 50-50 status quo, but Democrats maintain control with Vice President Kamala Harris ’ tie-breaking vote.
Walker benefits from Georgia’s Republican-leaning tendencies, but Kemp didn’t carry Walker when they were both at the top of the ticket four weeks ago. In fact, Walker’s vote tallies fell more than 200,000 short of his fellow Republican’s, which might suggest he has a harder time getting Republicans out for him without Kemp on the ballot.
While 7 in 10 Kemp voters said they enthusiastically backed the governor, only about half of Walker’s voters said they were enthusiastically supporting Walker. Among Walker supporters, about 4 in 10 said they backed him with reservations and about 1 in 10 said they were simply opposing the other candidates.
“I’ve got some reservations, I’m not 100% Walker, but he is a hell of lot better than what we’ve got up there now with Warnock in there,” said Donny Richardson, a retired Marine who voted for Walker last week in Marietta. “Things need to change.”
Warnock has more work to do in a state that resoundingly reelected Kemp over two-time Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams and elected exclusively Republican statewide constitutional officers.
That’s especially true when Warnock may have been helped by Republicans who decided not to support Walker but showed up in the general to vote for other Republicans, including their governor. Fifteen percent of moderate and liberal Republicans backed Warnock. Eleven percent of Kemp voters supported Warnock or another candidate, including Libertarian Chase Oliver, compared with just 3% of Abrams voters bucking Warnock.
Warnock and Walker both amassed familiar Democratic and Republican constituencies in last month’s election. But there were signs that Walker did worse than his fellow Republican Kemp among groups that were core to the governor’s success, including white voters and voters in small towns and rural areas. College-educated men and women without a college degree were evenly divided in the Senate race, but both groups went decisively for Kemp in the governor’s race.
And most white Protestant voters backed the Republican candidate in both races, but Kemp won them by a wider margin than Walker did.
Warnock won majorities of young voters, Black voters, women, college graduates and suburbanites. Warnock also picked up about two-thirds of ideologically moderate voters.
The final stretch of campaign featured harsh insults from each candidate on his competitor’s character and integrity. Voters in the general were more skeptical about Walker than Warnock, though neither candidate earned glowing marks.
Fifty-six percent of Georgia voters said the incumbent senator “has the right experience to serve effectively” in the job, compared with just 39% saying that of Walker, a 60-year-old political novice.
“I think Herschel Walker is incompetent and Raphael Warnock has more experience, and I think he’ll get the job done,” said Lolita Baylor, an executive assistant at JCPenney who lives in Morrow. She voted for Warnock.
Voters also were more likely to think Warnock has strong moral values compared with Walker, 53% vs. 43%.
Those critiques of Walker didn’t keep some voters from backing him the first time around, though it might eat into his support in a runoff. About a third of his own supporters said he didn’t have the right experience and about a quarter said he lacks strong moral values.
Walker's own campaign has been dogged by allegations of coercion and harrassment, both from members of his own family as well as previous romantic partners. Most recently, an article from The Daily Beast published allegations from five women, who were once romantically involved with Walker, who told the outlet the former football star is “unstable,” adding that most were afraid of Walker as well.
Walker’s endorsement from former President Donald Trump helped him earn the party’s nomination, but that may have stunted his success among the state’s general electorate.
Biden’s razor-thin 2020 win in the state led Trump to falsely claim the results were rigged and to suggest Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” the votes needed to hand Trump a victory. Georgia’s voters reelected Kemp and Raffensperger despite Trump’s attempts to promote other candidates.
While Walker overwhelmingly won midterm “MAGA” voters — those who say they support the “Make America Great Again” movement — 43% of voters last month said Walker supports Trump too much. Fewer said Kemp or Raffensperger supports Trump too much, though somewhat more said they support Trump too little.
“He’s not a politician,” said Kat Shreve of Walker. The nonprofit manager in Marietta backed Warnock. Walker’s “a puppet of the Trump administration,” she said.
Sixteen percent of Republican voters who don’t identify as MAGA supporters backed Warnock in the general.
Even if Trump is not the draw he once was, opposition to his rival might be enough for Walker to convince voters to get back to the ballot box.
Overall, only about half of Walker voters said their vote was meant to signify support for Trump, but far more — about three-quarters — said their vote was in opposition to President Joe Biden. Walker has stressed Warnock’s ties to the president throughout the campaign.
“Let’s just say he’s much better than the Biden guy. Warnock has been. ‘Yes sir, Mr. Biden,’” said Jim Howle, a retired voter for Walker. Warnock’s “not representing the people.”
President Biden has kept his distance — physically, at least — from Warnock's Senate campaign, opting instead to continue his support-from-a-distance strategy that he employed throughout the midterm elections and that his aides credit with helping his party beat expectations in key races.
The president gave an interview Monday afternoon to Atlanta radio show Ryan Cameron Uncensored, telling Georgia voters that going to the polls "really is critical."
"All the things that Reverend Warnock has supported are things that the people of Georgia care a great deal about," he told Cameron, mentioning prescription drug costs, hearing aids now available over the counter and raising taxes on the wealthy.
Biden on Friday also traveled to Boston to visit the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where he participated in a phone bank for Sen. Warnock, whose race in a Georgia is notably further south than the president's stop in Massachusetts.
“This is a guy who needs our help and I think, you know, we have a chance to do something,” Biden told members of the IBEW 103 labor union, going on to highlight why it is imperative to have Warnock in the Senate for both Georgia and Biden’s agenda for the country at large.
The president, without mentioning his name, took aim at Republican challenger Herschel Walker, a former football star whose campaign has been dogged by numerous allegations from his previous romantic partners and family alike.
“This is not a referendum on Warnock. This is a choice,” Biden said of Georgia’s Senate race. “A choice between two men. One man who does not deserve to be in the United States Senate.”
“The other man is a really truly decent, honorable guy,” the president said of Warnock.
Aides said the Boston trip was requested by Warnock’s campaign and Biden obliged, reflecting his promise to go wherever Democratic candidates wanted him in 2022.