CANTON, Ga. — With the last two days of campaigning in its rearview mirror, the political world dove into a Georgia Senate race that will show the extent of Democrats’ unexpected traction in the midterm races and whether Republicans will cast the long shadow by former President Donald J. Trump.
The result of a Georgia runoff between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Herschel Walker, the former Republican football star, could determine control of the Senate, although that remained unclear Thursday night as votes continued to be counted in Senate races in Arizona and Nevada.
One thing is certain: the runoff election on December 6 will not be cheap. According to OpenSecrets, a research group that tracks money in politics, the candidates and their allies have already spent more than a quarter billion dollars on the Georgia contest this cycle. Last year, Mr Warnock won his seat in a runoff for a special election along with Senator Jon Ossoff’s concurrent Senate runoff. Those contests were the most expensive in convention history, according to the group.
Now that Georgia is entering its third runoff in less than two years, everything is feeling a bit like Groundhog Day for Georgia voters, politicians and strategists. Donors are tapped for another round of big checks. Campaigns try to attract prominent representatives to the state. And voters are bracing themselves for another month of nonstop campaigning that will last through Thanksgiving.
On Thursday, Mr. Walker was back in his campaign bus, traveling with Senator Ted Cruz from Texas to Republican strongholds on the outskirts of Atlanta. In the morning, he met with Gov. Brian Kemp to discuss how the newly reelected governor could support his runoff campaign, according to a Republican briefed on the call. That could suggest the state party will rally around his bid, marking a departure from the general election when Mr Kemp distanced himself from Mr Walker’s tarnished political brand
But Thursday was all about cheering on his electoral base in the areas that have overwhelmingly supported his candidacy from the start. More than 1,000 people packed a tent outside a Canton brewery to see Mr. Walker and Mr. Cruz hastily declare that “control of the Senate will be decided by the men and women of Georgia.”
Mr Walker stuck to the same broad points of his stump speech on Thursday, combining highlights of his personal history with criticisms of Mr Warnock. He railed against the Senator’s recognition of systemic racism in the United States and his votes for President Biden’s policies, before turning to topics of conversation about crime, inflation and immigration. He also used sporting parallels to describe the runoff, calling it “overtime.”
“We will not share this house under my watch,” he said, encouraging the crowd of supporters, many of whom wore University of Georgia gear, red caps and American flags.
Mr Warnock addressed supporters in Atlanta surrounded by nearly 100 people holding signs with the slogan “One more time”. “You have to admit I warned you all that we might spend Thanksgiving together,” Mr. Warnock told a crowd in Atlanta on Thursday. “And here we are.”
Understand the Georgia Senate runoff
The runoff began as Democratic Senate candidates held enduring leadership in Arizona and won mail-in ballots in Nevada, leading some in the party to be cautiously optimistic about retaining control of the chamber. Republicans’ chances looked better in the House, where the party had won or led the race for 221 seats, which is three more than it needs to retake the chamber.
Runoff elections are a holdover from Jim Crow-era legislation intended to reduce the influence of black politicians, who could more easily win with a majority of the votes in a multi-candidate race. In Georgia, runoffs are triggered when no candidate reaches 50 percent. After more than 95 percent of the votes were counted on Thursday afternoon, none of the top candidates had a path to a majority. Mr Warnock had 49.4 per cent of the vote versus Mr Walker’s 48.5 per cent, a difference of about 35,000 votes. (Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver had 2.1 percent, about 81,000 votes.)
The contest will test whether voters remain motivated by issues like abortion rights that propelled Democrats to midterm election victories, or are more anxious to chide the government over economic woes and public safety concerns.
Republicans were quick to blame Mr. Trump for their losses, citing the number of candidates he helped lead to primary victories — like Mr. Walker — but who then failed against Democrats. So far in the state, Mr. Warnock has been able to stay above Mr. Biden’s underwater approval rating, momentum he must maintain to win the runoff. Separating his standing from Mr. Biden’s might become more difficult with control of the Senate at stake.
Standing in front of a mural of former MP John Lewis, the civil rights icon, Mr Warnock on Thursday delivered a campaign speech in which he celebrated the achievements of the final months of his campaign and launched a fleet of attack lines against Mr. walker. Mr Warnock has posed as a bipartisan dealmaker, hyping his work on cutting insulin costs and investing in infrastructure and agriculture. He has contrasted his record with Mr Walker’s lack of political experience.
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Dec 7, 2022 at 4:14pm ET
“This race is about competence. It also requires an awareness of the challenges Georgians face and a willingness and ability to work with them to address them,” he said. “Herschel Walker has shown us that he is not capable.”
Much of the Senate race has revolved around trust issues, with each candidate attacking the other as unprepared and untrustworthy. Mr Walker, a staunch supporter of abortion bans, has been dogged by claims he paid two ex-girlfriends to terminate their pregnancies, exaggerations of his business successes, falsehoods about his work with the military and law enforcement agencies, and allegations of violence against him Ex wife.
That bumpy personal history repelled key swing voters and even some Republicans. In this week’s election, Mr Walker trailed Mr Kemp, who was driving for re-election on Tuesday night, by almost five points. His losses were particularly severe among swing voters in the Atlanta suburbs and among independent voters. Mr. Kemp split this group almost evenly while Mr. Walker lost them by 11 points.
To win, Mr. Walker must stem his losses among swing voters and increase turnout with his own party, a ploy that may be easier when the stakes are not just his candidacy but Senate control. Should Arizona and Nevada hand control of the Senate to Democrats, Georgia Republicans may feel less motivated to support Mr. Walker.
“For Herschel Walker to be successful, we Republicans need to be walking and chewing gum at the same time,” said Heath Garrett, former chief of staff to former Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson. “We have to dismantle the base. And then we have to get permission for men and women with college degrees to show up in the suburbs again and vote for Herschel.”
A crucial part of their strategy hinges on presenting Georgia Republicans with a united front by bringing top lieutenants into the state to fight Mr. Walker. Those close to the campaign mentioned Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, two of the party’s biggest stars, as potentially helping to generate enthusiasm for Mr. Walker among the Republican base.
Negotiations with Mr. Trump are even more complicated. The former president has known Mr Walker for nearly four decades and has championed his main bid over concerns from a Republican establishment. Still, he stayed away from the state in the primary, even as he held large rallies for other candidates he supported.
Discussions on Mr Trump’s role were held Thursday between Republicans at the Walker campaign headquarters in Georgia, the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington and staffers at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Besides a Trump rally, another option was to enlist Mr. Trump as an over-funder and anchor him at his South Florida mansion for a series of fundraisers to raise some of the tens of millions of dollars that were possible, according to a person who over informed of the matter and insisting on anonymity to discuss private discussions of strategy would be required to support Mr Walker.
Mr Trump has assured people he doesn’t think he will hurt Mr Walker by going state, although others are less confident. The state is particularly difficult terrain for the former president, who sparked a battle royal within the Georgia Republican Party with his false claims about a stolen 2020 election. Some in the party accused Mr Trump of costing them the majority by hurting their efforts in two simultaneous outflows last year.
For his part, Mr Walker has attempted to link Mr Warnock to the embattled President. He has also undermined Mr Warnock’s credentials as a pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, one of the most famous black churches in the country. He has attacked the more than $7,000 monthly housing benefit the church provides to Mr. Warnock and the church’s ownership of an Atlanta apartment building that was trying to evict some residents. Mr Warnock denies the evictions.
Under the election law passed last year, the state’s runoff election was shortened from nine to four weeks. That buys campaigners and allied organizers less time than they are used to coordinating events and mobilizing an already stretched electorate polled in three heated elections in the past two years.
Neither party shows signs of withdrawing from the competition. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Democrats, will spend $7 million to mobilize voters for Georgia’s runoff, the organization announced Thursday. A day earlier, the Republican Senate Campaign Committee had asked donors to donate directly to a joint account between themselves and Mr. Walker’s campaign.
“We need people to keep the energy going for four more weeks,” said Rep. Nikema Williams, the Georgia Democratic Party leader, noting that Thanksgiving would coincide with the final weeks of the campaigns. “My biggest concern is that enough Georgians don’t understand what’s at stake in this election.”
Maya King reported from Canton, Georgia and Lisa Lerer from New York. Michael C. Bender and Maggie Haberman contributed coverage.
