As the U.S. Senate runoff between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock hit its final stretch, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp released an ad in support of his fellow Republican that barely mentioned the candidate.
Instead, Kemp appealed to GOP voters for solidarity to ensure there’s a Republican in the Senate seat. “This is going to be a turnout election,” he said in his distinctive drawl. “Who is more motivated? Is it them or us?”
With the election just one day away, Kemp’s them versus us pitch may be Walker’s best shot at ousting incumbent Warnock. That’s because Walker has a challenge Warnock doesn’t. He needs to gin up enthusiasm among Republicans who snubbed him in the November general election.
And there were a lot of them.
Walker won just enough votes to deny Warnock the 50% needed to win outright. But he also badly underperformed other Republicans – especially Kemp, who won 200,000 more votes than the former football star.
To win Tuesday, Walker will need Republicans to unite behind him and turnout will be key. A truncated early voting period that ended Friday appeared to mostly benefit Warnock. Turnout broke records daily last week, mostly in urban and suburban parts of the state that favor Democrats.
“I think Warnock goes into this with a comfortable lead from banked early votes and Walker has to snag it by 7 p.m. on Tuesday,” said Brian Robinson, a GOP consultant who has a list of Republican counties he’ll be watching to see if the party’s faithful turn out. If turnout in some key GOP exurban and rural counties spikes Tuesday, then “maybe Herschel is in this thing,” he said. “What we can be assured of, though, is that it’s going to be tight. It’s Georgia.”
The few polls during the four-week runoff campaign showed Warnock ahead, but barely and within the margin of error.
Warnock, senior pastor at the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, is Georgia’s first Black U.S. Senator. If Walker wins, he’ll join South Carolina’s Tim Scott who is the only Black Republican in the Senate.
The Warnock-Walker race has been one of the most-watched in the U.S. all year, in part because of the unlikely candidate tapped first by former President Donald Trump and then by Republican primary voters.
Unlike two years ago when Warnock and Jon Ossoff shocked the nation by unseating two incumbent Republican senators in runoffs, this race won’t decide who controls the chamber. That was decided in Democrats’ favor last month. But it’s still important. If Walker wins, the body will remain split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. A Warnock victory would give Democrats a one-seat edge, and more flexibility and control of committees.
Even prior to the Nov. 8 election, the contest was the most expensive race of the year, exceeding $245 million in ad spending, according to AdImpact, which tracks political media expenditures. Warnock and allied groups spent $55.8 million on advertising in the runoff compared to $25.9 million by Walker and the GOP super PACs supporting him according to AdImpact, based on totals through Thursday.
Warnock’s campaign is the biggest spender at $26.2 million, followed by Georgia Honor, a super-PAC funded by the Democratic leadership-aligned Senate Majority PAC, at $22.1 million. The Senate Leadership Fund, which has ties to Senator Mitch McConnell, spent $12.7 million on the runoff, followed by Walker’s campaign at $10.3 million.
Walker has landed some blows on Warnock. His runoff campaign bus tour was called the “Evict Warnock” tour, a reference to his campaign’s claim that a foundation connected to Warnock’s church had evicted low-income tenants from a building it owned for nominal amounts of unpaid rent. The church and the foundation say the claim isn’t true. And Walker, like Kemp, spent much of the campaign criticizing President Joe Biden, and tying Warnock to the president and his policies.
Warnock spent most of his campaign running as a senator who can work across the aisle, largely avoiding mention of Biden. In the final days of the campaign, former President Barack Obama visited Georgia to campaign for the senator.
Now it’s down to Election Day turnout.
Robinson, the political consultant, said he’s heard some Republican voters say they aren’t motivated because the Senate is in Democratic hands.
He hopes they rethink it, since the seat will be the winner’s for six years.
“There’s a major, major difference between a 50-50 Senate and a 51-49 Senate,” he said. “We may not control the Senate this year, but we could in 2024 or 2026.”
(c) 2022, Bloomberg · Margaret Newkirk
Two lowlife drek. Is this the best Georgians can do?