For the second time in under two years, Georgia will be going to a runoff to elect its next senator. As part of Georgia’s election laws, a candidate must have above a 50% threshold for a race to be called overnight.
In 2019, Johnny Isakson, one of Georgia’s two incumbent senators, retired from public service to focus on his health while battling Parkinson’s disease. However, his senate seat was not up for re-election, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had to appoint a new senator: Kelly Loeffler. During the 2020 election period, Georgia’s other senator David Perdue was up for re-election. Isakson was re-elected for the final time in 2016. Since 2020 was an election year, there had to be a formal process to fill the seat for the next two years since Loeffler was appointed earlier that year. As a result, Georgia held a special election.
Both Georgia Senate races went to a runoff on Jan. 5, 2021. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff defeated Perdue and Loeffler.
As a result of the timing of the 2021 runoff, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a new law that shortened the runoff time from nine weeks to 28 days. So instead of holding a runoff in early January 2023 with a few weeks of early voting, there will now be only one week (from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2), with Election Day on Dec. 6.
As of Nov. 18, 2022, a judge ruled that Georgia must allow its counties to provide Saturday, Nov. 26 as an early voting date for runoffs. The judge granted a petition for declaratory and injunctive relief and issued an injunction.
“Georgia’s election code that prohibited that early voting date does not prohibit counties from conducting advanced voting for a runoff election,” it stated.
Who are the candidates in the race?
Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock is one of Georgia’s two senators hoping to keep his seat. He is a native of Savannah and an alumnus of Morehouse College. Warnock has served as the lead pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since 2005.
Warnock’s opponent Herschel Walker is a former University of Georgia football running back who is also a winner of the Heisman Trophy (the most elite award in college football). After he played college football, he was drafted into the National Football League and played for 12 seasons. He is from Johnston County, Georgia and is a Trump-backed candidate.
Success, Scandals, and Surprises
It has been a tight and competitive race from the beginning. The candidates have repeatedly attacked each other in personal and negative campaign advertisements. Walker has a long and controversial personal history and has tried to exploit Warnock as a “rubber stamp” for President Joe Biden’s agenda.
Warnock has called Walker “unqualified for office.” A break came in October when news broke that Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.
In a series of tweets breaking his silence, Walker’s son Christian Walker criticized his father. The younger Walker referred to him as a “bad father,” a “liar,” and a “hypocrite.”
The younger Walker, a known “warrior” for the young members of the right, has several controversies of his own. He showed an angry rationale in videos (some now deleted) posted on Twitter directed at his father, displaying a complicated and rocky relationship between the two.
“I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But HOW DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other people’s lives. How dare you,” he wrote in one of his Tweets.
Herschel Walker responded to one of his son’s tweets by saying, “I LOVE my son no matter what.”
However, since Christian Walker broke his silence, another woman accused the elder Walker paid for her abortion.
During the only face-to-face debate with Sen. Warnock, Walker held up a police badge and stated that he was a police officer. After much speculation about whether the badge was fake, Walker confirmed it was an honorary badge in an interview with NBC News.
A recent statement from the Warnock campaign said that “the success of the Warnock campaign has been driven by robust mobilization efforts, field organizing, and a digital program to get in touch with voters where they are.”
Whoever wins or loses, this race is historic. When first elected, Warnock became the first African-American man in the Senate to represent Georgia and the first Black Democrat to get elected to the Senate from a former Confederate state. Georgia is about to make history.