Georgia election – live: Democrats pour $7m into Warnock v Walker Senate runoff

Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker are in a dead heat for Georgia’s contested US Senate seat, and election officials say a runoff election will commence next month.

Having won a shock victory in 2020, Mr Warnock is looking to prevent his Senate seat from being ripped away by Republican Mr Walker.

A candidate must net more than 50 per cent of the vote to avoid a January runoff. Mr Warnock won his seat in a second round in 2021, held the day before the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Hoping to disrupt Mr Warnock’s goal of a six-year term is Mr Walker, a former University of Georgia running back and Heisman Trophy winner backed by Donald Trump. Mr Walker’s biggest battle has been against reports that he paid for two women’s abortions despite his vocal opposition to abortion.

Meanwhile, in the race to be state governor, incumbent Republican Brian Kemp has emerged victorious in a showdown with Democrat Stacey Abrams — a rematch of the 2018 election.

Key Points

• How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

• Warnock v Walker appears headed for a runoff in Georgia

• Raphael Warnock leads by just under 35,000 votes

Democrats throw $7m into Georgia as runoff looms

14:28 , Josh Marcus

The Democratic party is putting millions behind Georgia’s US Senator Raphael Warnock, as his close race to defend his seat heads to a runoff with Trump-backed Herschel Walker.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is spending $7m on field operations in the state ahead of the December contest, which will fund voter contact efforts and door-to-door canvasing.

“We know talking directly to voters through a strong, well-funded ground-game is critical to winning in Georgia, and we’re wasting no time in kick-starting these programs in the runoff,” DSCC chair Sen. Gary Peters told Politico.

That’s just the beginning of the financial battle that will play out during the runoff, as both candidates will continue seeking individual donations from voters to keep them afloat.

ICYMI: How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

04:59 , Josh Marcus

With the Senate race in Georgia headed for a runoff, here’s what you need to know about how the process works.

Meg Kinnard has the story.

How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

Democrat gaining on Trump-backed candidate in Washington state

04:00 , Josh Marcus

Democrat Marie Perez has soared to an early lead over Trump-backed Joe Kent in what was seen as a revenge mission for the former president

Mr Kent, 42, who bettered incumbent congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler in an open primary this summer, was trailing Ms Perez by six points after the first batch of votes were counted.

On Wednesday morning, Ms Perez was at 53 per cent, while Mr Kent was at 47 per cent with 65 per cent of the vote tallied in the race for Washington’s Third Congressional District.

Andrew Buncombe reports from Seattle.

Democrat Marie Perez soars to early lead over Trump-backed Joe Kent

A runoff means more Warnock text messages

03:00 , Josh Marcus

Outside of all the big-picture implications—control of Congress, the future of issues like reproductive freedom, that sort of thing—a runoff in Georgia also means more pesky text messages from the candidates.

As Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker headed to a second matchup, UC San Francisco physician joked on Twitter that it’s “looking like another month of twice daily texts from Raphael Warnock.”

“Only 2X a day? You must be lucky,” responded writer Dan Tynan. “I’m just so happy that all the others will stop. (They will stop, won’t they?)”

Well, at least one conspiracy theorist lost his election this year

02:00 , Josh Marcus

Maggie Hassan, the former New Hampshire governor who won her New Hampshire Senate seat by just over 1,000 votes six years ago, has defeated her Republican challenger and will return to the Senate for a second term next year.

Ms Hassan defeated Don Bolduc, a retired US Army general who garnered an endorsement from former president Donald Trump by parroting his lies about the conduct of the 2020 election.

Mr Bolduc had attracted attention in the closing weeks of the campaign for repeating a well-debunked hoax regarding children being permitted to relieve themselves in litter boxes by public school officials, who were supposedly indulging the non-existent children’s decision to “identify as cats.”

Graeme Massie has the story.

Republican who claimed that schools had kitty litters for children loses Senate bid

Trump is now turning on his own midterm candidates

01:00 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump has taunted a defeated Republican candidate that he had endorsed for a US Senate seat.

Conspiracy theorist Don Bolduc, a retired US Army General, was beaten by incumbent Maggie Hassan for New Hampshire’s Senate seat.

Mr Trump showed no sympathy for his chosen candidate when he took to Truth Social on Tuesday night and mocked him for not pushing the one-term president’s 2020 election “Big Lie” hard enough.

“Don Bolduc was a very nice guy, but he lost tonight when he disavowed, after his big primary win, his longstanding stance on Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Primary. Had he stayed strong and true, he would have won, easily. Lessons Learned!!!” wrote a seemingly unimpressed Mr Trump.

Graeme Massie has the story.

Trump taunts one of the Republicans he endorsed for losing in Senate bid

Herschel Walker won overwhelming share of white votes – the only group that supported him

00:00 , Josh Marcus

Every racial demographic except for white people and men voted overwhelmingly for Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s Senate race, according to exit polls.

Exit polls showed that only white voters picked former University of Georgia running back and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker in the race for a full six-year term, with roughly 99 per cent of precincts reporting votes.

Roughly 54 per cent of men, who made up 47 per cent of the vote, voted for Mr Walker; but 45 per cent of women, who made up 53 per cent of the electorate, supported Mr Warnock.

Eric Garcia runs the numbers in his full report for The Independent.

Herschel Walker won overwhelming share of white votes – the only group to support him

Trump fans have online meltdown as GOP only notches marginal gains

Wednesday 9 November 2022 23:00 , Josh Marcus

Pro-Trump online communities have reacted with dismay and disbelief to early results in Tuesday’s US midterm elections, blaming voter fraud for the lack of a red wave.

Before many races had even been called, users in far-right Telegram channels and bulletin boards had begun accusing Democrats and establishment Republicans of fixing the race.

“These results are farcical,” said one poster on The Donald, a successor to Reddit’s banned TheDonald forum. “There’s no rhyme or reason. You don’t get a blowout from counties in Florida and then magically cross state lines into ‘highly competitive’ territory in Georgia.”

Io Dodds has the details.

‘We got cheated’: Pro-Trump online forums in disbelief over lack of a ‘red tsunami’

Another Georgia race defined by, well, race

Wednesday 9 November 2022 22:30 , Josh Marcus

While many political observers are following the Senate race in Georgia between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, data is coming in that helps shed light on Stacey Abrams’s defeat in her campaign for the state’s governorship.

According to exit polling from NBC News, voters of colour went overwhelmingly for Ms Abrams, who is Black, while both male and female white voters overwhelming backed incumbent Brian Kemp.

Conservatives aren’t too pleased with the election results

Wednesday 9 November 2022 22:00 , Josh Marcus

Fox News pundit Marc Thiessen has described the midterms as a “searing indictment” of the Republican Party, calling election day an “an absolute disaster” for the GOP.

Speaking overnight Tuesday during the network’s election coverage, Mr Thiessen said that Republicans need to “take a look in the mirror” after the so-called “red wave” failed to appear.

“There is a broader issue and think about this – we have the worst inflation in four decades,” he said.

“The worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in US history, we have Joe Biden who is the least popular president since Harry Truman, since presidential polling happened, and there wasn’t a red wave.”

Gustaf Kilander has the full story.

Fox News pundit says midterms are ‘searing indictment’ of the Republican Party

Arizona governor’s race still too close to call

Wednesday 9 November 2022 21:30 , Josh Marcus

The race to be Arizona’s next governor remains too close to call one day after the 2022 midterm elections.

Arizona officials have said the full results could take up to five days to deliver as election workers open and count late-arriving ballots delivered by mail and deposited in drop boxes by Grand Canyon State voters.

As of Wednesday morning, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, leads her GOP challenger, former TV news anchor and conspiracy theorist Kari Lake, by a margin of 50.9 per cent to 49.1 per cent. The difference between the two candidates was just over 30,000 votes.

Officials plan to release updated vote totals once per day, at approximately 9.00 pm ET. Ms Lake, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump and who has pledged not to certify any future elections that result in Democratic victories, would need to make up the 30,000 vote deficit with strong showings in the state’s most populous area, Maricopa County.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.

Kari Lake trails Katie Hobbs as Arizona governor’s race too close to call

Why the White House is ‘giddy’ even though Republicans made gains this year

Wednesday 9 November 2022 21:00 , Josh Marcus

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the sentiment inside the hall of her former employer was “giddy” as the results of the 2022 US midterms began pouring in late on Tuesday night.

Ms Psaki said the spirit inside the Oval Office was notably “gleeful” after an anticipated Republican “red wave” failed to materialise and Democrats performed better than expected.

“I’ve been in touch with the White House,” Ms Psaki said on MSNBC, where she’s been working as a contributor since leaving the White House press briefing podium.

“They are giddy and gleeful, as they should be, about where things are sitting right now.”

Johanna Chisholm has the story.

Jen Psaki says White House is ‘giddy and gleeful’ about midterm results

Why Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada are the remaining Senate races to watch

Wednesday 9 November 2022 20:28 , Josh Marcus

All eyes are on Georgia as Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock’s runoff election for the US Senate.

The result could determine which party controls the upper house of Congress.

In order for Democrats to maintain their power over the Senate, they need to win two of three competitive Senate races in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia, according to NBC News.

Another midterm casualty: Ted Cruz’s daughter’s birthday

Wednesday 9 November 2022 20:12 , Josh Marcus

A dejected Ted Cruz rued the lack of a Republican red wave in the midterm elections as he complained he missed his daughter’s 12th birthday to campaign on the road for GOP candidates.

The US Senator from Texas revealed that he had gotten an earful from his wife Heidi for taking part in the Republican bus tour after being away from home for so long.

“You know Heidi. I have been doing politics now for a decade. She lit into me towards the end of that bus tour at a level I’ve never seen because I had not been home in a long time,” Mr Cruz said on his video podcast.

“You know I missed my daughter Catherine’s 12th birthday because I was out doing a rally to save this country,” he added.

Graeme Massie has more.

Ted Cruz laments missing daughter’s birthday as ‘red wave’ hopes dissolve

John Fetterman keeps trolling Dr Oz, even after Senate win

Wednesday 9 November 2022 19:52 , Josh Marcus

John Fetterman savoured victory over Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race with one final troll at the Republican’s expense.

Reporters at the Fetterman victory party in Pittsburgh spotted crudité on the buffet, a reference to Dr Oz’s infamous campaign gaffe.

In an ill-advised attempt to prove he was in touch with voters, Dr Oz awkwardly complained about rising supermarket prices while pretending to buy ingredients for his wife’s crudité platter in a campaign video.

Mr Fetterman relentlessly trolled his opponent during the campaign as a carpetbagging millionaire who was hopelessly removed from the concerns of average Pennsylvanians.

Bevan Hurley has the story.

John Fetterman victory party trolls Dr Oz’s biggest campaign gaffe

‘Let’s do this one more time’: Raphael Warnock prepares for runoff election

Wednesday 9 November 2022 19:32 , Josh Marcus

It’s official: Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker are heading to a runoff election that could determine which party controls the US Senate.

“We’re going to a runoff, Georgia!” Mr Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Let’s do this one more time!”

Voices: Why abortion rights fight caused ‘rude awakening’ for Republicans

Wednesday 9 November 2022 19:16 , Josh Marcus

It was a truth universally acknowledged among pundits that voters don’t care about abortion. To be fair, those pundits weren’t just making broad conjectures: polling data did suggest that abortion rights weren’t voters’ top concern. Take, for example, an ABC News/Washington Post released in September. It put abortion as the fifth most important issue for midterm voters, behind the economy, education and schools, inflation, and crime (but before immigration and climate change).

And yet, there was room for nuance, even in those early days. Polling data should be taken with at least a grain of salt, because it’s never perfect. And abortion seemed especially tricky to analyze by way of polls, because it has not historically been on the ballot as prominently as it is now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade.

Exit polls show that voters cared a lot more about abortion than expected: it was the second most important issue they kept in mind, according to NBC News’s polling, right behind inflation and far ahead of crime, gun policy, and immigration.

Read Clémence Michallon’s full column for Independent Voices.

Abortion wasn’t supposed to matter in the midterms. Republicans got a rude awakening

Did Donald Trump tank the GOP’s chances in Georgia?

Wednesday 9 November 2022 19:00 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump’s pick for the US Senate seat at play in Georgia isn’t doing so hot.

The race may be headed to a runoff, but it appears that Herschel Walker is trailing Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in popular support.

And that may be Donald Trump’s fault, at least according to one political observer.

“States like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and maybe even New Hampshire should have been easy Republican pickups; all they needed was a normal set of Senate nominees,” columnist Ross Douthat argues in today’s New York Times.

“Instead they got the kind of nominees Trump wanted, and the result is difficulty, defeat, disappointment and votes being counted late into the night.”

Another Trump candidate in limbo: Lauren Boebert

Wednesday 9 November 2022 18:40 , Josh Marcus

Lauren Boebert is trailing behind Democratic challenger Adam Frisch for the House seat representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District – in a tight race that has caught many off guard.

With 93 per cent of votes now counted in the district, Mr Frisch is leading with 50.9 per cent of the vote to the incumbent congresswoman’s 49.1 per cent.

The race still remains too close to call – though the New York Times is estimating that Ms Boebert will claw her way back to victory, based on the places in the district still left to report votes.

The tight race comes as something of a surprise to both Republicans and Democrats – as well as pollsters – after the controversial, gun-toting congresswoman had been expected to enjoy a comfortable reelection.

Rachel Sharp has the story.

How is Lauren Boebert faring in midterms race?

What Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker have told their supporters about the looming runoff

Wednesday 9 November 2022 18:20 , Josh Marcus

The candidates in the Georgia race for the US Senate are both warning their supporters to brace for a tight runoff election.

Here’s what Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker have told the faithful so far.

“When they’re finished counting, we are going to have received more votes than my opponent,” Mr Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, said in a statement earlier this morning. “And whether we need to work all night, through tomorrow, or for four more weeks, we will do what we need to and bring this home.”

At an election night event last night, Mr Walker pumped up his supporters for the “fight” ahead”

“We’re in a fight, are we not? But, hey, God is a good God, is he not?” the Republican told a cheering group of backers. “He put us here for a reason, and we’re here to win this election.”

How the midterms will impact abortion rights

Wednesday 9 November 2022 18:00 , Josh Marcus

Five months after the US Supreme Court revoked a constitutional right to abortion, voters in three states were the first to enshrine an explicit right to abortion care in their state constitutions.

During a historic sweep of abortion rights referendums across the US in midterm elections, voters in Michigan approved a hard-fought state constitutional amendment that affirms a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” effectively overturning the state’s ban on abortion.

The referendum also ensures that the state continues to serve as a critical point of access for midwesterners in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the half-century precedent in Roe v Wade.

“This is a seismic win for abortion rights in a battleground state,” Center for Reproductive Rights president Nancy Northup said in a statement. “This victory is also a win for people in the neighbouring states of Indiana and Ohio, where abortion is banned.”

Alex Woodward has this report from the campaign trail.

Abortion rights advocates count ‘seismic’ victories in US elections

It’s official, we’ve got a runoff in Georgia

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:50 , Josh Marcus

Georgia’s Senate race is headed to a familiar place: a runoff, after both Senator Raphael Warnock and his opponent, Herschel Walker, failed to garner more than 50 per cent of the vote.

NBC News and CNN projected that the race was headed for a runoff shortly after 12pm ET; at the time, Mr Warnock led Mr Walker by less than one per cent.

The race is significant given Mr Warnock’s capture of a previously GOP Senate seat alongside fellow US Senator Jon Ossoff in January of 2021. Mr Warnock now seeks election to his first full term, as he previously won the right to represent the seat for the remainder of former Sen Johnny Isakson’s term.

Mr Walker’s campaign has been battered by news of his past accusations of domestic violence and abuse, not to mention the revelation that he had multiple children out of wedlock whom he had not previously acknowledged. To top it all off, one of the mothers of his four children accused him of paying for an abortion in 2009; Mr Walker has campaigned as staunchly anti-abortion.

John Bowden and Alex Woodward are following this breaking news story.

Georgia Senate race headed to runoff as majority hangs in the balance

Georgia Secretary of State’s office already prepping for Walker-Warnock runoff

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:44 , Josh Marcus

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office is already making preparations for a runoff election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker for their hotly contested US Senate seat, WSB-TV reports.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Georgia Secretary of State declared that neither candidate would achieve the needed 50 per cent of the vote to clinch the Senate seat, meaning a runoff would be planned for December.

The takes are rolling in: Georgia race ‘should have never been this close'

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:40 , Josh Marcus

With Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker all but assured to be heading into a runoff election, political commentators are starting to digest the meaning of the Georgia Senate race.

As Kali Holloway argues in The Daily Beast, the Senate contest shouldn’t have been so close, given the vast gap in qualifications between the two men running.

She writes:

From the moment Walker launched his campaign, it was obvious he was unqualified and unprepared—traits that only became more salient with every stop on the trail. Walker displayed not so much a lack of knowledge about basic topics as he did a surplus of incoherent and nonsensical theories on everything from climate change (“Don’t we have enough trees around here?”) to evolution (“Why are there still apes? Think about it!”).

...

There was also, most importantly, the Republican Party’s belief that defeating Warnock, the first black U.S. senator in Georgia history, would be as easy as running an African-American competitor. Still smarting over its 2020 losses in what had long been a GOP stronghold, the GOP found in Walker a candidate who would not only toe the party’s white supremacist lines by peddling racist stereotypes—about black cultural pathology, deadbeat fatherhood, criminal and violence—but a party mascot whose blackness could be used to counter charges of white Republican racism.

Walker’s Republican backers were aware he was wholly unfit to be a senator and knew there were numerous red flags related to his character; in fact, a Washington Post story recounts concerns among GOP operatives dating back to early 2021 about the potential for Walker’s “baggage” to drag down his campaign. But those issues were apparently brushed aside by many Republicans who figured a Trump endorsement, coupled with Walker’s “overwhelming name recognition in Georgia as a Heisman Trophy-winning football star” would be enough to propel him right into Warnock’s seat in Congress. And they figured being famous and black would be all it took to peel off enough African-American support for Warnock to secure a Walker win.

And here’s Bill Barrow’s report for The Independent on another key aspect of this election: how both men spoke about their Christian faith.

Walker, Warnock offer clashing religious messages in Georgia

What comes next in the midterms, explained

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:25 , Josh Marcus

In-person voting in the US midterm elections – conducted at the halfway point of every sitting president’s four-year term in the White House – took place on Tuesday, with the electorate casting ballots for congressional representatives, senators and governors nationwide and the results beginning to roll in as soon as night fell and the polls closed.

With the country as polarised as ever and Republicans and Democrats still litigating Donald Trump’s election defeat two years ago and at odds with one another on any number of issues, from the state of the economy to immigration and the US Supreme Court’s decision to revoke the constitutional right to an abortion, the contest always promised to be a heated referendum on Joe Biden’s leadership.

Many pundits had predicted a “red wave” of Republican victories, allowing the American right to overturn the Democrats’ slim majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate and sweep to power in Congress.

Doing so would have enabled conservative representatives and senators to block Mr Biden’s legislative agenda, frustrating Democratic bills at every turn and effectively rendering him a lame duck, unable to realise his policy goals and facing an uphill task to make the case for his re-election in 2024.

Joe Sommerlad has the details.

What do the US midterm results mean and what happens next?

Did Ron DeSantis finally unseat Trump as head of Republican party?

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:10 , Josh Marcus

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough took to the airwaves on Wednesday morning to celebrate former President Donald Trump’s loosening grip on the Republican Party following the GOP’s lacklustre midterm performance.

While congressional control is yet to be decided, it’s become clear that the “red wave” foreseen by some in the Republican Party hasn’t come to pass. The GOP looks set to see some of the worst results in decades by a party not in control of the White House in the first midterm elections of a presidential term.

“Hey, Donald Trump, meet Boris Johnson,” Joe Scarborough said in reference to the UK prime minister who was ousted this summer after a series of scandals and a tsunami of ministerial resignations.

Mr Scarborough added: “There was a coronation last night, probably as grand as King Charles III’s coronation will be in the spring, and it was Ron DeSantis in Florida! Massive victory down there. Right?”

Read Gustaf Kilander’s full report.

Morning Joe celebrates Trump ‘losing’ America: ‘Desantis is GOP leader now’

‘Safe to say' Georgia Senate race heading to runoff, state official says

Wednesday 9 November 2022 17:03 , Josh Marcus

It’s “safe to say” the closely watched Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is headed to a runoff, according to an official with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

“While county officials are still doing the detailed work on counting the votes, we feel it is safe to say there will be a runoff for the US Senate here in Georgia slated for December 6,” Garbriel Sterling wrote on Twitter on 9 November.

Here’s what a runoff would look like in Georgia.

How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

White evangelical Christians turn out for Herschel Walker in big numbers: data

Wednesday 9 November 2022 16:52 , Josh Marcus

White evangelical Christians turned out in massive numbers for Republican Herschel Walker in the much-watched Senate race in Georgia, according to exit polls.

Among those polled by NBC News, 88 per cent of white evangelical Christian voters went for Mr Walker, compared to just 11 per cent of that group going for his rival, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.

The results are both surprising and not.

On the one hand, white evangelicals have been a solid GOP base of support for years now, so it’s hardly surprising they’d back the Republican in this race.

On the other hand, Mr Walker has been dogged by allegations he was an absentee father to some of his children, while he pressured other women he was having affairs with to have abortions, seeming to fly in the face of conservative family values.

Then again, Donald Trump was accused by scores of women of scandalous conduct, with no apparent loss of support among evangelicals.

Slavery graphic on local Fox station prompts outrage

Wednesday 9 November 2022 16:42 , Josh Marcus

A local Fox channel in Tennessee has copped criticism for an on-air graphic that declared the state had voted to ban slavery.

“You decide: Slavery banned,” wrote Fox 13 Memphis on Twitter just after the race was called just after midnight on election night.

The jarring wording of the Fox graphic angered and surprised some Twitter users.

“I cannot with this graphic,” wrote Washington Post race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton.

Bevan Hurley has the story.

Local Fox station under fire for ‘unreal’ on-air graphic on slavery ban

Raphael Warnock leads by just under 35,000 votes

Wednesday 9 November 2022 16:32 , Josh Marcus

As results come in from Georgia, incumbent Raphael Warnock is still leading GOP challenger Herschel Walker in the race for the Peach State’s US Senate seat—though not by much.

The Atlanta pastor, first elected in 2021, is ahead by just shy of 35,000 votes, not a huge margin in a state with nearly 11 million people.

Here’s what will happen if the men head to a likely runoff election.

How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

Trump’s ‘red wave’ of Republican wins never reached the polls

Wednesday 9 November 2022 16:14 , Josh Marcus

Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Republicans, former presidents, journalists, podcasters, and even some prominent Democrats like California governor Gavin Newsom were predicting a “red wave” of GOP victories that would flip control of Congress.

Former president Donald Trump claimed there would be a “red wave because of crime.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas predicted not just a red wave, but a “red tsunami.” Radio host Joe Rogan said the wave would look like the elevators full of blood in the classic horror film The Shining.

The full election results won’t be known for days or even weeks, but from the data available, it seems the red wave hasn’t come to pass. Election forecasters like Politico say the Republican party is still on track to carry the House, while the Senate remains a toss up.

Regardless, the 2022 midterms won’t be remembered as a political bloodbath; even though the party rode into the election against an unpopular president, during an off year and high inflation and gas prices—all reliable predictors of a backlash against the party in the White House.

“Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC.

Get the full story.

‘A complete crock’: Political observers mock Trump and GOP’s ‘red wave’ failing

Raphael Warnock has been here before

Wednesday 9 November 2022 15:56 , Josh Marcus

If the Georgia Senate race does indeed head for a runoff, it will be familiar territory for Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent.

In 2020, Mr Warnock announced he would be running in a 2020 special election to unseat the GOP’s Kelly Loeffler.

Their initial contest was too close to call under Georgia law, so the Atlanta pastor was forced into a runoff, which he clinched in January of 2021.

Democratic challenger Warnock ousts Republican incumbent in Georgia Senate runoff

Stacey Abrams loses high-profile Georgia campaign for governor

Wednesday 9 November 2022 15:46 , Josh Marcus

Georgia voters have re-elected Republican Brian Kemp in the race for the state’s governor, defeating Democratic candidate and prominent voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams a second time after their first matchup in 2018.

Ms Abrams conceded to the governor and offered her congratulations in her remarks to supporters on 8 November.

“I got into this for a fight for what we know to be true deep down in our bones .... that the people of Georgia deserve more,” Ms Abrams said. “I may no longer be seeking the office of governor, but I will never stop doing everything in my power to make sure the people of Georgia have a voice.”

Georgia has trended towards electing Democratic candidates following Mr Kemp’s election in 2018. President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the state in 2020, the first time a Democratic candidate has carried the state since 1992. Voters also sent two Democratic candidates – Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock – to the US Senate

Alex Woodward has the details for The Independent.

Republican Brian Kemp defeats Stacey Abrams in Georgia governor’s race

George Takei mocks Herschel Walker paternity scandals

Wednesday 9 November 2022 15:36 , Josh Marcus

Well that’s one vote that’s probably not going for Herschel Walker.

On Wednesday, as the race for Georgia’s Senate seat headed for a likely runoff between the GOP’s Mr Walker and incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, Star Trek star George Takei mocked the Republican for the numerous scandals this election involving his children and relationships.

“Has anyone explained to Herschel Walker that ‘run-off’ doesn’t mean what he did to his kids?” Mr Takei wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Throughout the Georgia race, numerous allegations have come forward that Mr Walker, an outspoken critic of absentee fathers and abortions, left various children and pressured women he got pregnant to have abortions.

Here’s some of our reporting on the various claims.

What to know about Herschel Walker and his Senate challenge marred by controversies

Woman who says Herschel Walker paid for abortion says he said she wouldn’t be ‘safe’

Anti-abortion Herschel Walker using ‘Jedi mind trick’ abortion defence

Herschel Walker reveals another two ‘secret’ children

Also at stake this election: the future of MAGA

Wednesday 9 November 2022 15:26 , Josh Marcus

It was not so many news cycles ago that Ron DeSantis was the clear understudy in Trumpworld.

Who can forget the sickeningly obnoxious adverts he ran four years ago when he first ran for governor of Florida, showing him and his children pretending to build a play wall on the US southern border?

That was the price of getting Trump’s endorsement for a race he he ended up winning, but only narrowly.

That was then, and this is now.

Andrew Buncombe has more on the long-term GOP stakes in this midterm election.

Who will be true Maga king after midterms – Trump or DeSantis?

Walker’s son congratulates Ron DeSantis

Wednesday 9 November 2022 14:35 , Megan Sheets

Herschel Walker’s son Christian - who has proved a thorn in his side on the campaign trail - took to Twitter to congratulate another candidate in a different race on election night: Ron DeSantis.

“Millions of us fled blue states to live in the free state that Ron DeSantis turned Florida into. Congratulations on your re-election Governor DeSantis. You deserve this,” Christian Walker posted.

It comes as his father Herschel Walker’s race in Georgia trends closer and closer to a runoff against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock.

How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

Wednesday 9 November 2022 14:30 , Megan Sheets

Two years ago, control of the US Senate came down to Georgia, with two pivotal runoff election wins tipping the chamber’s favor into Democratic hands.

This fall, it’s possible the newly minted battleground state could again play a major role in how the Senate shakes out, with a marquee contest that, thanks to a third-party candidate, may not be decided until a runoff election a month after 8 November.

Here, the Associated Press explains the contenders and how the Georgia Senate race — and perhaps control of the chamber — may not be decided until December:

How Georgia’s midterm runoff 2022 elections work

Warnock v Walker appears headed for a runoff in Georgia

Wednesday 9 November 2022 14:30 , Megan Sheets

Georgia looks to be on its way to another runoff as the Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is too close to call.

Republicans’ hopes of picking up the seat currently held by Democrats appeared in jeopardy early Wednesday as incumbent Mr Warnock’s hopes were approaching the 50 per cent threshold needed to win a full six-year term outright without the need for a runoff.

But even if neither Mr Warnock nor Mr Walker were to meet the requisite 50 per cent needed to avoid having to compete in that 6 December runoff election, that small victory for the GOP could present a recurring nightmare for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who saw his majority evaporate with runoff losses to Mr Warnock and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff two years ago.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg explains the midterm developments so far:

Republican ‘red wave’ hopes evaporate as House and Senate remain too close to call