Georgia Governor Takes to the Stump on Behalf of Herschel Walker

(Bloomberg) -- Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who won re-election this month, campaigned for the first time with fellow Republican Hershel Walker, in a tight runoff race for US Senate.

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Kemp’s support is considered crucial in Walker’s match-up against incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock. The governor won 200,000 more votes in the Nov. 8 midterm election than Walker, a former football player and Olympic athlete whose campaign has been damaged by charges of violence against his former wife and claims that he has paid for abortions though he says he opposes the procedures.

The two men appeared together in the city of Smyrna in the parking lot of a firearms store that bills itself as “the actual largest gun store in the world.” Kemp recounted a 1980 football game played by Walker, who was a star running back at the University of Georgia and later in the National Football League.

“It’s kind of like this race. After the general election, we were down a little bit. But then in came Herschel Walker,” Kemp told a crowd of about 300 supporters. “That’s what we’re gonna do the first Tuesday of December. We’re gonna run over Raphael Warnock.”

In the election this month, Walker, 60, finished less than 1 percentage point behind Warnock as Republican voters split their tickets, selected a third party candidate or didn’t vote at all in the Senate race. Since neither candidate received over 50%, Georgia voters must return to the polls for a Dec. 6 runoff.

Kemp defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams for the second election in a row.

Warnock, 53, the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church and a first-term senator, earlier in the week received support from Abrams, who emailed her donors, asking them to “Help my friend Raphael.”

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