Georgia Runoff Race for U.S. Senate Tighter Than Expected as Vote Count Continues
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The runoff race for U.S. Senate in Georgia between incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker remained tighter than expected with roughly 88 percent of the vote tallied Tuesday night.
Three hours after polls closed, Warnock and Walker were tied at 50 percent each.
The Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman predicted “a close runoff result, perhaps closer than the Warnock +3 rough polling consensus” less than an hour after polls closed.
A runoff was triggered in the Senate race after both candidates failed to garner 50 percent of the vote on Election Day. Early voting began as early as November 26 in some parts of Georgia ahead of the official runoff on Tuesday. The winner of the runoff will determine whether Democrats have a razor-thin true majority in the Senate or if the upper chamber remains evenly divided, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker.
A polling average from RealClearPolitics showed Warnock leading Walker by 3.7 percentage points.
Walker has been the subject of criticisms about Republican “candidate quality” in the midterms, particularly after he was hit with an “October surprise” when the Daily Beast broke the news that a woman, who was later reported to be the mother of one of Walker’s children, said Walker paid her to abort a child they’d conceived in 2009. The woman, who has not been named publicly, said Walker again pushed her to get an abortion in 2011 when she became pregnant. She refused and the pair broke up soon after, the New York Times reported.
For his part, Walker has denied the allegation, calling it a “flat-out lie.”
Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor said last week that he could not vote for Walker or Warnock, saying it was “the most disappointing ballot” he’s seen in his time as voter.
“I showed up to vote this morning,” lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan said during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday. “I was one of those folks who got in line and spent about an hour waiting, and it was the most disappointing ballot I’ve ever stared at in my entire life since I started voting.”
He added: “I had two candidates that I just couldn’t find anything that made sense for me to put my vote behind, and so I walked out of that ballot box showing up to vote but not voting for either one of them.”
Walker was one of several Trump-backed candidates who failed to clinch a victory on Election Night. Duncan, like many other Republicans, has faulted Trump for Republicans’ less-than-stellar showing in the midterms.
