Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, faces incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in the nation’s most bruising campaign.
Both sides spent more than a combined $241 million. Two women accused the pro-life Walker of financing their abortions, allegations which Walker denied. Polling revealed a statistical dead heat while former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump campaigned for their party’s respective candidates.
In the end, neither candidate eclipsed the required 50 percent of the vote to seal the election. Per Georgia state law, the two top candidates, in this case, Walker and Warnock, advance to a special head-to-head runoff election.
Political observers generally agree that’s good news for Warnock. A significant reason for that line of thinking is that Georgia’s popular Republican governor Brian Kemp, who just won sweeping re-election over Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams, will not be at the top of the ballot when voters head to the polls.
“Given the events of this week, [Walker] starts as an underdog,” a GOP operative who was “involved in the midterms” told The Hill.
Steven Law, the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a SuperPAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), said in a statement that Kemp will campaign with Walker despite the Democrats already securing control of the Senate in 2023.
“Governor Kemp wrote the playbook for how to win big in Georgia, and we are thrilled to partner with his top-notch team to elect Herschel Walker to the Senate,” said Law.
The Georgia Senate runoff election is set for Dec. 6th.
[The Hill]
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