ATLANTA
\nGeorgia voters are ready to settle one of the nation\u2019s marquee midterm contests as they choose whether to reelect Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock to his first full term or replace him with Republican challenger Herschel Walker.
\nYet the state\u2019s quirky election law means Tuesday could be just Round 1. Georgia requires a majority to win statewide office, and with polls suggesting a close race and a third-party candidate on the ballot, it\u2019s possible neither Warnock nor Walker will surpass the 50 percent threshold. That would set up a four-week blitz ahead of a Dec. 6 runoff that, depending on the outcomes in other Senate contests, could reprise the 2020 election cycle, when two Senate runoffs in Georgia doubled as a national winner-take-all battle for partisan control of the Senate.
\nThe chamber is now divided 50-50 between the two major parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the tie-breaking vote.
\nA runoff also would mean another month of Warnock hammering Walker, a sports celebrity turned politician, as unqualified and Walker assailing Warnock as a rubber-stamp for the White House.
\n\u201cRaphael Warnock votes with Joe Biden 96 percent of the time,\u201d Walker tells voters again and again. \u201cHe\u2019s forgotten about the people of Georgia.\u201d
\nWarnock, who is also the senior minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, answers that Walker is \u201cnot ready\u201d and \u201cnot fit\u201d for high office. That\u2019s an allusion to Walker\u2019s rocky past, from allegations of violence against his ex-wife to accusations by two women Walker once dated that he encouraged and paid for their abortions despite his public opposition to abortion rights. Both approaches highlight the candidates\u2019 most glaring liabilities.
\nAmid generationally high inflation and with Biden\u2019s popularity lagging in Georgia, Warnock wants voters to make a localized choice, not a national referendum on Democrats as a whole. Georgia\u2019s first Black US senator, Warnock pitches himself as a pragmatist who cuts deals with Republicans when they\u2019re willing and pushes Democratic-backed cost-cutting measures when they\u2019re not. Among the top accomplishments Warnock touts: capping the cost of insulin and other drugs for Medicare recipients.
\n\u201cI\u2019ll work with anybody to get things done for the people of Georgia,\u201d Warnock said. Walker, meanwhile, denies that he\u2019s ever paid for an abortion. And glossing over a cascade of other stories \u2014 documented exaggerations of his business record, academic achievements and philanthropic activities; publicly acknowledging three additional children during the campaign only after media reports on their existence \u2014 Walker touts his Christian faith and says his life is a story of \u201credemption.\u201d
\nThrough the scrutiny he calls \u201cfoolishness,\u201d the Republican nominee has campaigned as a cultural and fiscal conservative. Walker, who is also Black, pledges to \u201cbring people together\u201d while framing Warnock as a divisive figure on matters of race and equality. Walker justifies his attack using snippets of Warnock\u2019s sermons in which the pastor-senator discusses institutional racism.
\nRepublicans used similar tactics against Warnock ahead of his runoff victory on Jan. 5, 2021. Warnock won that contest by about 95,000 votes out of 4.5 million cast. More than 2 million Georgia voters have cast ballots ahead of Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATLANTA Georgia voters are ready to settle one of the nation\u2019s marquee midterm contests as they choose whether to reelect Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock to his first full term or replace him with Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Yet the state\u2019s quirky election law means Tuesday could be just Round 1. Georgia requires a majority to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-294268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n