Ga. Senate runoff coming down to the wire
Warnock, Walker camps criticizing each other over ties to Biden, Trump
ATLANTA — Republicans have grown increasingly nervous about the final U.S. Senate election of the midterms, a runoff in Georgia that reflects larger concerns over candidate quality, infighting and ties to Donald Trump that loom over the party’s future.
The race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker caps a turbulent election season in which voters rejected many inexperienced Republican nominees tied to the former president and his ideas in favor of Democratic incumbents who tried to keep President Joe Biden at arm’s length. Georgia, a purple state expected to factor heavily in the 2024 presidential election, is a final testing ground for these competing forces — and one that has generated plenty of GOP pessimism.
Seth Weathers, a Georgia director for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, previously expressed confidence that Mr. Walker would win in a runoff. Now, he said, looking at early voting turnout, “I have more concern,” and he is unsure who will prevail.
“Herschel Walker doesn’t have the capacity to land a closing message,” said Ben Burnett, a Republican podcast host in Georgia and former city councilman in Alpharetta, an Atlanta-area suburb. “And the affiliation and support that he got from Donald Trump ... is still a boat anchor around him with the 5% of voters that he couldn’t afford to lose.”
Democrats defied historical trends and low approval ratings for Mr. Biden to limit losses in the U.S. House, where a narrow GOP majority will take power next year. Their bigger victory was clinching a 50th Senate seat, which assured they would retain control of the chamber,
with Vice President Kamala Harris empowered to cast tiebreaking votes. Democrats are hoping to expand that narrow majority Tuesday, when the election in Georgia concludes.
Polls show a close race in the runoff, which was triggered because no candidate received a majority of the vote in the Nov. 8 election. A
CNN survey released Friday showed Mr. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, with a narrow edge over Mr. Walker, a first-time candidate known for his star football career.
Mr. Walker’s personal scandals continue to complicate GOP efforts to harness voter frustration with Mr.
Biden, some Republicans said. Democrats have also sought to remind voters of Mr. Walker’s ties to Mr. Trump, who elevated the former running back in the primary with an endorsement, but has recently stayed away fromGeorgia.
Multiple women have accusedMr. Walker of domestic violence. Two former girlfriends have claimed that he encouraged them to get abortions despite his support for strict bans. Mr. Walker denies those claims. He also has made false claims about his background — at one point suggesting he worked as an FBI agent — and this week drew scrutiny for stating earlier this year that he lives in Texas. Public records showing he took a tax exemption on a Texas property meant for primary residences have fueled further attacks from critics.
Mr. Warnock, who says the race is about “character and competence,” has hammered Mr. Walker as unfit for the job, seizing on puzzling comments — among them a viral digression from the campaign trail where Mr.
Walker compared werewolves and vampires while discussing a movie. “Vampires” and “werewolves” started popping up in word clouds of Georgians’ associations with Mr. Walker, according to Democratic strategists, even before Mr. Warnock launched an ad in which voters reacted to the comments with disbelief.
Mr. Walker’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
“I’m not going to stand up here today and tell you Herschel Walker’s a perfect man,” Georgia pastor George Dillard said Friday at a rally with the candidate, saying Mr. Walker “understands forgiveness because he has asked his savior for it, and he has received it, and now he wants to share it.”
Republicans say they are ramping up attacks on Mr. Warnock’s character in return. But they are also still framing the race around Mr. Biden, calling Mr. Warnock a rubber stamp for the president and pitching a vote for Mr. Walker as a vote against inflation and the national Democratic agenda.