Last Senate race is moral and spiritual work, says Dem candidate Warnock
In-person early voting for the last US Senate seat is under way statewide in Georgia’s runoff, with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock working to get the jump on Republican challenger Herschel Walker who is putting less emphasis on advance balloting.
After winning a state lawsuit to allow Saturday voting after Thanksgiving, Warnock spent the weekend urging his supporters not to wait until the December 6 runoff. Trying to leverage his role as pastor of Martin Luther King Jr’s church and Georgia’s first Black US senator, Warnock concentrated his efforts on Sunday among Black communities in metro Atlanta.
‘‘What we are doing right now is soul work,’’ Warnock said at Liberty International Church southwest of downtown, where he rallied supporters before leading a march to a nearby early voting site where he cast his ballot. ‘‘We are engaged in a political exercise,’’ Warnock continued, ‘‘but this is moral and spiritual work, and for us that has always been based on the foundation of the church.’’
Walker, in contrast, did not hold public events over the long Thanksgiving weekend, and in his return to the campaign yesterday in the northern Atlanta suburb of Cumming, he did not mention early voting specifically. ‘‘Tell your friends to come with you to vote,’’ he said. ‘‘If you don’t have them friends, go make some friends.’’
Separately, the Republican Party and its aligned PACs are trying to drive turnout after Walker underperformed other Georgia Republicans in the general election. Walker finished the first round with about 200,000 fewer votes than Governor Brian Kemp, who easily won a second term. Walker resumed his campaign today with stops in small-town Toccoa and suburban Cumming.
Early in-person voting continues through Friday. Runoff Election Day is Tuesday, local time, of next week.
Warnock led Walker by about 37,000 votes out of about 4 million cast in the general election but fell short of the majority required under Georgia law, triggering a four-week runoff blitz. Warnock first won the seat as part of concurrent Senate runoffs on January 5, 2021, when he and Senator Jon Ossoff prevailed over Republican incumbents to give Democrats narrow control of the Senate for the start of President Joe Biden’s tenure. Warnock won a special election and now is seeking a full six-year term.