Georgia race heads to run-off for second time in two years

Polls had shown a tight race between Democratic Party senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.

Raphael Warnock says a run-off means ‘we’ll soldier on for a few more weeks’. Picture: AFP

Democrat senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, are headed to a run-off election in December, sending Georgia voters back to the polls in a high-stakes Senate showdown and swing the balance of power in congress for the second time in two years.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday said neither candidate will notch the required 50 per cent support under state law, largely because of the presence of Chase Oliver, a Libertarian Party candidate, on the ballot. Mr Oliver received enough votes to prevent one of the major-party candidates from winning outright.

Georgia election officials said counties are making preparations for a December. 6 run-off. Mr. Raffensperger asked voters to come out “one last time.” Not long after his remarks, the Associated Press projected a run-off in the race.

Late Tuesday night, Mr Walker, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, told cheering supporters at a hotel in suburban Atlanta, “I didn’t come here to lose.”

Talking to reporters on Election Day, Mr Warnock said a run-off would mean “we’ll soldier on for a few more weeks. After all, I’ve been at this for a while.” He added later: “The differences between me and my opponent are too wide for us to rest on Election Day. I’m telling everybody that I know: let’s get this done.”

For months polls showed the race close between Mr Warnock, 53, an Atlanta pastor, and Mr Walker, 60, a former football player for the University of Georgia and the National Football League.

Herschel Walker speaks to supporters on Tuesday night in Atlanta. Picture: AFP

The Georgia Senate race already is one of the most expensive of all time, with about $US250m spent on political ads by both parties. Now this race is going to get even more expensive, with nonpartisan analysts saying it could become the most expensive congressional race in history.

Georgia’s roughly 11 million residents will be subjected to another month of political ads, flyers in their mailboxes and volunteers knocking on their doors. Ads for the race took a sharply negative tone in recent weeks, with the campaigns and groups supporting them blasting the candidates over allegations of mistreating women.

In the past several months, Mr Walker has been dogged by allegations of domestic abuse, including that he threatened to kill his ex-wife, and allegations by two women that he paid for abortions despite campaigning as pro-life. Mr Walker has said he opposes abortion without exceptions, even in cases of rape, incest or danger to a mother’s life. On the claims by his ex-wife, Mr Walker has said he was suffering from mental illness at the time and had no memory of the events described by her. He has said the abortion accusations are lies.

Pro-Walker ads have criticised Mr Warnock over his ex-wife’s charges that he attacked her, which Mr Warnock denies.

The mudslinging will have little impact on voters, who are sick of the ads and tuning them out, said Rusty Paul, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

“The TV ads have lost their effectiveness,” he said. “They’re just going to turn the candidates even further into a bloody pulp. The voters have already decided who they’re voting for or have decided a pox on both your houses.”

Runoffs aren’t uncommon in Georgia elections. That is how Mr Warnock got his current job. In November 2020, sitting Republican senator Kelly Loeffler came in second to Mr Warnock, but neither candidate came close to 50 per cent of the vote. Another GOP candidate, Doug Collins, came in a strong third in a crowded field.

At the same time, Republican Senator David Perdue narrowly won the November contest against Democrat Jon Ossoff, but was just shy of 50 per cent of the vote. Both races went to a January 5, 2021, run-off and both of the Democrats prevailed. The Democratic wins gave the party narrow control of the US Senate.

Republicans, who had dominated Georgia state politics for years, used to hold an edge in runoffs, since their voters more consistently came out in special elections, Mr Paul said. The 2021 Senate runoffs showed Democratic voting strength was growing and that party could bring out voters, he said.

Senate terms are six years, but Mr Warnock was elected to complete only two years of an existing term. The senator he unseated, Ms Loeffler, had been appointed to fill out a term vacated by longtime Republican Johnny Isakson, who resigned for health reasons in 2019. Isakson died in 2021. The winner of this fall’s race will sit for a full six-year term.

The Wall Street Journal