Voters in the US state of Georgia will choose on Tuesday between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker to fill the last vacant Senate seat, after neither candidate has achieved a majority in recent months.
The incumbent senator, the Democratic Reverend Raphael Warnock, will again face former soccer star Herschel Walker, backed by Donald Trump, this time in a vote without a third candidate.
Control of the Senate does not depend on this election, as Democrats have already secured a majority through the 50 seats they won in the midterms, joining Vice President Kamala Harris’ runoff vote.
However, one additional seat would give Democrats more influence in the upper house of Congress.
Tuesday’s result will also be an early test of Donald Trump’s recently launched 2024 presidential campaign, as the former head of state has openly declared his support for Herschel Walker.
With a controversial profile, Walker is a former soccer player who was harshly criticized in the partial campaign for taking a strong position against abortion, despite the fact that two women accused him of financing their pregnancy terminations.
Warnock, endorsed by former President Barack Obama and seeking re-election, is a pastor at Martin Luther King Jr. Church and Georgia’s first African-American senator.
In two years, this is the fourth campaign for Warnock, who ran for the first time in 2020 against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler to complete the term of former Sen. Johnny Isakson. This race went to a runoff in January 2021, which the Democrat won.
Few polls have been conducted on this second round so far, but a CNN poll released Friday shows Warnock with a narrow lead over Walker, 52% to 48%, respectively.
Both candidates are hoping for a close result in Tuesday’s election in a deeply divided state.
Warnock got about 37,000 more votes than Walker in the first round on November 8. However, the Democrat did not reach the majority, which required this second round.
Voters in Georgia can vote three ways: by mail, in person during early voting, and in person on Election Day.
According to the US press, more than 1.8 million Georgians have already voted early, 26% less than in the first round, when participation is usually higher.
This is the fifth time in four years that Georgians have gone to the polls: four times for the midterm elections and once for the presidential election. This is due to a quirk in state election law that requires winning candidates for state office in a general election to not only get more votes than everyone else, but at least 50% of the votes cast.
Source: TSF
