Even after Republican candidate Herschel Walker was hit by allegations that he paid for his then-girlfriend’s abortion more than a decade ago — which he denied — polls still show a close race between him and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D).
Such a scenario could leave the Senate majority in the balance for weeks after Election Day, just as it did after the 2020 election when Democrats won control of the upper chamber only after Warnock and Sen. Rep.
“We’re hoping for the best, but it’s certainly something we’re fully prepared for,” said Republican strategist Stephen Lawson, who works with Walker’s PAC 3 Georgia runoff redux if you can.”
Of course, Election Day is still nearly a month away, and both parties are clinging to the possibility that a handful of undecided voters could swing the candidate and put the candidate over the 50 percent mark. Republicans need just one seat in the Senate to regain their majority, but strong Democratic showings in several races have made that goal difficult.
Georgia, along with Louisiana, is one of two states requiring candidates to win a majority of the popular vote to win an election. This year, Warnock and Walker are on the ballot along with a third candidate, Libertarian Chase Oliver.
An Emerson College and The Hill poll released Tuesday showed Warnock still lacked the majority support he needs to win re-election. That poll, conducted a day after The Daily Beast published a story detailing the allegations against Walker, showed the Republican candidate had lost some of the race since September, said Matt Towery, a Georgia-based pollster and founder of InsiderAdvantage.
“However, the number of votes fluctuates, but does not seem to push the incumbent closer to the plus-1 needed for victory.” Warnock’s campaign acknowledged how tight the race had become.
What we know: This race will be close, so we can’t take anything for granted and will work hard every day to re-elect Rev. Warnock so he can continue to fight in the Senate to protect and save. It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the second time, that the presence of a third-party candidate helped push a runoff in a Georgia Senate race.
The libertarian candidate won more than 2 percent of the vote in that race. A sweeping electoral law passed last year shortened the second round from nine weeks to four, meaning if the race between Warnock and Walker goes into overtime, it will make for a frenzied campaign into December. Thanksgiving would be a pretty early vote,” said Lawson, who worked on former Sen. Kelly’s 2020 campaign. Georgia-based Republican strategist Jay Williams said a race between Walker and Warnock has become so nationalized that he thinks it’s unlikely.
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