Georgia voters will decide the final US Senate race on Tuesday choosing between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican football legend Herschel Walker after an election four weeks ago that has drawn an avalanche of outside spending to a fight every ever more personal.
The stakes for the runoff are less than the two in 2021, when victories by Warnock and fellow Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff gave Democrats control of the Senate. The outcome of Tuesday’s race will determine whether Democrats hold a 51-49 outright majority in the Senate or control a 50-50 House, according to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.
The runoff ends a bitter fight between Warnock, the state’s first black senator and senior minister of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, and Walker, a former University of Georgia football star and political fledgling. who has made his bid in the mold of former President Donald Trump.
A victory for Warnock would cement Georgia’s status as a battleground heading into the 2024 presidential election. However, a victory for Walker could be an indication that Democratic gains in the state could be somewhat limited, especially given that the Georgia Republicans swept every other state race last month.
In that election, Warnock led Walker by some 37,000 votes out of nearly 4 million cast, but fell short of a majority, prompting the second round of voting. Some 1.9 million ballots have already been cast by mail and during early voting, a boon for Democrats whose voters often cast ballots this way. Republicans typically do better on Election Day voting, with margins determining the winner.
Walker, 60, last month led more than 200,000 votes behind Republican Gov. Brian Kemp after a campaign beset by intense scrutiny of his past, meandering campaign speeches and a series of damaging allegations, including claims he paid the abortions of two ex-girlfriends. – allegations Walker has denied.
Warnock, whose 2021 victory came in a special election to serve out the remainder of Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term, sounded confident during a packed day of campaigning Monday. He predicted that he had convinced enough voters, including independents and moderate Republicans who supported Kemp, that he deserves a full term.
[Con información de The Associated Press]
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