Warnock Heads Into Georgia Senate Runoff With an Edge

Tuesday is election day in Georgia’s Senate runoff, and Senator Warnock has a leg up on his opponent, football star Herschel Walker, who appears to be losing steam just as he needs to turn out Republicans voters.“It might not be the case that Senator Warnock won the election, but that Herschel Walker lost it,” a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, Charles Bullock, tells the Sun.“I don’t know if he’s lost energy or what the explanation is but he has not been out on the campaign trail,” Mr. Bullock said. “Reporters claim he’s not talked to them in weeks, and he’s simply not holding the number of events that you’d expect.”Mr. Walker and his campaign caught flak for taking a week off from campaigning before Thanksgiving, and though they’ve since returned to the trail it hasn’t been with the vigor that Republicans had wanted.Mr. Walker’s alleged personal failings also continue to dog him. A former girlfriend, Cheryl Parsa, charged this weekend that Mr. Walker abused her, telling NBC that he had pinned her to a wall, grabbed her throat, and threw a punch that ultimately ended up striking the wall next to her.Ms. Parsa is not the first woman to come forward alleging that Mr. Walker was violently abusive. Mr. Walker’s ex-wife recounted a scene where Mr. Walker held a gun to her head earlier this year.Mr. Walker’s campaign also has faced criticism about his legal residence following a CNN report that showed the candidate living in Texas prior to and during a portion of his bid to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.While earlier in the race Messrs. Warnock and Mr. Walker appeared to be on equal footing, Mr. Warnock now appears to have carved out a modest lead.A December 5 University of Massachusett Lowell Center for Public Opinion poll showed Mr. Warnock leading by 5 points, which tops the poll’s 3.2 point margin of error. Other polls have suggested that Mr. Warnock enjoys a narrower lead, but is ahead nonetheless.Early voting data also suggest that Tuesday could be a good day for Mr. Warnock, with relatively high turnout in the Atlanta area. The CEO of Target Smart, a Democratic data analysis firm, Tom Bonier, says that the early vote seems to favor Democrats.“Georgia: again, let’s be careful while assessing the early vote, but one clear point is that the GOP has a steeper climb ahead of them on [election day] than they had in the general,” Mr. Bonier tweeted Sunday.According to Target Smart’s models, Democratic turnout is expected to be about 77 percent of the turnout for the November 8 midterm election, while Republican turnout is expected to be about 69 percent.In the final tally for the general election, Mr. Warnock bested Mr. Walker by just less than a point, 49.4 percent to 48.5 percent. An associate editor at Sabato’s crystal ball, Miles Coleman, suspects Mr. Warnock will win by a similar margin to his 2021 runoff victory.“Three key metrics — polling, spending, and the early vote — suggest a Warnock advantage,” he tells the Sun. “Looking at just the early vote, the current electorate is a few points Blacker than November’s early electorate — to me, that’s essentially just padding Warnock’s margin.”In the final day of campaigning, both candidates retreated to partisan strongholds to try to get their bases out to vote, with Mr. Walker traveling to northern Georgia and Mr. Warnock campaigning in the Atlanta area.Mr. Bullock says that he expects the election to be close, and explains that Mr. Walker may have had his chances hurt by Democrats taking the Senate and Governor Kemp not being on the ballot.While it does appear that Mr. Walker is at a disadvantage, historical trends suggest that Mr. Walker will do better in the runoff than he did the first time around — though the 2022 elections largely bucked historical trends. In the past, both Republicans and non-incumbents have performed better in runoff elections in Georgia than in general elections, especially in Senate races. Republican turnout could also be depressed by Mr. Walker’s close association with President Trump, who handpicked Mr. Walker to run in the race.In recent days, Mr. Trump has been criticized for meeting with a rap star, Kanye West, a white supremacist commentator, Nick Fuentes, and a far-right commentator, Milo Yiannopoulos. Mr. Trump’s bizarre anti-Constitution rant over the weekend may not help, either.“Most Republicans have resolved whatever qualms they had,” Mr. Bullock tells the Sun. “Most Republicans made up their minds and are going to stick with their party’s nominee.”However, Mr. Bullock says, “All those things may be the last straw for Republicans concerned about Trump.”

Warnock Heads Into Georgia Senate Runoff With an Edge

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