Runoff election after the US Midterms: election thriller in Georgia is looming
Created: 03/12/2022 17:43
By: Sandra Kathe
Over a million people in Georgia, including incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, have already cast their ballots early for the runoff.
(File photo) © Justin Sullivan/AFP
On Tuesday, the people of the US state of Georgia will vote on their new senator.
The race between Warnock and Walker promises to be close.
Atlanta/Washington - A few weeks after the actual US midterm elections, the two most successful candidates for the Senate seat of the southern US state of Georgia have to face another runoff.
However, it is not yet possible to predict with certainty whether incumbent Raphael Warnock from the Democrats will actually prevail against his Republican challenger Herschel Walker on Tuesday (December 6).
Both candidates have once again invested more in their election campaign and used the weeks between midterms and the early opening of the polling stations last week to win the voters' trust after all.
Incumbent Warnock, who was also elected the first black senator in the state's history in a runoff election in 2021 by around 93,000 votes, won 49.4 percent of the vote in the midterms.
His challenger Herschel Walker ended up with a deficit of almost 40,000 at around 48.5 percent.
Polls are already predicting a tight race for Tuesday.
Runoff in Georgia: Herschel Walker does not reach everyone in the target group
Traditionally, Georgians have voted more Republican over the past few decades: with the exceptions of the 1976 and 1980 elections, in which Jimmy Carter had a clear lead, 1992, when Bill Clinton won the majority, and 2020, when a slim majority, possibly more, against Donald Trump than voted for Joe Biden.
Trump's election victory in Georgia in 2016 was comparatively narrow with 50.8 percent of the vote.
Many experts and the media interpreted the surprisingly poor performance of the ex-football pro Herschel Walker, who was considered one of the candidates particularly promoted by Trump, as a decision by the people of Georgia against the president who was voted out.
According to the
New York Times
, this is shown by the fact that in many constituencies in which Walker was behind in the Senate election, the gubernatorial election went to Republican Brian Kemp.
Runoff election for Senate seat in US state Georgia: Democrats have Senate majority
If this is also confirmed in the run-off election and Warnock wins, the US Democrats with 51 seats in the Senate would even have a better position than before than if both parties had a tie of 50 seats for Vice-US President and thus also Senate President Kamala Harris allowed to cast a decisive vote.
The previous 50 seats for the Democrats have already been reached since the final count of the midterm elections.
According to observers, what could worsen Walker's chances are the numerous negative headlines that accompanied Walker's election campaign.
According to a report by the
AFP
news agency , he was caught embellishing his CV.
There were also allegations of domestic violence from his ex-wife and two women who had accused Walker, a self-confessed anti-abortionist, of having pushed them to have abortions in the past.
However, it remains to be seen whether a majority in the politically divided USA is satisfied with voting democratically instead.
What seems certain, however, is that many people in Georgia are still motivated to vote.
According to a
CNN
report last week, 300,000 people in Georgia took the opportunity to cast their votes early every day, surpassing the previous record of early voting within one day.
(ska with AFP)