Voters line up at Metropolitan Library to solid their ballots within the runoff election for the Senate position, between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., November 29, 2022.Â
Megan Varner | Reuters
Georgia’s early-voter turnout is accelerating within the high-profile Senate runoff race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker — even after voters already crushed the state’s in-person record for early voting yesterday.
“We’re on a faster pace today than we were yesterday,” Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia Secretary of State, said in a tweet Tuesday.
“As of noon, we have had 118,130 Georgians solid an early vote today,” Sterling tweeted, adding, “Do not know if it can stay that rapid.”
On Monday, Georgia tallied greater than 300,000 ballots solid in person, easily topping the state’s previous one-day early voting record of about 233,000 votes solid, Sterling declared Monday night.
Monday’s haul brought the Peach State’s total turnout to just about 504,000 votes, or 7.2% turnout from Georgia’s 7 million lively voters, based on data from the Secretary of State’s Office.
The info show that greater than 48% of early voters are white and about 38% are Black, and that Black voters are showing as much as vote early at the next turnout rate. The early voter turnout also appears to skew female, 55% to 44%, based on the state elections office.
That data, which was last updated early Tuesday morning, had yet to incorporate the most recent voting numbers from Sterling’s tweet.
The Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia was scheduled after neither Warnock nor Walker won greater than 50% of the vote within the November general election. The election between the incumbent Democrat, who won his seat only one 12 months earlier in one other tight runoff election, and his GOP rival was some of the competitive and expensive fights of the midterms.
Democrats have already locked up majority control of the Senate, meaning the end result in Georgia is not going to sway the balance of power in the following Congress. Even when Walker wins, the chamber will probably be split 50-50, giving Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote. However the race could have a serious impact in 2024, where Senate Democrats are once more seen to be facing a tricky electoral map.
Voters in Georgia showed as much as polling places to solid their ballots Saturday, after the Warnock campaign won a state lawsuit to permit early voting that weekend. Greater than 157,000 votes were solid Saturday and Sunday, based on the state’s data.
Warnock urged his supporters to go to the polls over the weekend as he looks to defend his seat within the purple state, which President Joe Biden narrowly won over former President Donald Trump within the 2020 election. Warnock and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff won each of Georgia’s runoffs in that election cycle, delivering Democrats a narrow Senate majority that helped pass quite a few pieces of Biden’s legislative agenda.
Polls have showed Warnock and Walker neck-and-neck before and after the Nov. 8 general election. Walker, a former football star, has been backed by Trump and boosted by a cadre of top Republicans who’ve defended him through a series of non-public scandals.
Warnock heads toward the runoff with a major campaign money advantage: $29 million money readily available to Walker’s $9.8 million, recent Federal Election Commission filings showed.
