ATLANTA (AP) — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker pivoted to a decisive extra round of their Senate race Thursday…
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker pivoted to a decisive extra round of their Senate race Thursday with blistering attacks, while party leaders and donors around the country geared up for a four-week campaign blitz that could determine control of the chamber for the next two years.
With votes still being counted in Senate contests in Arizona and Nevada, the single Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia could either decide majority control — as did the state’s twin runoffs in 2021 — or further pad one party’s advantage. But neither Republicans nor Democrats were waiting for the Western states’ results to begin scrambling for big money.
The Democrats’ Senate campaign arm announced early plans for a $7 million investment in field operations, a sum certain to be dwarfed by what both parties’ various committees will eventually spend on the airwaves. Top Republicans in Washington began huddling with donors, urging their continued support after the party nationwide fell short of expectations in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Walker, sent out fundraising pitches based on the runoff. The White House offered assurances that President Joe Biden would do whatever was best to to help Warnock — even if that means keeping his distance.
Warnock sidestepped the national implications Thursday, going directly at Walker and characterizing the former football star as unqualified and unfit for the office.
“This race is about competence, and it’s about character,” Warnock said in his first public appearance since his election night party. He went on to detail Walker’s exaggerations of his business and professional achievements and allegations of violence against women, including Walker’s first wife. And he called Walker, who is making his first bid for public office, “manifestly uninformed” on public policy.
“The choice between me and Herschel Walker is clear,” Warnock said. “Some things in life are complicated. This ain’t one of them. This is not a math test.”
Later Thursday, Walker delighted hundreds of supporters in Canton, Georgia, with a stem-winding evisceration of Warnock, accusing the incumbent of stoking racism (both Warnock and Walker are Black), driving up crime, depressing police morale, hating the military and misrepresenting the Bible.
Through much of the fall, Walker was the more likely of the two men to make searing personal attacks himself rather than leave it to paid advertising.
