Georgia’s early-voter turnout for the Dec. 6 Senate runoff election between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker has broken records in anticipation of the contentious election.
On Monday, Georgia counted more than 300,000 in-person ballots, breaking the state’s previous single-day early voting record of 233,000 votes.
In total, as of Friday, more than 1.4 million votes have been cast – including absentee ballots and in-person voting – according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Additionally, more than 55% of the early voters are white and about 32% are Black, with Black voters showing up to vote early at a higher turnout rate than before. Asian and Pacific Islander and Hispanic voters both account for less than 2% of the votes.
Warnock received about 37,000 more votes in the midterm elections than Walker but did not meet the threshold of the 50% of votes needed to win the election under Georgia’s law, sending the race into a runoff election.
Voters who favor Warnock seem to be voting in larger numbers now than in the general election.
A recent poll commissioned by AARP has Warnoff with a slight lead over Walker, leading 51% to 47%.
Anna Purcella-Doll, a resident of Forsyth County in Georgia, said the youth vote is the most important aspect of the runoff election.
“Youth power is going to be key,” said Purcell-Doll. “Kids and young adults are seeing the power that they have and that they have a voice. They are the ones who are going to save us, and the ones that saved us nationwide. They can do it again in Georgia.”
Purcella-Doll is a member of the state committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia, and serves as head of candidate recruitment and second vice chair of the Forsyth County Democrats.
The results of the runoff are a deciding factor in the Democrats’ aim to secure a majority outright in the Senate instead of the current power-sharing agreement.
If Walker wins the runoff race, the parties will be split 50-50 in the Senate, and Vice President Kamala Harris will provide a tie-breaking vote to give the Democrats the majority. But if Warnock holds his Senate position, the Senate balance would fall to 51-49, in favor of the Democrats.
This is not the first time that the nation’s eyes fell on Georgia after a neck-and-neck midterm race.
The 2020 midterm elections saw Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeat Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, which gave Democrats 50 seats in the Senate and control with Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
In both 2020 and 2022, the fate of the Senate balance has been decided, or almost decided, by Georgia.
Additionally, President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, marking a large shift in Georgia’s political landscape, as the purple state continues to become a critical state in national politics.
“I knew [the runoff] would happen,” said Elizabeth Adkins, a USC sophomore from Athens, Georgia studying public policy.
Adkins voted by absentee ballot in the midterm elections and stayed in Georgia for an extra day over Thanksgiving break to vote in-person during the first early voting day.
Adkins said that based on the 2020 midterm elections, most Georgia voters expected the runoff because there’s a large divide between Atlanta, which usually votes blue, and rural Georgia, which tends to vote red.
However, Adkins enjoys Georgia’s shifting political landscape.
“I think it just goes to show how the economy of Atlanta and the city of Atlanta is growing, and smaller cities like Athens are turning blue as well,” Adkins said.
In the high stakes race, high-profile Democrats and Republicans alike have flocked to Georgia to campaign for both Warnock and Walker.
Former President Barack Obama headlined a rally for Warnock on Thursday, aiming to energize the Democratic voters ahead of the election.
“Plenty of folks haven’t voted yet,” said Obama at the rally. “Tomorrow is the last day for early voting and then we need to get people out to the polls on Tuesday, which means we still got work to do.”
In recent weeks, Trump-backed Walker has campaigned with prominent Republicans such as Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Rick Scott (Fla.).
“There is a big difference between a 50-50 Senate, which is what we have if Herschel wins… If the Democrats grow their majority, they get a majority on every single committee,” said Cruz, encouraging Georgia Republicans to vote for Walker.
The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade has also been an influential deciding factor in the midterm elections.
Warnock has ran on a pro-choice platform, signing federal legislation that would protect women who travel across state lines to receive abortions.
Walker has since changed his previous no-exception stance on abortion by supporting Georgia’s abortion law that bans abortions after six weeks but makes exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest.
It is worth noting that Walker has faced two accusations from former girlfriends who said that Walker had pressured them into getting abortions, which he paid for. However, Walker has denied those claims.
In the midterm elections, NBC exit polls showed that the 26% of Georgia voters who ranked abortion as their top issue on the ballot backed Warnock by a margin of 77% to 21%.
Adkins said that abortion was one of her top issues on the ballot this year, as well as the education system and economic policy.
Purcella-Doll said that the most important issue for her in the midterm elections was democracy, followed by abortion rights.
“In my lifetime, I’ve never – during childbearing age – [not had] access to abortion, to healthcare. And so that is so critical,” Purcella-Doll said. “However, for me, I was so worried that Democrats would lose both the House and Senate. Even though my preferred candidates did not win in Georgia, we have a chance to give President Biden a fighting chance in the Senate.”