Obama heads to Georgia as Warnock seeks big advantage in early voting

Atlanta – Georgia voters cast more than 1 million ballots by December 6 US Senate Runoff Vote Between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, Warnock is looking to give Barack Obama a head start on early voting with a visit to Barack Obama on Thursday.

former president Campaign with Warnock on the eve of the last day of early voting. The rally, which promises to be the biggest event of his four-week runoff in Warnock, highlights the different approaches of the two parties. early voting In the final contest for the 2022 election.

Democrats employ an all-out push to win as many votes as possible, while Republicans, especially Walker, have taken a less aggressive approach, leaving Republican candidates in the runoff. It may depend greatly on the turnout of the day.

“I think the voter turnout we’re seeing is good. I’d like to encourage people to keep it up.” But people were still waiting and getting their sandwiches,” he said. “I went to vote yesterday and it was so easy.”

Walker, meanwhile, plans to vote on Election Day in the runoff, as he did in the midterm elections in November.

Warnock led Walker with about 37,000 votes out of about 4 million. election However, it did not reach the majority required under Georgia law. This put him in a four-week runoff, with a shorter early voting period than in the first round.

Statewide early voting data, including some weekends and Thanksgiving weekdays in specific counties, show higher overall voter turnout in the most Democratic counties and congressional districts. Still, both parties are finding data to promote as they gain the upper hand in the final race for his 2022 midterm election cycle, and both campaigns are likely to attract early voters, much like Warnock did in the first round. generally agree to lead among Walker, on the other hand, has an edge on Election Day voting, as he did in November. Each margin determines the final winner.

TargetSmart, a data company for the Democratic Party, analyzed the identities of more than 830,000 voters who had voted by the end of Tuesday and concluded that the Democrats were up 14 percentage points from when the November poll was six days away. Tagged 8 Elections. That analysis did not include his 240,000-plus additional votes cast Wednesday.

Walker’s campaign manager, Scott Paradise, refuted the idea of ​​Democratic dominance.He said it was the Democratic-heavy metropolitan counties that voted early over the weekend, while the Republican-heavy neighborhoods waited until the statewide mandatory early voting window that began Monday. Republicans sued in state court, but lost. Trying to block early voting on Saturday for spills.

According to Paradise, an analysis of Walker’s campaign showed that nine of the 10 counties with the highest voter turnout on Monday were counties Walker won in November, receiving a combined 70% of the vote. He added that the state’s most populous counties — counties with more than 100,000 registered voters — are two Republican strongholds, Hall and Forsyth, which had the highest voter turnout on Monday. Paradise said these trends reflected high Republican enthusiasm.

Still, Republicans need to catch up.

State ballot data compiled by Ryan Anderson, an independent analyst in Atlanta, shows that four of the state’s five congressional districts held by Democrats will have at least one vote total for the November election by Tuesday. We were already seeing a 43% pre-vote. Georgia County has had early voting for at least 17 days. Only one of her nine Republican-held congressional districts in Georgia topped her 43%.

Warnock First seat won As part of the concurrent Senate runoff ballot on January 5, 2021, he and John Ossoff defeated Republican incumbents to give Democrats narrow control of the Senate for the start of President Joe Biden’s term. gave. Warnock won the special election and is now seeking his full six-year term.

This time, the control of the Senate is not working. Democrats have already secured her 50 seats, with a tie-breaking vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. This puts pressure on both Warnock and Walker’s campaigns to convince Georgia voters that a second ballot is worthwhile, even if the country’s stakes aren’t as high.

Warnock received about 70% of all first round votes through pre-voting. For Walker, it was about 58%. This led to Warnock getting over his 256,000 votes. Walker responded with an election day advantage of over 200,000.

Senate campaigns, Democratic committees, and allied Political Action Committees have adjusted voter turnout for early voting. Republicans are directing his emails from his one ultra-political action committee featuring Gov. Brian Kemp, who won his second term comfortably by winning 200,000 more votes than Walker. It has countered with a wide range of pushes of its own, including pushes.

However, Republicans have been pushing some Republicans to vote on Election Day, including remarks by former President Donald Trump questioning some advance ballots, particularly mail-in ballots, within several parties. fighting the story On a recent Tuesday, Trump declared on his media social: It won’t happen, it won’t happen!!!”

Walker himself doesn’t mention early in-person or mail-in voting at all, as he encourages his supporters to vote.

Meanwhile, Democrats see Obama as a key figure in repeating former President Warnock’s pre-voting lead.