Democrats pour $7m into Raphael Warnock v Herschel Walker Senate runoff

Chase Oliver, who ran for Georgia’s US Senate seat, never had a chance at winning. Blame our two-party system for that one.

But the 37-year-old former Democrat did have another notable impact: peeling off votes from the top two candidates, incumbent Raphael Warnock and his MAGA-backed challenger Herschel Walker.

Mr Oliver managed to get just over two per cent of the original vote, likely keeping his Democratic and GOP rivals from securing the 50 per cent share of the votes needed to win an election under Georgia state law.

For more information on the libtertarian candidate, here’s our piece from Bill Barrow and Jeff Amy.

“Incredible how dishonest the Fake News Media is,” Mr Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social early on Thursday. “The Failing New York Times has gone crazy. So many of the people I Endorsed went on to victory on Tuesday Night, nobody was even close, and they literally make up a story refusing to write the facts, and only quoting enemies and losers.”

“Almost all of the people I endorsed WON, yet if you read the story from two Trump-hating writers (who only do as they are told!), you would not even recognize the truth. They truly are, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!!!” Mr Trump wrote.

Gustaf Kilander has the full report.

Stacey Abrams became a rising star in the Democratic party for her persistent efforts to register new voters in the state of Georgia.

When Democrats pulled off a shock double Senate victory in the state in the 2020 cycle, many observers argued the party had her to thank.

However, when it came time to Ms Abrams’s own 2022 gubernatorial race against GOP incumbent Brian Kemp, she wasn’t able to muster enough support, losing by roughly 300,000, or about 8 per cent of the vote total.

In fact, nearly the exact same number of voters turned out for the 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial elections, even though Georgia’s population increased by about 300,00 votes and about 500,000 new voters joined the rolls.

Regardless of the true root of the problem, the Abrams race will surely have Democratic strategists thinking hard about where they go from here in Georgia and similar states they’re hoping to turn blue.

Black voters have long been a core part of the Democratic party coalition, and that’s been especially clear in recent years in Georgia.

African-Americans helped send Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff to the Senate in the 2020/2021 cycle, securing Democratic control of the upper house.

Now, as Senator Warnock heads to a runoff against his Trump-backed challenger Herschel Walker, Black voters in the Peach State said they feel the weight of the party again resting on their shoulders.

​“Now it’s back on us to save the Senate,” S Dorian Hampton, 41, told NBC News. “We did it once. We can do it again.”

Some are seeing the added focus on Georgia as a positive because it means politicians are finally paying attention to the state’s sizable Black population, rather than writing it off as a purely white Republican stronghold.

“There’s power in our votes. If 2020 hadn’t happened, this race would seem like any other old midterms to Black people,” Ariel Martin, 5, a tax attorney in suburban Atlanta, added in the NBC report. “But we realized our power two years ago, and now, despite voter suppression, we voted in big numbers because we know our votes matter now. Black people have made it so Republicans have to be accountable.”

In midterm races around the country, Donald Trump sought to use his considerable influence over the Republican base to boost his favoured candidates like Herschel Walker in Georgia.

The former president is still nearly two times as popular as his potential rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, but the slip in popularity is a notable one.

Here’s more on the potential 2024 matchup between the two men.

In order for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate, they need to win at least two of the three toss-up Senate races this cycle in the states of Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona, according to most observers.

In Georgia, incumbent Raphael Warnock will face off against the Republican Herschel Walker in a runoff this December, though the Atlanta-based pastor got more votes than Mr Walker in the general election.

In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt is currently ahead of incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, but some observers believe she could regain the advantage once predominantly Democratic mail-in ballots are counted.

The Democratic party is putting millions behind Georgia’s US Senator Raphael Warnock, as his close race to defend his seat heads to a runoff with Trump-backed Herschel Walker.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is spending $7m on field operations in the state ahead of the December contest, which will fund voter contact efforts and door-to-door canvasing.

“We know talking directly to voters through a strong, well-funded ground-game is critical to winning in Georgia, and we’re wasting no time in kick-starting these programs in the runoff,” DSCC chair Sen. Gary Peters told Politico.

That’s just the beginning of the financial battle that will play out during the runoff, as both candidates will continue seeking individual donations from voters to keep them afloat.

With the Senate race in Georgia headed for a runoff, here’s what you need to know about how the process works.

Meg Kinnard has the story.

Democrat Marie Perez has soared to an early lead over Trump-backed Joe Kent in what was seen as a revenge mission for the former president

Mr Kent, 42, who bettered incumbent congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler in an open primary this summer, was trailing Ms Perez by six points after the first batch of votes were counted.

On Wednesday morning, Ms Perez was at 53 per cent, while Mr Kent was at 47 per cent with 65 per cent of the vote tallied in the race for Washington’s Third Congressional District.

Andrew Buncombe reports from Seattle.

Outside of all the big-picture implications—control of Congress, the future of issues like reproductive freedom, that sort of thing—a runoff in Georgia also means more pesky text messages from the candidates.

As Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker headed to a second matchup, UC San Francisco physician joked on Twitter that it’s “looking like another month of twice daily texts from Raphael Warnock.”

“Only 2X a day? You must be lucky,” responded writer Dan Tynan. “I’m just so happy that all the others will stop. (They will stop, won’t they?)”