Georgia broke the early voting record again during the runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and GOP challenger Herschell Walker.
On Monday, Georgia tallied more than 300,000 ballots cast in person in a single day, smashing the previous 2018 early voting record of more than 233,252.
As of Tuesday morning, over half a million Georgians have cast ballots, either through absentee voting or early voting.
Democrats had been foretelling lower voter turnout because of a 2021 voter integrity law signed by incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. Joe Biden famously said that the new vote laws would make the era of “Jim Crow” look like “Jim Eagle.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the data shows that “claims of voter suppression in Georgia are conspiracy theories no more valid than Bigfoot.”
"The largest Early Voting Day in Georgia history shows that claims of voter suppression in Georgia are conspiracy theories no more valid than Bigfoot," Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.https://t.co/WhL9LawZo7
— TheGeorgiaVirtue (@TheGAVirtue) November 30, 2022
The data shows that Black voters are turning out to vote at a higher rate and that the early vote seems to skew female, 55% to 44%.
In mid-November, the Warnock for Georgia campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and the Democratic Party of Georgia filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Fulton County to “protect Georgians” access to Saturday early voting.
Republicans pointed to a provision in state law that prohibits early in-person voting on a Saturday if it follows a holiday on a Thursday or Friday, and Walker said that Warnock’s lawsuit amounted to trying to “change the rules in the middle of the game.”
The Democrats argued that the law only applied to primary and general elections, not to runoffs.
A new poll from FrederickPolls, COMPETE Digital and AMMPolitical has both candidates in a dead heat at 50%, with the election date set for Jan. 6th.
The bitter battle between the two candidates has led to a slew of insults and mudslinging on both sides.
Warnock has said Walker “ain’t serious” and “majors in lying.”
Walker has called Warnock a “hypocrite” and a “rubber stamp of Joe Biden.”
Georgia’s Senate runoff has vital importance both for the dynamic in the Senate next year and the 2024 presidential election year. If Walker wins, the Senate will remain split at 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast the tie breaking votes in major legislation.
