Although Georgia is one of the closer U.S. Senate races on the ballot this year, polling indicates Democrats are maintaining a solid chance of success, with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) running for re-election against Trump-endorsed Republican and former athlete Herschel Walker.
If successful, Warnock would win a full term of six years to follow his current stint in the Senate, which comprises the last two years of the final term of the late Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican. Warnock’s presence in the Senate helping secure Democratic control of the chamber has proven critical towards key items on the agenda like the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act and the approval of various nominations from President Biden. In a new Survey USA poll conducted for the Atlanta-area NBC station 11Alive, Warnock is ahead of Walker by 12 percent, with 50 percent of the support compared to the Republican contender’s 38 percent. The pollster — which FiveThirtyEight, an elections data and analysis site, rates with an “A,” indicating a high level of confidence in the results — notes their survey was mostly completed before allegations of Walker previously paying for a girlfriend’s abortion recently surfaced.
Walker doing so would obviously reveal hypocrisy on the basic issue of reproductive rights from another prominent Republican. For certain Republican voters, Walker helping with obtaining an abortion at all could pose its own problem for his credibility. Walker recently released a new video ad in which he talks about past struggles with “mental health,” as he characterizes the situation. A son of his named Christian, who is highly active on social media, accused him of abuse that reached the point he and his mother needed to move. “You’re not a “family man” when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” the younger Walker claimed. Walker isn’t even the only Republican Senate candidate in a swing state facing these kinds of potentially damaging allegations, although Trump obviously proved many Republican voters are fine with ignoring points about which they’d feverishly complain if the candidate was a Democrat.
Mehmet Oz, aka Dr. Oz, who is the Republican pick for Senate in Pennsylvania, was involved with research that included mistreating and eventually killing dogs, including in instances where regular considerations would have likely meant the animals were euthanized at significantly earlier points instead of leaving them suffering, and in Ohio, Republican nominee J.D. Vance was ensnared in controversy when footage began circulating of him questioning whether women should leave physically violent relationships. In Arizona, another swing state with a Senate race going before voters this year, Republican contender Blake Masters, who also has Trump’s support, is polling significantly behind Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in the latter’s race for re-election. Kelly has also posted far higher fundraising numbers than Masters across key periods.
