Turnout for early in-person voting in the ongoing Georgia Senate runoff election is historically high, and Democrats are also outperforming their share of the early vote from comparable points before Election Day in this year’s earlier elections and in the early 2021 runoff that originally sent Raphael Warnock to the Senate.
“Georgia voters broke the all-time daily turnout record for in-person Early Voting on Monday, November 28th,” a press release from the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. A full 301,545 Georgians cast their vote on Monday, per the release. Election Day in the runoff election is next Tuesday, and on the Wednesday prior to Election Day in the elections held in November, just 134,318 Georgians cast early in-person ballots. The overall total of votes cast during early voting ahead of November 8 was higher, however, with early voting in Georgia having gone on for over two weeks as of that point. The same point before November 8 saw nearly 2 million votes already cast, although the present total is under a million. Estimates of the partisan lean of early voters from before Election Day in November had Democrats at 49 percent of the total at this point before Election Day — but now the political analytics firm TargetSmart estimates 56.6 percent of those who have already cast ballots are Democratic voters.
In the runoff election, Warnock — the Democratic incumbent — is facing Trump-supported Republican Herschel Walker because nobody passed 50 percent in the first round as legally required. Warnock is currently serving a two-year stint in the Senate that comprises the final two years of the last term of the late Sen. Johnny Isakson (R). If successful on December 6, he would secure a full term of six years. Continuing the trend established before November 8 that saw Warnock among the best-performing candidates nationwide in terms of fundraising, Warnock raised tens of millions more than Walker in recent weeks. Walker’s total of contributions from individuals from October 20 through November 16 reached $20.4 million — and for Warnock, the total from the same category and period is $51 million. Walker has attracted criticism on a variety of fronts, from his incessant lying about basic elements of his background to his loose ties to Georgia. Prior to rolling out his campaign, he lived in Texas.
