ATLANTA – Georgia set new early voting records again as two Senate candidates split the state ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election. And competition also attracts new voters.
More than 1.85 million Georgians voted early, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger’s office. breaking Two single day posts in a week.
Of those who had already arrived, 56% were women and 44% were men. 55% of early voters are white voters, 32% are black, and Latinos and Asian Americans each make up less than 2% of the total.
The Democratic Senate failed to reach the 50% needed to win the Nov. 8 general election. Raphael Warnock faces former Republican football star Herschel Walker for a six-year term. With the balance of power in the Senate at stake, both candidates hit the state to rally their voters in the final three days before the crucial election.
Gabriel Sterling, Senior Assistant to the Secretary of State. said Early votes are expected to total more than 1.9 million due to absentee ballots.
For now, the numbers show Warnock has the edge.
Democrats lead Republicans by a wide margin, 52% to 39%. Data provided By TargetSmart.
Between his early voting leads, ADVERTISING COST ADVANTAGES And a new one CNN poll Warnock is confident, indicating he leads Walker by 52% to 48%.
“We are on the verge of victory. But I don’t want us to do a victory dance before we actually get into the end zone,” Warnock told Labor allies at a rally here on Saturday. “We are seeing record voter turnout across our state. People come to vote.
“I don’t want you to underestimate our resistance,” he added. “They are merciless.”
Notably, more than 76,000 voters did not vote in the 2022 general election, according to GeorgiaVotes.com, which uses public data to analyze voting trends.
Among Georgians under the age of 30, 15.5% of early voters did not turn out for the general election. Additionally, 8.4% of Hispanics and 9.5% of Asian Americans did not vote in the November 8 election.
All three constituencies are overwhelmingly Democratic. If their early voting preferences largely mirror those of allies, that’s good news for Warnock.
Democrats withdrew from the race because some in Georgia believed Warnock would easily win the November election. Instead, he finished less than 1 point and was forced into a runoff. As a result, some who were not earlier voters are now switching.
“It’s because they think he’s a shoo-in!” Linda Harris, a canvas worker from the Unite Here union, told the Warnock rally on Saturday. “They thought no one was going to vote for Walker. That’s not true. So now we’re looking at it, and I say to people: You’ve seen what’s going on. You’ve got to vote.”
Still, Walker has reason to be optimistic.
Early voting voters tend to be older than they did in the general election, which could benefit Walker: 38% are 65 and older — a group According to polls, the GOP candidate has an overall advantage. And 32% of early voters are between the ages of 50 and 64, while 30% are under 50.
In the final days of his campaign, Walker appeared on Fox News on Saturday to complain about media coverage of the race and blamed Warnock and President Joe Biden for inflation and crime.
“Because of Joe Biden, we have these high gas prices,” Walker said. “We have these high grocery prices. We have crime in the streets – Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock are part of that. We have this open border. Men in women’s sports. And this has been done within two short years. I don’t know how many more years I can hold on.”
Warnock, for his part, touted his support for the labor-backed PRO legislation and expanding Medicaid to the hundreds of thousands of Georgians in the coverage gap. He called Walker “woefully unqualified, woefully unprepared” and “woefully unqualified.”
“He’s running for the Senate, and he’s not just your uncle speaking at a family reunion,” Warnock said. “Georgia deserves a senator who really knows what he’s talking about.”
Early voting closes on Friday and election day is December 6.
