SANDY SPRINGS, GEORGIA - NOVEMBER 19: U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) speaks to supporters at a campaign rally on November 19, 2022 in Sandy Springs, Georgia. Warnock continues rallying supporters across the state as he faces Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a runoff election December 6.
See the moment CNN called the race for Warnock
01:38 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Edward Lindsey is a former Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives and its majority whip. He is a lawyer in Atlanta focusing on public policy and political law. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN  — 

This year’s most expensive US Senate race in the country – over $380 million spent through the end of November – is finally over. Georgia’s incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, won the December 6 runoff against his Republican challenger, former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker.

Edward Lindsey

Two years ago, Warnock captured his Senate seat in a special runoff election, due in no small part to former President Donald Trump’s unproven claims of a rigged election system in the state that resulted in reducing Republican base turnout in the runoff. This year, Warnock was widely viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators seeking re-election. Trump urged his long-time friend Walker to run and strongly backed him with Mar-a-Lago fundraising and in-state campaign rallies last spring. With that support, Walker trounced his Republican opponents in a May primary with 68% of the vote.

So how did Warnock roll to victory in this week’s runoff?

Before answering the question, let’s first set the current political scene in Georgia. While, nationally, Republicans in the general election last month stumbled and failed to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s low approval numbers and Americans’ belief that the country is headed in the wrong direction, a red wave came ashore in Georgia. Led by incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, the Grand Old Party won every statewide constitutional office and maintained solid control of the Georgia General Assembly. While Georgia may be a purple state in some respects, it continues to have a definite red glow under its state capitol gold dome.

The only bright spot for Democrats on general election night last month was in the US Senate race in which Walker received over 200,000 fewer votes than Kemp and trailed Warnock by almost 38,000 votes out of over 3.8 million votes cast. However, since Georgia requires a candidate to win by a majority and both candidates fell short of that requirement, Georgia voters felt deja vu with another Senate runoff creeping into a holiday season.

Four major factors helped Warnock bucked the Republican trend in Georgia this year:

1. Warnock tapped into his background as pastor to appeal to swing voters by presenting himself as a senator who could reach across the aisle to get things done. He highlighted his work with senators as ideologically different from himself such as Republican Sens. Ted Cruz from Texas and Tommy Tuberville from Alabama, and trumpeted his support for niche but popular programs like capping insulin prices.

This approach was in sharp contrast to the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. She ran a sharply ideological campaign with big progressive ideas designed to whip up her progressive base – and even made provocative assertions like stating, during Kemp’s leadership, that Georgia was “the worst state in the country to live.” In a debate, she also criticized the “old boys club” of sheriffs who had endorsed Kemp by stating, “I don’t have 107 sheriffs who want to be able to take Black people off the streets, who want to be able to go without accountability.”

2. Walker, like some other GOP senate candidates around the nation this year, was widely perceived by voters as deeply flawed. Democrats, as well as his Republican opponents in the earlier primary, hammered away at his documented past mental health issues, allegations of domestic violence (some of which Walker has acknowledged, pointing to his mental health as a factor in his actions), and claims – which Walker has denied – that he had urged former girlfriends to seek abortions.

This documented history and the disputed allegations had an impact on voters who otherwise voted for Republican candidates in November. For instance, in the strongly Republican exurban Cherokee County, Walker ran nearly 7 points behind Kemp in November. Similar drop offs in Republican support were found throughout the state.

3. Walker’s campaign sought to counter this by tying Warnock to Biden, who is deeply unpopular in Georgia with only a 38% approval rating. This strategy kept Walker competitive in the November election but wasn’t enough to secure his runoff victory when race results in other parts of the country put control of the US Senate out of Republicans’ reach. As a result, many conservative voters who were likely willing to put aside their misgivings about Walker if a Republican Senate could restrain the President, failed to come home to the Republican party nominee this week.

4. For campaigns, runoff elections are less about persuasion and more about driving turnout of your supporters. Republicans seem to have been hampered in their efforts over the last two election cycles by Trump’s denigration of early in person voting and absentee mail in voting. While GOP operatives and other elected officials have tried to counter Trump’s claims and urge their supporters to view each of these methods as reliable, there is still resistance from many activists and voters in the GOP base to early vote.

This forced the Walker campaign to place most of its hopes for victory on Election Day voting. While Walker did well in Election Day voting, he could not overcome the lead Warnock’s campaign built up in early voting.

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    In light of the Georgia Republican’s performance only six weeks ago in the general election, Warnock’s win this week was impressive. For Republicans, it was a lesson learned. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put it plainly when he said last August, “Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” and in no state was that truer than in Georgia in 2022.

    Similar to states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and others where candidates in November failed to convince voters to support them despite their misgivings about Biden, Georgia voters simply could not back the former president’s pick for the Senate.