Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock Head to Dec. 6 Run-Off for Crucial Senate Seat

Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will now head into a run-off election on Dec. 6, after they both failed to secure 50% of the vote needed to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate. Exit polls showed Warnock, a reverend and staunch advocate for reproductive rights, appearing to narrowly edge out Walker, a fake cop and former NFL player accused of domestic violence by multiple women and his son Christian, by just under 1%, while Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver secured 2% of the vote. Georgia requires the victor to win at least 50% of the vote or a run-off election is required.

Warnock has served in the Senate for just under two years, since he won a special election in January 2021. He and Jon Ossoff, his Democratic Senate colleague also representing Georgia, were the pivotal, tie-breaking votes that allowed Congress to pass a covid stimulus package in 2021. The winner of Warnock’s seat will likely decide who holds the Senate next year.

In stark contrast with Warnock’s record as a pro-abortion rights pastor, Walker’s varying scandals have followed him across the campaign trail. In addition to the allegations of abuse, which include allegedly holding a gun to a woman’s head and allegedly threatening to kill his son Christian and Christian’s mother, Walker has been publicly accused of impregnating and paying for at least two different women’s abortions, despite his stated pro-life values.

For the last several months, Walker’s campaign has essentially been a scandalous case study in hypocrisy. Despite railing against absentee fathers and spewing racist dog whistles about the American nuclear family, earlier this year, reporters exposed that Walker had several kids with several different women despite formerly lying that he only had two. Shortly after one woman anonymously revealed that Walker had paid for her abortion, she also revealed that one of Walker’s four acknowledged children is hers, and that Walker hasn’t seen his young son in years—Walker’s communication with their child, the woman said, is limited to sporadic texts and Christmas gifts.

Beyond a number of reported exposés into his numerous hypocrisies, Walker’s own jarring gaffes have also lit up the campaign trail. At an on-stage debate with Warnock last month, he held out a fake police badge as “proof” he’s an honorary cop. Before that, he insisted that trans kids can’t get into Heaven, self-identified as “not that smart,” and said the solution to the devastating Uvalde shooting was to create “a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media.”

On Monday, Warnock’s final plea to Georgia voters was pretty understandable: “C’mon folks, I can’t have Herschel Walker representing my mama,” he wrote on Twitter.

Well, Georgia, it looks like the nail-biter race between Walker—a man who thinks we have too many trees, holds a pretty heinous record of alleged domestic violence, and wants to ban all abortion despite personally benefiting from abortion rights—and Warnock will continue until the special election set for next month. Good luck to us all.