As the former president rallied with Senator Raphael Warnock on Thursday, Mr. Warnock’s Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, faced new accusations of violent behavior.
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Former President Barack Obama joined Senator Raphael Warnock onstage in Atlanta on Thursday.
ATLANTA — The final days of Georgia’s Senate runoff campaign have formed a familiar pattern. Democrats try to stir enthusiasm with high-profile surrogates and a million-dollar ad campaign. Republicans largely find themselves in damage control mode. And yet neither party can claim the upper hand, as one of the most hotly contested races of the midterms remains a tossup.
That pattern played out on Thursday as former President Barack Obama visited Georgia for the second time in just over a month to campaign with Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent facing Herschel Walker, the Republican former football star.
Hours before the evening rally, Mr. Walker’s campaign was the focus of attention after a woman who had been in a long-term relationship with Mr. Walker said that he had attacked her in a rage in 2005 after she caught him with another woman.
Mr. Walker’s campaign did not comment about the allegations from the woman, Cheryl Parsa. Ms. Parsa, who said she had been in a five-year relationship with Mr. Walker, described how he had put his hands on her throat and chest and swung his fist at her as she ducked out of the way.
The discordant split screen on the campaign trail on Thursday illustrated the stark differences between the imagery of the two campaigns in a race that polls show remains within the margin of error.
For Democrats, Mr. Obama’s visit was the emotional high point of weeks of nearly nonstop organizing, canvassing and voter mobilization ahead of the runoff election on Tuesday. His last visit to Georgia came in October during the general election, just shy of two weeks before Election Day. His event in Atlanta with Mr. Warnock on Thursday was viewed by Democrats as an ironclad way to ensure that Black voters, a must-win constituency in the state, remain enthusiastic, despite back-to-back elections and runoffs that have sent Georgia voters to the polls four times in the last two years.
“We can’t be complacent,” Mr. Obama told a crowd of hundreds of supporters in Atlanta. “We have to run through the tape. That means all of us doing our part to make sure that Raphael Warnock goes back to the United States Senate.”
What to Know About Georgia’s Senate Runoff
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Another runoff in Georgia. The contest between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, will be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff. It will be the state’s third Senate runoff in two years. Here’s a look at the race:
What is a runoff election? A runoff is essentially a rematch, held when none of the original candidates meet the criteria for winning. Under Georgia law, candidates must receive a majority of the vote to win an election, but Mr. Warnock and Mr. Walker both failed to clear the 50 percent threshold in the Nov. 8 election.
How long will the process take? Two years ago, Georgia was the site of two Senate runoffs that weren’t decided until January 2021, but a new election law shortened the runoff period from nine weeks to four. This year’s runoff will be on Dec. 6, with early voting beginning on Nov. 28, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Why does Georgia have a runoff law? Georgia’s runoff law was created in the 1960s as a way to preserve white political power in a majority-white state and diminish the influence of Black politicians who could more easily win in a multicandidate race with a plurality of the vote, according to a report by the U.S. Interior Department.
What are the stakes? Even though Democratic victories in Arizona and Nevada ensured that the party would hold the Senate, a victory by Mr. Warnock would give Democrats an important 51st seat ahead of a highly challenging Senate map in 2024.
Where does the race stand now? Both sides are pouring money into ads and courting national allies for visits. But the outcome will probably come down to one big factor: turnout. With the shortened window for runoffs, the parties are investing heavily to mobilize voters during the early voting period.
Even as election officials report high turnout in parts of Georgia during the early voting period that ends on Friday, some Democrats continue to fret over motivating voters.
“There’s a lot of folks who are going to turn out regardless,” said John Jackson, chairman of the Democratic Party in DeKalb County, a Democratic stronghold that contains parts of Atlanta, “but we need some inspiration to really turn out the people who — no matter who’s in office, no matter who is senator — their situation can be a bit rough. Housing isn’t affordable. Crime is up. You know, we’ve got to have a better message for them.”
ImageMr. Obama visited Georgia for the second time in just over a month on Thursday to campaign with Mr. Warnock.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Democrats in midterm races in Pennsylvania, Nevada and other battleground states have sought out Mr. Obama to provide that inspiration and to deliver the closing message to their supporters. In Georgia, the former president had a simple instruction for the Democratic voters who had not yet cast ballots during the state’s early voting period: to head to the polls and expand Democrats’ majority in the Senate.
Hundreds of people filled the sprawling central Atlanta venue, Pullman Yards, that was once used to repair damaged railway cars. Many in the audience — mostly Black, with white, Latino and Asian American attendees — raised signs emblazoned with Mr. Warnock’s face and his campaign’s bright yellow “W” logo. Chants of “One more time” and “Sí se puede” — Spanish for “Yes we can” — often broke out.
The Walker campaign had its own national Republican surrogates visiting Georgia on Thursday.
Mr. Walker held a rally in Woodstock, Ga., more than an hour’s drive from the Atlanta event with Mr. Obama, drawing Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Mr. Walker’s most vocal Republican supporters. Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the head of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, plans to rally with Mr. Walker in south Georgia on Friday.
In an email Thursday morning, the Walker campaign used the former president’s visit as a fund-raising vehicle. “Last time President Obama was in Georgia, he rallied 7,000 voters and got wall-to-wall TV coverage for Raphael Warnock in the final days of the general election,” the email to Walker supporters reads. “Now he’s looking to have a bigger impact in the runoff.”
Ms. Parsa, the woman who first made the accusations in The Daily Beast on Thursday, described volatile and at times frightening behavior from Mr. Walker apart from the 2005 episode in an interview with The New York Times.
Ms. Parsa, 61, who lives in Dallas and runs a residential and commercial design firm, said she had first met Mr. Walker after a waiter passed him her business card while they were both eating at a pancake restaurant in 2004. She said Mr. Walker’s dissociative identity disorder — which he has discussed openly, including in a 2008 memoir, and claims to have recovered from — led him to adopt what appeared to be different personalities, sometimes during the course of a single conversation.
Ms. Parsa described him as unstable and ill equipped to represent Georgia in the Senate and said she had written a manuscript about their relationship. Mr. Walker has been accused of violent and threatening behavior by multiple people, including his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, and one of his sons, Christian Walker.
“It is time for him to take responsibility and to be accountable for what he did to all these women and children and entire families,” Ms. Parsa said. “Now the deception is on the American people.”
As the election approaches on Tuesday, Mr. Walker and Mr. Warnock are contending with a shortened campaign schedule.
Last year’s Senate runoff period lasted nine weeks, but the state’s new election law cut the time to four weeks. Each party has deployed a wealth of resources to the state, including millions of dollars in advertising and close to 1,000 new field staff members.
Counties across Georgia have seen record-high turnout numbers in the seven-day early voting period, with hourslong lines at precincts in Metro Atlanta. More than 1.1 million voters have cast ballots in the runoff as of Thursday, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
Democrats have relied on grass-roots organizing and a heavy dose of star power to encourage voters to return to the polls in the final days of the runoff. Michelle Obama, the former first lady, recorded robocalls asking Atlanta voters to cast ballots ahead of her husband’s visit. On Wednesday, two actresses — America Ferrera and Tessa Thompson — held a voter mobilization event for Latino voters in Atlanta.
Mr. Obama also cut a 60-second advertisement for Mr. Warnock that is now running in Atlanta markets. In it, he said he had known Mr. Warnock for years, calling him “a man of great moral integrity” and a “clear voice in the fight to defend our democracy.”
Maggie Astor contributed reporting.
Source: nytimes.com
