Dec. 2, 2022 coverage of the Georgia runoff election

President Joe Biden delivered remarks at a Boston fundraiser for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock on Friday, telling a crowd of supporters that Warnock’s Republican opponent “is a different breed" from Republicans he dealt with while in the Senate.

Biden’s comments about Herschel Walker were off-camera and covered by reporters traveling with him to Massachusetts.  

During his remarks, which lasted just over 20 minutes, Biden acknowledged the hurdles Democrats have had to clear to pass legislation in an evenly divided Senate.

“Manchin is a good person, but he has different views, and he represents a different constituency than most of us do. Same with the senator from Arizona,” he said, per the pool, referring to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and alluding to Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, who has not always supported Biden's agenda. “The reason we need Warnock is we cannot have every vote hanging on a single thread.” 

Biden joked that he’d remain a safeguard against a GOP-controlled House in the new Congress following his meeting this week with Congressional leadership.

“When Republicans came to see me, the future leadership in the House — they're telling me what they can do, what they were going to do, so I'm sitting at the desk and I just went like this with my pen and said ‘veto,’” Biden said.

The fundraiser took place in the home of Jim and Cathleen Stone. Jim Stone is the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

About 40% of Black voters who voted in November’s general election in Georgia have already voted in the runoff, through Thursday, according to an analysis from the data firm Catalist. 

More than 1.47 million votes have been cast in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.  

The share of Black voters who have returned to the polls is larger than the share of White voters who have. About 30% of White voters who voted in November have voted in the runoff so far, according to the Catalist analysis.  

Catalist is a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations. 

By age, younger voters who voted in November are much less likely to have already voted in the runoff. Only 19% of voters 18-29 who voted in the first round have come back to the polls so far, while about 34% of voters 50-64 and 49% of voters 65 or older who voted in November have voted again. 

Not surprisingly, almost all (93%) of the voters returning to the polls so far voted before Election Day in the general as well. 

There are also about 54,000 Georgians who have already voted in the runoff but who didn’t vote in November. Those voters are about 40% Black and 44% White and about 71% of them come from suburban areas. About 29% of them are 18-29 years old, while only 19% are 65 or older. 

These data aren’t predictive of ultimate outcomes. In recent years Democrats have been more likely to vote before Election Day while Republicans have preferred to vote on Election Day.

Early in-person voting in the Georgia runoff ends Friday.

Former President Barack Obama held a rally with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock Thursday in Atlanta with the runoff election just a few days away.

Even with control of the Senate already secured, the stakes are high as Democrats seek to secure a majority outright instead of the power-sharing agreement currently in place. The final days of the campaign have been a sprint to the finish — with the party pouring millions into the race since the midterm election in November.

Much of the rally was focused on motivating supporters to continue to turn out to the polls if they have not already, even as more than a million people have already cast their ballot early.

Obama said he was encouraged by early voter turnout numbers, but said that more needs to be done to secure Warnock's chances, noting that early voting in the state ends Friday.

"Now I know a lot of folks have been voting early over the last few days, that is a good thing. That is an encouraging thing. But — you knew there was a but — plenty of folks haven’t voted yet. Tomorrow is the last day for early voting and then we need to get people out to the polls on Tuesday, which means we still got work to do," Obama said.

“You have the power to determine the course of this country,” Obama said, telling people to encourage their friends and neighbors to vote.

Though Democrats already won control of the Senate with 50 seats, the former president talked about why that 51st seat is so key for the party.

"It prevents one person from holding up everything," he said. “That one vote in the Senate could make all the difference," Obama added, pointing to things like committee assignments and getting bills passed.

Warnock, who took the stage before the former president, had a similar message: "We got to keep our foot on the gas all the way to victory."

The incumbent Senator also took a stab at his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, saying, “This race is about character and competence" — a common attack on his opponent he has made throughout his campaign.

Here's an updated look at ad spending totals in the Georgia US Senate runoff — including spending since Nov. 9, the day after the midterms, and future reservations through Dec. 6, the day of the runoff:

Total ad spending is up to more than $77 million, and Democrats have spent more than twice as much as Republicans, $52.9 million to $24.2 million. 

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, at $24.8 million, has spent more on advertising alone than all GOP advertisers combined, while Georgia Honor, funded by a top Democratic super PAC, has spent an additional $21.2 million on his behalf.

The top GOP advertiser is the McConnell-aligned super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent about $11.6 million so far (the group had announced plans to spend $14 million total on the race). Republican candidate Herschel Walker, meanwhile, has spent about $9.7 million on advertising so far.

Warnock, who enjoyed a fundraising surge of over $50 million in the most recent FEC reporting period, has continued to pump out new advertisements, with 8 new spots so far this week. Yesterday, his campaign released a 60-second ad featuring former President Obama — who is set to campaign with Warnock in Georgia today — stumping for the incumbent Democrat. "You can trust leaders who are driven by something bigger than politics. That's why you need to re-elect my friend and your senator, Reverend Raphael Warnock," Obama says in the spot.

And in another new ad released by Warnock's campaign Thursday morning, the Georgia senator reminisces about his father's work ethic, saying, "The last few years have exhausted us all. But we're moving forward in ways big and small."

Walker and his GOP allies, meanwhile, have launched comparatively few new ads this week — one from Walker and one from Senate Leadership Fund. Walker's campaign aired a new TV spot Tuesday morning that features clips from a police interview with Sen. Raphael Warnock’s ex-wife, who accused him of running over her foot with his car in March of 2020, though no charges were filed. “Find out who Reverend Warnock really is,” the ad’s narrator says. 

Meanwhile SLF's new spot features Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who ran ahead of Walker in the general election, winning reelection comfortably. Kemp touts Walker's candidacy, saying, "families are struggling because of Biden's inflation in Washington won't change unless we make them." He continues, "That's why I'm backing Herschel."

More than 1 million Georgians have voted early (absentee or in-person) ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff election. The compact nature of the early voting period for the runoff makes it difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison with what occurred during the November general election.

Still, there are a number of notable trends that suggest an upside for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in his race against Republican Herschel Walker. This doesn’t mean Warnock is definitely going to win, but the data indicates you’d rather be Warnock than Walker right now.

When examining early voting, keep in mind we do not know how people are voting in the runoff. We know how voters as a group cast ballots in the general election. Groups that were more favorable for Warnock seem to be voting in larger numbers now compared with the general election when a similar number of early ballots were cast.

Remember too that Warnock got more votes than Walker in November, even though both failed to take a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff. This means Walker needs to gain more (or lose fewer) voters than Warnock in order to win.

Perhaps the best way to see if Walker voters are turning out in larger numbers is to look at race and age. Warnock won Black voters 90% to 8% in November’s general election. Walker won White voters 70% to 28%.

So far in early voting, Black voters make up a little more than 33% of the electorate, while White voters account for 54%. At a roughly similar point in the general election based on the number of early votes cast, about 31% of voters were Black and about 57% were White.

This may seem like a small difference, but given the large partisan gap between Black and White voters, it suggests that those who have gone to the polls so far are more Democratic than at a similar point in the general election.

I should note that a number of Democratic counties opened up early in-person voting sooner than Republican-leaning counties. That said, voters in all Georgia counties have been able to cast a ballot for a number of days now, and the racial voting gap between the general election and runoff has not gone away.

Keep reading here.

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday described GOP nominee Herschel Walker as a comically unserious candidate unfit to represent Georgia on Capitol Hill.

In his second visit to Atlanta during the campaign – having previously stumped for Warnock ahead of the Nov. 8 election – Obama just a few days ahead of the run-off doubled down on his past criticism and added a few new flourishes. 

For those who had forgotten his past remarks, Obama said Walker provided further evidence of his lack of credentials “every time he opens his mouth.”

The former president’s visit comes days before the end of a condensed run-off campaign of only four weeks, down from the nine the state previously mandated before the passage of a controversial voting law in 2021. Obama urged the audience not to become complacent, alternately praising the Democrat’s character and lampooning Walker’s assorted controversies and bizarre campaign trail rhetoric. 

Obama’s presence, too, marked a stark difference between the two campaigns.

While Democrats were able to call on Obama, a singularly popular figure within their party, to energize voters, the most popular Republican nationally, former President Donald Trump, has stayed away for fear of alienating swing voters. (Democrats, though, have also been cautious in choosing surrogates: President Joe Biden has not appeared in Georgia.) 

The riff followed a puzzling sidebar from Walker during a rally a few weeks ago, when the Republican recounted having recently seen a movie that he said was called “Fright Night, Freak Night, or some type of night.”

 “I don’t know if you know, but vampires are some cool people, are they not? But let me tell you something that I found out: a werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that,” Walker said, before adding: “So I don’t want to be a vampire anymore. I want to be a werewolf.”

 Obama had clearly become familiar with the video, which Warnock has replayed in part in recent campaign ads.

“In case you were wondering, Mr. Walker decided he wanted to be a werewolf. Which is great. As far as I'm concerned, he can be anything he wants to be. Except for a United States senator,” Obama said, before continuing with another story about Walker’s past claim of having let Obama beat him at basketball only to admit, later, that the two had never met.

In a less bombastic portion of his speech, Obama pushed back against any suggestion that the Georgia Senate race had diminished in importance after Democrats clinched a Senate majority last month.

 “An extra senator gives Democrats more breathing room on important bills. It prevents one person from holding up everything. It also puts us in a better position a couple of years from now when you've got another election and the Senate map is going to be tilted in the favor of Republicans. And it'll help prevent Republicans from getting a filibuster-proof majority that could allow them to do things like passing a federal abortion ban.”

Many Democrats might be wondering how the Georgia Senate runoff is even close. Republican Herschel Walker’s campaign has suffered through a number of scandals, yet he still only narrowly trails Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in our latest CNN/SSRS poll. 

It might lead some to offer the common refrain: “Nothing matters.” 

But the poll is an indication, in my mind, that candidate quality still matters when it comes to voter preferences. Walker would likely be ahead were it not for what voters see as his flaws as a candidate. 

For one thing, Walker is vastly underperforming the fundamentals baseline. President Joe Biden’s disapproval rating is 57% in Georgia, but Walker is at just 48% of the vote against 52% for Warnock, according to the CNN poll. 

Why this matters: Warnock has a 99-point lead among the 42% of voters who approve of Biden, but Walker only has a 67-point lead among those who disapprove of Biden.  

The reason Walker isn’t doing better among those who disapprove of Biden is simple: Voters who back Warnock while also disapproving of Biden simply don’t like Walker. His favorable rating among this group is a mere 5%. 

This looks a lot like a pre-runoff New York Times/Siena College poll. Although voters in that survey (like this one) slightly preferred Warnock, they also slightly preferred a Republican-controlled Senate.  

Indeed, voters in the CNN poll who said the candidates’ positions on the issues were more important than their character and integrity favored Walker by a 29-point margin. 

They were overwhelmed, however, by Warnock’s 49-point margin among those who said that character and integrity were more important.  

If Warnock ends up winning, it will be a sign that candidate quality still matters. That’s a lesson Republicans learned this year in a number of states, where Democratic candidates won despite Biden’s unpopularity.

President Biden said he will be helping Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s runoff campaign by fundraising for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Boston today. 

Biden is in Boston to greet the Prince and Princess of Wales for a fundraiser, the White House said Wednesday. The Royal couple is visiting Boston for the second annual Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony.

Biden initially said he was going to Georgia, before quickly correcting himself. 

Biden did not visit the state ahead of the runoff election between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

In the past, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said Biden’s “message very much resonated his message on his economic policy” whether he visited a state or not. 

More than 1.47 million votes have been cast in Georgia ahead of next week’s Senate runoff election, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state’s office.

More than 294,000 Georgians voted early in person on Thursday — more than on Wednesday, but less than on Monday or Tuesday.

Today is the last day of early voting. Georgia has had several days this week with historically high early voting numbers, but overall the state is on pace to have far fewer pre-election voters than in the 2021 runoff, when more than 3.1 million Georgians voted by mail or in person before Election Day. 

This runoff, with its compressed timeframe, has had far fewer days of early voting than either the 2021 runoff or last month’s general election.