Strong turnout in Republican areas at the end of early voting in the Senate runoff in Georgia is giving conservatives hope that Herschel Walker can close a 200,000 vote gap Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is estimated to hold. For Walker to win, Election-Day turnout, expected to favor the Republican, needs to hit at least one million votes.
On the day of the November 2022 General Election, about 1.5 million voters turned out, according to Mack Parnell, executive director of the Georgia branch of the nonpartisan Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Obviously, you know, it’d be a miracle to get that same 1.5 million out, so you’re probably not going to do that. So the magic number in order to make up the margin that can be ascertained for Raphael Warnock, it’s got to be at least a million voters to come out” Parnell said, noting that would give Walker and Warnock even chances.
To hit needed turnout, conservatives have built a large ground game, hoping to combat Warnock’s strong presence in TV advertising.
“Faith and Freedom Coalition has knocked on just shy of 400,000 doors,” he said. “I think we’re going to get to 400,000, and then I know Governor Kemp’s ground operation has been up and running for the Senate Leadership fund.”
The Senate Leadership Fund, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, has rented Kemp’s data mining operation. SBA Pro-Life America and Americans for Prosperity have also been working the ground game for Walker. Tea Party Patriots Action honorary Chairman Jenny Beth Martin said her organization has focused on poll watching, get-out-the-vote phone banking, and has sent two mailers to two million households.
Rain is predicted for Tuesday in Georgia, which typically impacts voter turnout. Parnell said that might not be bad for Walker, since it might discourage low-enthusiasm suburban Warnock voters who split their ticket between Republican Governor Bryan Kemp and Warnock in November.
Martin said that voters who might have been turned off by long lines during early voting will vote Tuesday with more polling locations open so voting will take less time.
“I think that that is something that is lost on a lot of people that do not live in Georgia, because they’re hearing there are these long lines, and there was all this turnout, but they’re concerned about turnout on the Republican side,” she said.
“Tomorrow is our day, and if we do as well as we did in the general election in terms of our margin, and if people turn out a million plus, which I believe they will, then Herschel’s going to be the next U.S. Senator from Georgia,” Faith and Freedom Coalition Founder Ralph Reed said Monday on The John Fredericks Radio Show.
“We will have knocked on 400,000 doors statewide. We will have made somewhere between half a million and a million get-out-the vote calls. We will send out two million get-out-the-vote texts. We will drop two million pieces of voter education mail, and we will have put voter guides informing voters of faith where the candidates stand on the key issues in 5,000 churches statewide, ” Reed said. “This is the biggest faith-based voter education and get-out-the-vote effort in the history of Georgia.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Herschel Walker” by Herschel Walker.
