ATLANTA — Georgia’s senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is trying to win a full six-year term, and Georgia football icon and Republican challenger Herschel Walker could determine the outcome of the Senate party breakdown.
Georgia has seen historic early voting numbers as FiveThirtyEight‘s polling shows the race between Walker and Warnock is the tightest Senate race in the country.
Meanwhile, for governor, incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp is trying to fend off a repeated challenge from Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost to Kemp narrowly in 2018.
Here’s a breakdown of these key races in Georgia:
Senate: Warnock v. Walker
Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is intensifying his critique of Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker ahead of Election Day to say the celebrity athlete is fundamentally unfit for Capitol Hill.
Warnock’s shift comes after avoiding direct attacks on Walker and instead trying to pitch his work on Capitol Hill as bipartisan and good for all Georgians.
From a rally with former President Barack Obama to a statewide bus tour that runs through the eve of Election Day on Tuesday, Warnock has hammered Walker as a “pathological liar” who has exaggerated his business, academic, professional and philanthropic achievements and been accused of violence against his family members and of paying for girlfriends’ abortions despite his public opposition to the procedure.
“This is a man who lies about the most basic facts of his life,” Warnock said on a stage he shared with Obama. “And now he wants the rest of us … to somehow imagine now that he’s a United States senator. … Herschel Walker is not ready. He’s not ready. Not only is he not ready. He’s not fit.”
Walker, who denies he’s ever paid for any abortions, is sticking to an argument he’s made for months: that Warnock is a rubber stamp for President Joe Biden and a Democratic congressional majority that Walker blames for inflation, rising crime and a continued flow of immigrants across the U.S. border with Mexico.
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“He talked about I’m not ready. No, you’re not ready,” Walker answered Thursday in suburban Atlanta. “Because you either voted with Joe Biden 96% of the time, or you had no clue what you were doing. You pick which one you want – no clue of what you’re doing or you voted with him 96% of the time which is headed in the wrong direction.”
The Georgia matchup could help determine which party controls the Senate for the final two years of Biden’s term. The chamber is now divided 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the tie-breaking vote.
As of Monday, more than 2.5 million Georgia voters cast advanced ballots, about 20% more than the number who voted early for the 2018 midterms.
Gubernatorial: Abrams v. Kemp
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams offered differing visions for Georgia on abortion, the economy and voting.
At their most recent debate, Kemp said “it’s not my desire” to have further abortion restrictions but that he would consider bills sent to him by a Republican legislature. Abrams said she would support legal abortion until a fetus was viable outside the womb.
Abrams accused Kemp of using voting laws to aid his own elections while Kemp said Abrams lies about voting in Georgia to aid and enrich herself.
Former President Donald Trump had backed former Sen. David Perdue for governor against Kemp is retribution for not going along with lies about the 2020 election being stolen.
ABC News and ABC Owned TV Stations contributed to this report.
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