The Bakersfield Californian

Runoff for Georgia US Senate seat takes place today

BY BILL BARROW

ATLANTA — Raphael Warnock is the first Black U.S. senator from Georgia, having broken the color barrier for one of the original 13 states with a special election victory in January 2021, almost 245 years after the nation’s founding.

Now he hopes to add another distinction by winning a full six-year term in today’s runoff. Standing in the way is another Black man, Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

Both men have common upbringings in the Deep South in the wake of the civil rights movement and would make history as the first Black person elected from Georgia to a full Senate term. Yet Warnock and Walker have cut different paths and offer clearly opposing visions for the country, including on race and racism.

Black voters say the choice is stark: Warnock, the senior minister of Martin Luther King’s Atlanta church, echoes traditional liberal notions of the Black experience; and Walker, a University of Georgia football icon, speaks the language of white cultural conservatism and mocks Warnock’s interpretations of King, among other matters.

“Republicans seem to have thought they could put up Herschel Walker and confuse Black folks,” said Bryce Berry, president of Georgia’s Young Democrats chapter and a senior at Morehouse College, a historically Black campus where both King and Warnock graduated.

Standing beneath a campus statue of King, Berry continued: “We are not confused.”

Other Black voters raised questions about Walker’s past — his false claims about his business and professional accomplishments, instances of violence against his ex-wife — and the way he stumbles over some public policy discussions as a candidate. Some said they believe GOP leaders are taking advantage of Walker’s fame as a beloved Heisman Trophy winner and national champion running back for the Georgia Bulldogs.

“How can you let yourself be used that way as a Black person?” asked Angela Heard, a state employee from Jonesboro. “I think you should be better in touch with your people instead of being a crony for someone.”

Even some Black conservatives who back Walker lament his candidacy as a missed opportunity to expand Republicans’ reach to a key part of the electorate that remains overwhelmingly Democratic.

“I don’t think Herschel Walker has enough relatable life experience to the average Black American for them to identify with him,” said Avion Abreu, a 34-year-old Realtor who lives in Marietta and has supported Walker since the GOP primary campaign.

Warnock led Walker by about 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast in the November general election. AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 3,200 voters in the state, showed that Warnock won 90 percent of Black voters. Walker, meanwhile, won 68 percent of white voters.

VoteCast data in the 2021 runoff suggested that Black voters helped fuel Warnock’s victory over then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler, comprising almost a third of that electorate, slightly more than the Black share of the 2020 general electorate.

The senator’s campaign has said since then that he’d have to assemble a multiracial coalition, including many moderate white voters, to win reelection in a midterm election year. But they’ve not disputed that a strong Black turnout would be necessary regardless.

The Republican National Committee has answered with its own uptick in Black voter outreach, opening community centers in several heavily Black areas of the state. But the general election results raise questions about the effectiveness.

Abreu said she believes Walker still can win the runoff but has to do it with the usual, overwhelmingly white GOP coalition moved by party loyalty and the 60-year-old candidate’s emphasis on cultural issues. His campaign, she said, “hasn’t told the full story of Herschel’s life and related that to people, with an explanation of how he is going to help them.”

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2022-12-06T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-06T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://bakersfield.pressreader.com/article/281694028811407

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