ATLANTA — The two candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff got their second wind Thursday– with campaign events in Cherokee county and downtown Atlanta.
The campaigns go into the runoff knowing that fewer voters are likely to show up to vote in the Senate race a second time.
For Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, it’s the second time in two years that he’s faced voters in a statewide runoff.
"We've done this before," he told a crowd of about 100 people on Auburn Avenue Wednesday. "We know how to win a runoff. But it doesn’t mean it's going to be easy."
The challenge will be to get voters who already cast their ballots for a long list of candidates for the November election to show up and vote in just one race for a December runoff.
In 2020, two U.S. Senate races in Georgia went to runoffs– between then-U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Jon Ossoff; and when Warnock faced U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Both incumbent senators lost to their Democratic challengers.
Nearly five million voters cast Senate ballots in the November 2020 election.
But when it went to a runoff, 467,221 fewer voters cast ballots. More than 9 percent of the November voters skipped the runoff.
Part of the dropoff in 2020 was attributable to false claims by then-President Donald Trump that the election was fraudulent. Some Trump backers steered clear of the runoff because of that discredited narrative.
On November 8, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver drained away just enough votes to keep Warnock and Walker from reaching the 50% +1 vote threshold required to avoid a runoff.
Walker told Fox News Wednesday he’s ready for another month of campaigning.
"And I know they’re going to throw more at me, even the kitchen sink. But I can catch it. I’m going to keep moving forward," Walker said.
Warnock took no questions as his event ended. His supporter, U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-DeKalb County) predicted voters won’t have trouble getting motivated.
"There's a clear choice voters have. If they look at those two choices, undisturbed by a third (Libertarian) choice – they’re going to go with the man who has... the vision to lead this country forward," Johnson said, referring to Warnock.
Johnson said he would like to see Trump campaign in Georgia on behalf of Walker; Trump encouraged Walker to relocate from Texas and run in Georgia. Johnson said a Trump visit would show voters an unmistakable difference between the two candidates.