ATLANTA — The candidates in Georgia's U.S. Senate race will have to reckon with voter fatigue over the next month.
"It's something I’m going to have to participate in, even though I’m really not excited about it. I just really want it to be over with," Veronica Riley-Smith, an Atlanta voter who is finding the continuing political drumbeat a bit exhausting, said.
She was intrigued during the U.S. Senate campaign between Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock. Now she's making plans to cast another vote in a race she voted in once already.
"It’s tiring. It’s monotonous," she said Friday. "It’s 'come on, let’s just get it over with.'"
Last year, when two U.S. Senate races went to runoffs, nearly half-a-million voters decided not to vote the second time. More than 9 percent of those November voters skipped the January runoff.
"I really don’t feel like having to do it over again because it’s already been done," Deya Fleming said of the seemingly endless loop of campaign commercials, exhausting enough the first time around. She said the second round - as the holiday season approaches - will be unwelcome, and that Nov. 8 should have been the final factor.
"I was enjoying November 8th. No commercials whatsoever for a twenty four hour period," DeKalb voter Peter Whitehouse said. "And then next day, right back at it."
Whitehouse says he retains his enthusiasm for using his right to vote, as the extra trip to the polls will be worth it.
"Oh I’m definitely going to vote," added Travail Sinclair, a Clayton County voter. "That’s they only way you get rights. That’s the only way you get to decide who you want in charge."
The campaigns of Warnock and Walker will try to minimize the expected drop off of voters in the runoff. Whichever campaign does it best is likely to prevail when the votes are counted.