Bring on the runoff!

Heading into the Georgia Senate race, with all indicators pointing to a close result, there were three plausible outcomes. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock could narrowly win. Herschel Walker could narrowly win. Or both candidates could fail to meet the 50% threshold, setting up a runoff election a month from now. As it turns out, we’re heading into door number three.

This has set off some amount of consternation among Democratic activists: another Senate runoff in Georgia? How long is the end 2022 election cycle going to last? But here’s the thing. There are several reasons why this runoff fundamentally favors Warnock right out of the gate.

First, Warnock won this round by about 15,000 to 20,000 votes (depending on the final straggling tallies). All Warnock has to do is get similar numbers in the December runoff, and he’ll win the seat. For the record, Warnock won Georgia on Tuesday by far more votes than Biden won Georgia by in 2020.

Second, Brian Kemp isn’t popular with anyone nationally, but he is the kind of traditional conservative Republican who’s popular in Georgia. The numbers suggest there are conservative voters who turned out specifically to vote for Kemp, and then also voted for Walker as well. But Kemp won’t be on the runoff ballot. So Walker will have difficulty repeating the numbers he got this week, and he’ll need to add voters just to get the same (losing) number of voters he got last night.

Third, with only this one race going on across the nation over the next months, the Democrats can consolidate all their heavy hitting campaigners (Obama, Biden, Oprah, etc) into the same race. The Republicans have no heavy hitters to begin with, so consolidation doesn’t benefit them. And we already know that Donald Trump can’t help Walker even if he tries.

Fourth, the upcoming month long national focus on just the Georgia runoff will ensure more attention on Walker – who generally tries to avoid the media, and usually hurts himself whenever he speaks. But in a runoff race, Walker can’t continue his existing pattern of hiding most days and hoping the national media gets distracted by races in other states.

Also, if the Democrats do win Arizona and Nevada, they’ll already have 50 seats. The Republicans wouldn’t be able to win a majority even with Georgia, and would be less likely to turn out. But Democrats would fight hard for a 51st seat, out of a strong desire to weaken Sinema and Manchin.

So other than the fact that it’s going to take a month, how is it bad news that we’re going to a runoff? Would we rather that Walker had won outright on Tuesday, just so it would be over sooner? Of course not. So the runoff is good news. It’s not the great news that an outright Warnock win would have been, but it’s good news.

If you’re depleted and you need to take a day or three off before coming back ready to fight for Warnock, that’s totally understandable. But let’s take the runoff as good news, and let’s get ready to saddle up one more time for one of our very best Senators. Now is a good time to sign up on Warnock’s volunteer page, so the campaign can reach out to you at the right time. You can also donate to Warnock’s campaign.