The Georgia Senate runoff elections have finally concluded after a close fight between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker.
A senior adviser to Walker told CNN that the former NFL running back will concede the race to Warnock tonight.
In the November midterm elections, neither candidate managed to get over 50% of the votes.
Warnock’s win means that the Democrats will retain their control of the US Senate without having to depend on the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will now have stronger control over key committees of the US Senate.
This is not the first time that Warnock has won a runoff election. He had first defeated then-incumbent, Republican Kelly Loeffler, in the 2020 runoff election after both of them failed to secure more than 50% of the votes in the midterms.
VP Harris has congratulated Warnock after his victory:
Walker’s defeat will be a blow to former President Donald Trump, who had earlier announced his candidature for the 2024 presidential elections. Trump had been vocal about his support for Walker during the latter’s midterm campaigns. Most of the Republican candidates backed by Trump in the midterms failed to secure victories.
The Georgia runoff election was a tightly contested affair, with Warnock winning by the narrowest margin of 50.8% to Walker’s 49.2% by the time 98% of the votes were counted.
The runoff election saw a record number of voter turnout. According to a senior election official, 3.3 million people had cast their votes in the election, which is a Georgia record.
On Friday, 353,000 people had turned up for early voting. This was also a Georgia record in terms of the highest number of votes cast in a single day in early voting.
