Warnock, Walker Projected to Advance to Georgia Senate Runoff Election Next Month

L: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in Columbus, Ga., on Oct. 8, 2022. (Megan Varner/Getty Images); R: Georgia Republican Senatorial candidate Herschel Walker in Carrollton, Ga., on Oct. 11, 2022. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and GOP challenger Herschel Walker will head to a runoff next month for the Senate seat in Georgia, according to forecaster Decision Desk on Wednesday.

State election officials already predicted the race would advance to a Dec. 6 runoff earlier on Wednesday. While Warnock was ahead of Walker by a slim margin, he failed to breach the 50 percent threshold that prevents a runoff election from occurring.

As of Wednesday, with some 96 percent of the expected vote reported, Warnock and Walker are tied at around 49 percent each. Warnock is leading by about 17,000 votes.

Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate, got 2.1 percent of the vote. His presence helped deny Warnock and Walker the majority either needed to win outright.

In the runoff, Oliver will not be on the ballot. Only Warnock and Walker will be.

“Right now we have less than 20,000 total votes still out to be counted. That’s not enough to change the race. So this is headed for a runoff,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday morning told “The Brian Kilmeade Show.”

The Georgia race, which is one of the most competitive in the country, will help determine who will take control of the Senate. The remaining races in Nevada and Arizona could also factor into what party takes the majority.

“I’m telling you right now–I didn’t come to lose,” Walker said during remarks on Tuesday night.

Control of the Senate is currently unclear after Democrats picked up a seat in Pennsylvania. Another competitive race broke in Republicans’ favor, as Edison Research and other forecasters projected that incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) would win reelection in Wisconsin.

“Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance won Ohio’s Senate seat to keep it in Republican hands. He defeated Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) by 7 percentage points as of Wednesday.

Republican Ted Budd also prevailed over Democrat Cheri Beasley for North Carolina’s Senate seat.

For this race, Republicans were defending 21 Senate seats as compared with Democrats’ 14 seats.

By early Wednesday, Republicans had flipped a net six Democratic House seats, Edison Research projected, one more than the minimum they need to take over the chamber. That number could go up or down as more final results roll in.

In another unusual development, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY.), the chairman of the committee charged with reelecting House Democrats, conceded he had lost his own race to Republican Mike Lawler in a New York congressional district that lies north of New York City.

Reuters contributed to this report.