ATLANTA- Whatever happens on Election Day, it doesn’t seem like Georgia’s GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker will lose on Tuesday.
At worst, he and his opponent — incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) — will head to a runoff election. At best — as one top Atlanta-based pollster says is still likely — he will win outright thanks to in part to the success of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) as well as Walker’s success amongst black voters.
“Ironically, the poor performance by [Democrat gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams in her contest appears to be impacting Sen. Warnock in his race,” pollster Matt Towery recently told Fox 5.
Towery, who heads up the polling firm InsiderAdvantage, says that his final poll shows that Walker is currently leading 49% to 47%. In order to win outright, either candidate must win 50% or more of the total vote.
Towery says that the strength of other GOP candidates on the ballot could assist the former Heisman Trophy winner over that hump.
“Brian Kemp’s strong performance may well ‘lift all boats and put Walker over the necessary 50% plus one needed to escape a runoff,” he added in a statement. “We expect Kemp to hit at least the 54% mark in the final vote and likely above that.”
Towery also said that Walker is hitting all the right demographics that are key to forming a winning coalition.
“The final breakdown of early voting in Georgia indicates a less than robust African American turnout,” he explained. “Our weighting adjusts that demographic at a higher final percentage in the event there is a more traditional/more robust turnout on Election Day. While African Americans traditionally vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats, our recent surveys have shown Walker with a solid 20% of that vote. Among white voters, Walker is surpassing the ‘magic’ 61% usually needed for a Republican to win in the state.”
Another poll by Trafalgar Group also shows that Walker is inching toward victory on Tuesday night. According to Trafalgar, Walker leads Warnock 49.7% to 46.5%.
The momentum appears to be on Walker’s side as well. As pointed out by National Review’s Rich Lowry, the Republican hasn’t trailed in the last six polls in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Despite Warnock attempting to bill himself as a moderate, Walker has been hitting the Democrat hard for his support for President Joe Biden’s agenda.
“He talked about I’m not ready. No, you’re not ready,” Walker said recently in response to criticism from Warnock that he was unqualified for the Senate. “Because you either voted with Joe Biden 96% of the time, or you had no clue what you were doing. You pick which one you want — no clue of what you’re doing or you voted with him 96% of the time which is headed in the wrong direction.”
Should the election go to a runoff, the top two vote-getters will face off against each other again on December 6.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
