All You Need to Know About the Georgia Runoff Election
On Tuesday Nov. 8, the United States held its 2022 Midterm Election, deciding key House, Senate and gubernatorial seats. But after all the votes were counted, the state of Georgia had a problem. None of the candidates for the Senate had reached a majority.
The state’s incumbent senator, Raphael Warnock (D), received the most votes, with 49.4 percent of voters in Georgia giving him their support. His main opponent, Herschel Walker (R), received 48.5 percent of the votes. The remaining 2.1 percent went to Chase Oliver, a member of the Libertarian party. As no candidate received a majority (over 50 percent) of the vote, no winner could be determined. But Georgia still needed to elect a senator. The solution: a runoff election, to be held on Dec. 6, 2022.
Runoff elections happen in situations like this, where no winner can be called. The two candidates who receive the most votes, in this case Warnock and Walker, move on to the runoff. With only two candidates, someone will win the majority and a winner will be determined.
With any election, knowing your candidates is vital. The rapidity of this election’s turnaround from midterm to runoff produced a massive advertising campaign in Georgia that attempted to garner the support of voters who did not have a background on both candidates.