Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock faces off against Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia's explosive US Senate race

• Democrat Raphael Warnock is running against Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia's US Senate race.
• Warnock was first elected to the Senate in a 2021 runoff election alongside Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who was first elected in a January 2021 runoff, is running for a full six-year term and faces Republican Herschel Walker.

Georgia Senate candidates

Warnock, the senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, was elected to the Senate alongside fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff. In the upper chamber, Warnock serves on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee; the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; and the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

In the initial November 2020 special US Senate election, Warnock came in first place with nearly 33% of the vote in a multicandidate field that included then-Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Since Warnock received less than 50% of the vote, a separate runoff was triggered in accordance with Georgia law.

Campaigning with now-President Joe Biden in shortly before the January 2021 runoff election, Warnock pledged that he would vote to support taxpayers receiving $1,400 stimulus checks as part of a relief package to combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the evenly-divided Senate, Warnock's vote has proved key on a number of legislative items, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed without any Republican support; the senator's support has also allowed Biden to swiftly install a raft of judges to the federal bench.

Walker — a former University of Georgia football standout who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 and went on to play in the NFL from 1986 to 1997 — has near-universal name recognition in the Peach State.

President Donald Trump endorsed the former professional football, with whom he has enjoyed a friendship for decades. Walker easily won the GOP primary in May.

Walker has sought to use Warnock's support of Biden's domestic policy agenda against him; the president won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, but the Democratic commander-in-chief's standing in the state has deteriorated since then.

A victory by Walker would be a major coup for national Republicans, who have seen their once-firm standing in Georgia diminish as the Democratic-leaning Atlanta metropolitan area continues to grow and become more influential in statewide races.

But the outwardly pro-family and anti-abortion Walker has been dogged by revelations that he was hiding "secret" children from public view and a Daily Beast report that he paid for a former girlfriend's abortion — an assertion Walker denies.

Warnock's re-election would maintain a Democratic foothold in the Deep South and significantly raise the party's chances of retaining control of the chamber after the midterms.

Voting history in Georgia

Before Warnock was elected last year, the Senate seat that he now occupies was held by Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who in December 2019 resigned his seat for health reasons. (Isakson died in December 2021.)

Isakson, a former House member from suburban Atlanta, had first been elected to the seat in 2004 and was reelected in 2010 and 2016.

On the presidential level, Georgia had been solidly Republican for decades. Until 2020, the only Democratic presidential wins over the last 50 years came from native son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992.

Biden won the state in 2020 due to his robust performance in the Atlanta metropolitan area and his strong showing in smaller cities such as Columbus and Savannah.

The money race

According to OpenSecrets, Warnock has raised $86.6 million, spent nearly $76 million, and has $22.8 million in cash on hand, as of September 30. Walker has raised $31.6 million, spent $24.3 million, and has nearly $7.4 million left to spend, as of September 30.

Several dozen political action committees, super PACs, party committees, and politically active nonprofit organizations have together spent more than $100 million advocating for or against the candidates.

What experts say

The race between Warnock and Walker is rated as a "toss-up" by Inside Elections, a "toss-up" by The Cook Political Report, and a "toss-up" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.