For the second straight cycle one of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats will be decided by a runoff. But the rules have changed since 2020, as the state’s latest election law shortened the runoff period and moved some of the dates around. What hasn’t changed though – Georgia could once again decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, pending the results of too-close-to-call races in Arizona and Nevada.
Here’s what you need to know:
- The runoff is set for Tuesday, December 6th. That’s a four week runoff period, a far cry from the previous nine weeks.
- If you haven’t already registered, too bad – the deadline for registering for runoff voting was November 7th.
- Early voting will start either Saturday, November 26th, (in counties with weekend voting) or Monday, November 28th, and will last one week. You’ll be able to see early voting locations once counties publish that data on the Secretary of State’s website
- You can request an absentee ballot now, but they won’t be sent out until November 18th. So you’ll have to be quick about returning them, as ballots must be turned in by December 6th.
Gov. Brian Kemp picked up an astonishing 200,000 more votes than fellow Republican Herschel Walker in the general election. Walker will have to not only get his GOP base to turn out, he will also have to try to coax back some of the ticket-splitting voters who voted for Kemp and Warnock, or who left the Senate ballot empty. Another key thing to watch – in Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly clings to a small lead over Republican Blake Masters in their Senate race. In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt leads Democrat Catherin Cortez Masto by only 25,000 votes. If those results hold then Georgia’s runoff will determine which party controls the Senate. If they both go to the Democrats, though, then Georgia’s result would be rendered irrelevant, (at least on a national scale) which could produce some very odd results as the runoff goes from incredibly important to… not so much.
