Republican candidate Herschel Walker raised $3.3 million in just the first day of his campaign in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.
While Walker finished roughly 35,000 votes behind his Democrat opponent, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote — which means that a runoff election has to be held in four weeks on December 6.
The latest unofficial and incomplete vote tallies show that Warnock received 49.4% of the vote compared to Walker’s 48.5%, while Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver received 2.1%, according to Fox News.
Speaking with Fox News, Walker’s advisers revealed that the Republican candidate had raised $3.3 million within a day after Election Day, with another $1 million coming in before noon on Thursday.
Warnock raised a shocking $103 million for his reelection campaign in the general election, more than doubling Walker’s impressive $39 million. The Democrat candidate has yet to announce any fundraising hauls for the runoff campaign.
A Walker campaign source reportedly told Fox News that they plan to hold rallies in areas with large populations where a good turnout is expected — as they hope to energize supporters of former President Donald Trump, along with those they called “soft Republicans” and independents, to vote in the runoff election.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) previously announced plans to spend $7 million on field efforts in Georgia just for the runoff election.
“We know talking directly to voters through a strong, well-funded ground-game is critical to winning in Georgia, and we’re wasting no time in kick-starting these programs in the runoff,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the chair of the DSCC, said in a statement to Politico.
Meanwhile, Republicans are rallying behind Walker.
Appearing on Newsmax, Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer said that support from big-name Republicans will “swing behind” the Republican candidate in the runoff race, helping push him toward victory.
“I think that they’ll swing behind Herschel Walker. I think you’ll see that we will assemble the resources that we needed. Herschel was outspent in the general election and still performed very strongly,” Shafer said.
“There are more Democratic billionaires than there are Republican billionaires, and there are all kinds of dark money that pours into these races,” he added. “But Herschel overcame that. Brian Kemp overcame that. And we finished very strongly, and I think that that momentum will continue through the runoff.”
The Georgia race could decide which party holds control in the Senate.
