Georgia voters being asked to make their voices heard. Yes, again, statewide. Early voting for the senate runoff started today. And take a look. This is crowds lining up right and early this morning in Atlanta.
And it's not just today. We saw similar scenes throughout the weekend. Some two dozen counties were allowed to get a head start on the early runoff voting. As for the candidates, they will have a busy final week on the stump.
The incumbent Democratic senator Rafael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, beginning that final week with rallies with their supporters today. Our great reporters back at the table with us.
It is just I mean, we're joking about this during the break, but voting has become like, I got to fill up my tank, I got to go to Starbucks, and I got to vote. Georgia almost a daily must seem like a daily routine, but this race is important.
Yes. With the runoff system in place, both for primaries and general elections and runoff, georgia has to go to the poll a lot. But what we're seeing is that voters are energized. Voters are showing up.
When they had that flexibility this weekend, they took advantage of it. There is very robust turnout. Even though this is yet another election for Georgia, it's been almost continuous for the past two years.
The spending is off the charts. I'll show you the numbers. 27.4 million for Democratic spending. This is just from the general election. This is just the runoff. You see the dates november 9. Republicans, though Republicans, have boosted up their spending in the last several days.
When we had those numbers last week, they were behind. You see the Republicans decide, we need this seat. We want this seat. They need NY. But it's not determinative when it comes to the balance of power.
We know that Democrats have that locked up, but every single vote, every single seat matters. We've seen that time and time again. And the idea of the Democrats having an out majority, 51 votes as opposed to 50 50 with the vice president breaking the tie is really key.
The amount of money is really staggering. It's hard to believe the numbers he just put up. But that's just in the runoff and it's not just the money, of course. I think one of the keys that you've been reporting on is Governor Kemp, the fact that Kemp has turned on his machine, the one that helped get him elected.
He's a very different person, a very different candidate just when it comes to. The field operation an axios reporting today that he's setting up a federal Pac as well. We'll see whether that is to support other candidates around the country.
He could use it also to support he'd have to do it pretty quickly to get some help in here for Herschel Walker. But it's clear just that fact is that Kemp is raising his national profile now and part of this he didn't do anything with Walker in the normal election period and now he is trying to help her walker so that nobody can say after the fact you're to blame.
Exactly. And look, all eyes of the Republican Party are on this. So he wants to be a leader in the Republican Party. He is someone really a very rare species actually in the Republican Party who navigated the fierce opposition from the former President Donald Trump.
And he did just fine. He didn't speak out against him necessarily, but he didn't buckle or back down to him during the 2020 election. But as Dana was saying, the majority is set. But having the extra vote, he has to give you some breathing room with Joe Manchin.
But this is why it's really important because of committee assignments and the makeup of committees, that means there will not be an even split on all these committees. Democrats will have a true majority.
So every staffer up on Capitol Hill right now is really watching this because it makes a huge difference for investigations, for subpoenas, but also just the makeup of the committee. So that's why Democrats are fighting just as hard for this as though the Senate majority.
If you have a more aggressive House investigations, which we get to late, you'll get to later and in the weeks ahead, having subpoena power in the Senate allows you to just counterprogramming, if you will, to be prepared to do that.
We talked about out the I popping spending. Every vote counts in Georgia. But like in many states, the Asian American population is a growing in a swing constituency. Why, this is interesting. It's the same Warnock ad we want to show you here, running with Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean subtitles.
Voting, in a real sense, is a kind of prayer for the kind of world that we want to see. And our prayers are stronger when we pray together. It is the Lord's work. The minister, obviously, Senator Warnock has his roots are in the ministry.
But this is a fascinating, to me, part of a fascinating competition, not only the state of Georgia, this is the next 10, 15, 20 years of American life, as the Asian American population is a swing in a suburban constituency in many of the battleground.
States, yes. And in Georgia, both parties have been competing for the AAPI vote. The Republican Party opened one of its community centers in a largely Asian part of metro Atlanta. They've also had a community center in a black part of metro Atlanta.
But we know that generally, AAPI voters tend to support Democratic candidates, and it's clear that the Warnock campaign is aware of that. As they try to drum up turnout, they consider the AAPI unity part of the Democratic base, that they need to show up, they need to turn out in hopes of winning this election.