Polls are open until 7 p.m. today, Tuesday, December 6, as Clayton County voters brave chilly, damp weather to cast their ballots in the U.S. Senate runoff between incumbent Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and challenger Herschel Walker, a Republican.
The balance of power in Congress is at stake in this single race. Republicans flipped the House of Representatives during the primary but Democrats eked out a tenuous hold on the Senate. A Warnock win would give Democrats a slightly safer margin on close votes.
Chilly, damp weather and slick roads don’t seem to be dampening voters’ resolve. At 7 a.m. when the polls opened, half a dozen people stood in line at Fountain Elementary School in Forest Park.
Last week, voters at six early voting sites around the county braved lines—some for as long as two hours and 40 minutes—to make their voices heard. Today, 70 local precincts are open and the lines are much shorter.
At Morrow, a steady stream of cars rolled in and out of the parking lot at City Hall, with voters we saw getting in and out in under ten minutes. At Clayton State University’s Harry S. Downs Center near Spivey Hall, college students and Lake City residents also cast ballots in a few minutes’ time.
The Clayton Crescent is with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Election Operations Center and will update election news throughout the day. Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling says about 300,000 people already have turned out this morning and that there are “no lines.”
Listen to Sterling brief reporters at a press conference Tuesday morning:
