Candidates make final push in Georgia with critical Senate seat on the line

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Tomorrow, Georgians will decide the final uncalled race of the 2022 midterm elections.

  The run-off contest between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker comes after neither received a majority of the vote in November. Unlike last year, the race will not determine the balance of power in the Senate, but it is still neck and neck, with record numbers of early voting.

  Laura Barrón-López traveled to Georgia and has this report.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Outside a polling place in a Decatur shopping mall are some of the people that turned Georgia blue in 2020, now trying for a repeat.

• Cliff Albright, Black Voters Matter Fund:

  Oh, I see you dancing. Come on now. That's right.

  You doing all right? Can I give you a first bump? Oh!

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Here and all over the state, the mobilizing group Black Voters Matter offers a free T-shirt for a voter's phone number.

• Cliff Albright:

  Now all you got to do is forward that to five friends. If everyone we touch tells five other people, guess what? That's how we build an army. That's how we build a movement.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Cliff Albright is one of the group's founders and has lived in Georgia for over a decade. Since 2016, he and others have transformed Democrats' ground game in the state. This run-off, he says they have reached at least two million Black voters.

• Cliff Albright:

  How do we get people excited? How do we create enthusiasm? How do we get people to feel like that they really matter, right? There's a lot of people that care about Black votes that don't care about Black voters.

  We want people to know that we care about them and our communities and our issues.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Many we spoke to in this predominantly Black and Democratic area were backing Senator Raphael Warnock, a pastor at the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

• Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA):

  Are you ready to win this election?

  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Warnock holds a slight advantage in recent polls as he fights for a full six-year term against Republican Herschel Walker, a Georgia football legend with a full-throated endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

  Georgians at this early voting site in Atlanta have been waiting in line over an hour as they try to cast their ballot. Walker and Senator Warnock have had only 28 days, instead of two months, to get voters to the polls a second time.

  Herschel Walker (R), Georgia Senatorial Candidate: What they have done to this country in two short years, we give them any more time, we won't recognize America again.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Republicans see critical ground to make up. Walker finished narrowly behind Warnock last month. But he received 200,000 fewer votes than Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

  The two campaigned together to try to close that gap, with Kemp making the case that Walker would vote to support law enforcement and cut taxes in the Senate.

• Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA):

  Do you want a guy that represents our values like Herschel Walker, or do you want somebody that's stood with Joe Biden 96 percent of the time?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  For months, Walker has faced a barrage of scandals, including multiple allegations of domestic abuse and two former partners who have said Walker pressured and paid for them to have abortions, which is at odds with Walker's antiabortion stance.

  At a Walker event in deep-red Muscogee County, Republican voters either took the football star at his word or said they wanted a reliable vote against President Joe Biden's agenda.

• Speaker:

  He stands for the values that I stand for. I'm a pro-life person. I don't like the policies of the Biden administration.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  What did you make of the reports for the fact that he paid for an abortion for one of his ex-girlfriends?

• Speaker:

  I don't know what to believe anymore. People can say anything. I also believe in redemption, and I believe people can make mistakes and turn their lives around.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Those allegations and repeated gaffes have Republicans worried about Walker's ability to turn out conservatives and some 81,000 who backed the Libertarian candidate in November.

  Walker supporters hope to win them back.

  Baoky Vu is skeptical.

  Baoky Vu, Former Vice Chair, DeKalb County Board of Registration and Election: I don't know whether they will be energized to go out and vote.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Vu is one of the 200,000 split-ticket Republicans who backed Kemp, but not Walker, casting a vote for Warnock.

• Baoky Vu:

  Asking us to vote for Herschel Walker the candidate is akin to perhaps playing Russian roulette with American democracy.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  The former vice chair of the DeKalb County Election Board, Vu has vocally defended the integrity of the 2020 vote in Georgia. He sees Walker's statements denying the legitimacy of the election as disqualifying, and doesn't think the run-off will push anti-Walker Republicans to reconsider.

• Baoky Vu:

  Herschel Walker had a chance to stand on the side of truth and honesty, the same way that Governor Kemp did, the same way that Secretary Raffensperger did. Instead, he basically took a stand on a waterbed of lies.

• Speaker:

  If you are a poll watcher, God bless you.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  But among the Republican base, belief in lies about a rigged election system remains strong.

  At the Cobb County GOP headquarters, many are volunteering as poll watchers in the run-off, and they are encouraged to report anything they consider to be fraud or disenfranchisement.

• Speaker:

  There is no incident that is too small.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  After a prayer, work began on phone banking and canvassing for Walker.

  Joyce Wice said she believes Walker is honest and will support fiscal responsibility in the Senate. When asked about the allegations that he paid for an abortion, she said it didn't line up with his purported values.

• Joyce Wice, Walker Voter:

  Herschel Walker, in a direct quote, said that's a flat-out lie. And I believe him.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Walker's core message hasn't changed for the run-off.

• Herschel Walker:

  I am that warrior for God.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  His stump speech likened a vote for Democrats to sending Georgia to hell and focused on transgender players in sports and gender identity.

• Herschel Walker:

  What the heck is a pronoun? I don't even know what a pronoun is. But yet I can tell you what. We're going to give him a pronoun. Let's give him a former senator pronoun. That's his pronoun.

• Sen. Raphael Warnock:

  This race is about character and competence.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Warnock is also pulling from his general election playbook, bringing back former President Barack Obama to rally voters in Kirkwood.

  Barack Obama, Former President of the United States: I am back. Yes, we can.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Roughly 5,000 packed into Pullman Yards, a historic rail yard turned event venue, to hear him speak.

• Barack Obama:

  Keep mobilizing.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Multiple Black Georgians told "NewsHour" they viewed Walker's candidacy as an attempt by Republicans to win them over through representation, rather than substance; 69 percent of white voters, compared to just 3 percent of Black voters, support Walker, according to a recent CNN poll.

• Karen Dodson, Warnock Voter:

  I think a lot of people are just irritated by his opponent, and that's forcing people to come out.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Irritated how?

• Karen Dodson:

  Irritated in that you just feel you can replace one Black with another. And we have common sense. So, give me at least someone that's comparable in intellect.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  In the final days, Warnock is focused on voting rights and the lawsuit his campaign filed and won against Republican state officials to allow for Saturday early voting.

• Sen. Raphael Warnock:

  We saw record voter turnout last weekend, but don't forget what we had to do just so that could happen.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  This is the first run-off since Georgia passed Senate Bill 202 last year, which made it harder to receive a mail-in ballot, reduced the number of drop boxes, and shortened early voting.

  Republican officials have pointed to the record early turnout as evidence that the law did not restrict access. But Albright said those changes made a difference.

• Cliff Albright:

  Two years ago, we were able to spend a month just registering new voters just for the run-off that weren't eligible for the general. We could not do that because, in a 30-day period, the cutoff for voter registration was actually the day before the general election.

• Speaker:

  Hello. Hi.

• Speaker:

  How you doing today?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  BlackPAC, like other get-out-the-vote organizations, is reaching millions of voters by repeatedly knocking on doors until the last days before the election.

• Speaker:

  Hello.

• Speaker:

  I'm with a Black PAC, reminding people about the election on the 6th.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Senate control may already be determined, but the stakes for an increasingly diverse Georgia couldn't be higher.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Laura Barrón-López in Atlanta, Georgia.