When Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign reported its fundraising totals for the final quarter of 2021, it did so with much...
When Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign reported its fundraising totals for the final quarter of 2021, it did so with much enthusiasm.
“As Reverend Warnock continues to fight for hardworking Georgia families, the enthusiasm behind Reverend Warnock’s campaign continues to grow,” campaign manager Quentin Fulks told WMGT-TV in Macon.
“After driving another record-breaking fundraising haul, our strong network of grassroots support is fired up to send Reverend Warnock back to the Senate to fight for Georgia,” he said.
Warnock raised a record $9.8 million in the final quarter of last year, according to WMGT.
For comparison, Republican front-runner Herschel Walker raised $5.4 million.
On the surface, that looked like a huge win for Warnock. Outraising his most likely opponent in the November general election by more than $3 million seemed to bode well for his chances to win re-election.
Yet a new report has highlighted why Warnock’s highly touted fundraising numbers are not as promising as they look.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday that just 16 percent of the aforementioned $9.8 million came in the form of donations from Georgia residents. The other 84 percent came from out of state.
A few deep-blue states accounted for a significant portion of the donations.
A whopping 17 percent came from California, according to the report. Donors in New York provided 10.6 percent, and Washington, D.C.-area donors sent 8.9 percent of the funds.
These numbers call into question whom Warnock is really representing.
Fulks claimed the senator was committed to “fight for hardworking Georgia families,” but many of his far-left talking points more closely represent the views of radical leftists from the states that provided funds for Warnock last quarter.
In addition, the numbers cast doubts on the level of support Warnock claims to have received in his own state.
According to CNN, the Democrat received just 32.9 percent of the vote in November 2020 when he ran in the special election to fill a vacated U.S. Senate seat from Georgia. While he was the highest vote-getter, the Republican vote was largely split between incumbent Kelly Loeffler and challenger Doug Collins.
It was only after the Democrats launched a full-fledged national campaign to win Senate control that Warnock narrowly defeated Loeffler, 51 percent to 49 percent, in a special runoff election in January 2021.
After riding the wave of support from far-left Democrats to victory, Warnock has continued the trend by raising swaths of money from the most left-leaning parts of the country. None of that really screams, “I fight for Georgians!”
On the other hand, Republican favorite Walker is a hometown hero in Georgia. He won a national championship as a freshman running back for the University of Georgia in 1980, a season in which he ran for 1,616 yards and 15 touchdowns.
In addition, Walker took home the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college football player in 1982 before going on to a very successful career in the USFL and NFL.
According to The Hill, Walker has received endorsements from top Republicans including former President Donald Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
“We only need one more seat in the Senate to take back America,” Haley said in a video posted to Twitter on Feb. 3.
“You can help us do it today, and I think we do it with Herschel Walker in Georgia. He will fight for conservative values, he’ll fight for families, he will fight against socialism, he’ll protect veterans and he will make you proud.”
As control of the Senate hangs in the balance once again in the midterm elections, Georgia could be a major state to watch in 2022. Recent polling shows the race to be a statistical dead heat.
Based on the resumes of the two likely candidates, Warnock is not the one who is most likely to accurately represent Georgians on Capitol Hill.
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