By Will Specht, Staff Writer
Weeks after the initial 2022 midterm elections we still have some elections that remain undecided; the main one being the Georgia Senate seat. There was a runoff election on December 6th to decide who will gain control of the state’s seat. In Georgia, if neither candidate is able to make it to over 50% of the vote, it automatically goes to a runoff. Even though Raphael Warnock held a very small percentage lead on his competitor Herschel Walker, there still had to be a runoff because the third party candidate took enough of the votes.
In this runoff election, only the top two vote-getters from the general election were on the ballot. This means that Libertarian Chase Oliver would no longer participate in the election. Oliver received over 80,000 votes in the initial election, which is a lot of people and was likely a deciding factor in this runoff when forced to choose between only two candidates now. Whichever way the Libertarian voters decide, it will be key in campaigning for both candidates, as they will try to persuade them to vote for their parties candidate.
With Warnock’s victory, the Senate will be split 51/49. This means Democrats will maintain control of the Senate despite losing the House of Representatives. It seems likely Republicans will need other senators in opposing parties to caucasus with them in order to win any votes in a tie.
Overall, these elections show how evenly split the country is. Even in River Hill, these elections can determine how the future is shaped for the students. An anonymous student spoke about the division in the country saying, “I believe as a country we are so divided and people cannot even have civil political conversations any more.” Republicans have control of the judicial branch, and half of the legislative while the Democrats have the executive branch and half the legislative branch as well. The Georgia runoff is just further proof of how close these elections are with incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock holding only a 38,000 vote lead out of 4,000,000 total votes in the original Senate election.
Senior Ethan Weiner expressed how he feels about the election, “Politics are so divisive right now and people need to come together more as a country” Many other Americans feel the same way about politics and this proves it is prominent in River Hill.
Both Democrats and Republicans are showing out for these elections, but for different reasons. Democrats, when polled by CNN, said the issues most important to them were the future of democracy and abortion laws. Republicans, when polled on the same thing, said their most important issues were inflation and the future of democracy.
With record high inflation and Roe v Wade being overturned this year it created a major build up of motivation for voters. An anonymous senior at River Hill expressed how he feels America can change as they explained, “The only thing the American people can do now to decide of the future of the country is to go out and use their right to vote.”
Warnock’s victory is a big win for the Democrats after the Republicans took the House of Representatives last month. The current political picture sits with a pretty even split setting up a major push for both parties as we get closer to the 2024 elections.