Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock Runoff Sparks Battle Over Christianity

Georgia's Senate runoff election has sparked debate over how Christian voters cast their ballots, and whether candidates or party affiliation matters more when it comes to appealing to those Americans.

On Tuesday, incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, won reelection against his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, by less than 100,000 votes after neither candidate was able to secure more than 50 percent of the vote in last month's general election.

The narrow margin of victory has raised eyebrows among those who argue the moral character of each candidate should have resulted in a larger victory for Warnock, a pastor who served the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—the same pulpit that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached from—for 15 years.

The results of the runoff have highlighted the competing visions of Christian faith in American politics—the civil-rights public action approach from Warnock's camp and the Christian Nationalism view promoted by Walker. Ultimately, Georgia voters were faced with the task of voting for a candidate who embodied their Christian values in his personal life or a candidate who would help pass legislation they believe will advance those values.

For conservative evangelicals, "the lesser of two evils is to vote for the person who doesn't live the good Christian life in pursuit of policies which are friendly to the religious community," Daniel Franklin, political scientist at Georgia State University, told Newsweek.

Those arguments have been bolstered by the string of abortion controversies swamping the Walker campaign in the final weeks leading up to the midterms. Despite being staunchly anti-abortion, Walker was accused by several women, who claimed to be former girlfriends, of paying for them to undergo the procedure after they became pregnant with his child.

"Walker being close is madness," activist Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman tweeted. "Imagine claiming to be Christian and choosing to vote for someone who goes against your beliefs unapologetically over a literal pastor. Warnock is a practicing PASTOR."

"There's no [C]hristian reason that you can give for voting for Herschel Walker over Raphael Warnock," another Twitter user wrote. "Oh--you can INVENT some...but they will be rooted in racism & mental gymnastics, not christian scripture."

University of Georgia's Audrey Haynes told Newsweek some of these voters may also rationalize away, or understate, the controversies or scandals plaguing the opposing campaign.

"People will make up stories in their heads that allow them to support their team no matter what – particularly if there is no pushback from others on their team suggesting otherwise," Haynes said. She said this is a particular challenge for Democrats because they tend to be more diverse and more secular, which makes them less likely to propagandize on religion in the same way Republicans would.

Tuesday's election is not the first time Christian voters have been presented with this dilemma. Exit polls from the last two presidential elections found that white evangelical voters largely voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020, despite reports on the former president's personal conduct that contradicts their religious beliefs.

"Many traditionalist religious believers supported Walker for the same reason that they have overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump," Rogers Smith, political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Newsweek.

"They recognize that both men are flawed, but they see them as nonetheless the instruments of God in combatting what they perceive as a rising sea of immorality in America that legitimates abortion, unconventional forms of sexuality, and disbelief in what they regard as religious truths and divine commands," he said.

Even though the margin of victory was not as big as some Democrats had hoped, Franklin argued Warnock's victory was no simple feat. He called the race a "blowout," saying that Republicans tend to do much better in runoff elections, and that the senator was able to earn even more votes this year than he did in 2020.

Smith also said the win proves there's a winning strategy for Democrats who want to capture the Christian vote. Although many liberal politicians have avoided associating too closely with progressive religious traditions, Warnock's Senate victories show those ties have "powerful political appeal" even in the country's more religious regions.

"Warnock's success is a reminder that, although in recent decades the most politically visible religious groups have been conservative, there is a long and still-continuing tradition of progressive, reform-minded religious groups in America, especially Black church-based social justice movements and their allies," he said.