2022 United States Senate election in Georgia

The 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the U . Senate to represent the state of Georgia. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock won his first full term in office, defeating Republican former football player Herschel Walker. Under Georgia's two-round system, Warnock was re-elected in a runoff election on December 6 after neither candidate received over 50% of the vote on November 8. Warnock's win was the only statewide victory for Democrats in Georgia in 2022. Warnock, who won a shortened term to the seat in a 2020–21 special election, was nominated in the May 24 primary for a full term with minimal opposition. Walker, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, won the Republican nomination with 68% of the vote. It was the first U . Senate election in Georgia history and among five nationwide since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 in which both major party nominees were Black. In the November 8 election, Warnock received 49 % of the vote and Walker received 48 %, triggering the December 6 runoff. Warnock defeated Walker by a 2 % margin in the runoff and became the first African-American from Georgia elected to a full term in the U . Senate, and the first Democrat to win a full term at this seat since Wyche Fowler in 1986. Warnock's victory also secured an outright majority for Senate Democrats for the first time since 2015, with a net gain of one seat in the 2022 midterms. This was the first time since 1998 that Georgia voted for different parties for U . senator and governor in the same election cycle. It was the third-closest Senate election of the 2022 midterms after Nevada and Wisconsin. Walker would later go on to be nominated as U . ambassador to the Bahamas following Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election.