The winner of Tuesday s midterm election runoff for one of Georgia's two seats in the US Senate will make history.
Raphael Warnock became the first black senator from Georgia when he won the 2020 election runoff that helped lift the upper chamber into Democratic control, boosting the party's capture of the House, the Senate and the White House.
Now, as Georgia heads for the last day of voting in the latest runoff, Warnock hopes to add another distinction: winning a full six-year term in the Senate.
Another Black man, Republican challenger Herschel Walker, is standing in the way. The first Black person elected to a full Senate term will be the first Black person elected from Georgia.
Black voters there say the choice is stark: Warnock, the senior minister of Martin Luther King's Atlanta church echoes traditional liberal notions of the Black experience, and Walker, a University of Georgia football icon, speaks the language of white cultural conservatism and mocks Warnock's interpretations of King, among other matters.
The Republicans seem to think they could put up Herschel Walker and confuse Black people, said Bryce Berry, president of Georgia's Young Democrats chapter and a senior at Morehouse College, a historically Black campus from which both King and Warnock graduated.
Berry continued, standing under a campus statue of King, that we are not confused. Other Black voters raised questions about Walker's past claims about his business and professional accomplishments, violence against his ex-wife, and accusations that he paid for women to have abortions while now campaigning to ban the procedure, and the way he stumbles over public policy discussions as a candidate.
Some believe that GOP leaders are taking advantage of Walker's fame as a football star.
How can I be used as a Black person? Angela Heard, a Jonesboro state employee, was asked. I think you should be more in touch with your people instead of being a crony for someone. Even some Black conservatives who back Walker cite his candidacy as a missed opportunity to expand Republicans reach to a key part of the electorate that remains overwhelmingly Democratic.
I don't think Herschel Walker has enough relatable life experience to the average Black American for them to identify with him, said Avion Abreu, a 34-year-old realtor who lives in Marietta and has supported Walker since the GOP primary campaign.
Warnock narrowly led Walker in the November general election, but neither crossed the 50% threshold, sending the race to a runoff on 6 December.