TIFTON — In preparation for the Dec. 6 runoff, Sen. Raphael Warnock returned to Tifton to rally voters once again for the upcoming election.

With the race for senator in the Nov. 8 general election ending in an incomplete result split by scarcely a single percentage of the vote, Warnock, a Democrat, and Herschel Walker, the Republican challenger, are campaigning for the Dec. 6 runoff.

A candidate must garner 50% plus one vote to win; neither Warnock nor Walker reached that mandatory minimum in the Nov. 8 election. Early voting in the runoff is underway.

Warnock has embarked on another tour across Georgia, visiting its various communities and meeting with his supporters to encourage them to support his reelection, with one such stop being the Friendly City.

Warnock also made a Valdosta stop Tuesday evening at the J.W. Saunders Park.

Warnock reaffirmed his intention to expand Medicaid and support Georgia’s workforce, creating more opportunities for people who need them and simultaneously stimulating the economy.

“We’re still clawing our way back from the thick of a pandemic which caused chaos in the economy,” Warnock said. “As we’ve worked it back up, we’ve seen supply chain issues, impacted commodities and prices, and on top of all that, price gouging. We’re seeing that not only here – we’re seeing it globally. The question is: who’s going to do something about it?”

Warnock promised to continue working to bring reform and support to Georgia farmers and rural communities, citing his previous collaborations with Republican senators from Alabama and Indiana, and expressed his desire to complete the Interstate 14 project to connect and bring more attention to underserved communities in Georgia.

In stressing the importance of exercising their right to vote, he reminded the audience of the recent attempt to restrict voting for the runoff election on Nov. 26 due to claims of it being too close to a national holiday.

Warnock informed the audience that though he had fought against the decision and succeeded in having it overturned, even after election officials had attempted to appeal the result, the insistence on restricting voting had left him, in his words, “mad as heaven.”

The senator thanked Tifton residents for their support, not only for coming out to the rally, but for placing their trust in him to represent them in the Senate and for having enough trust to give him another chance.

“What I have tried to do over the last two years is to be faithful to what I see as a sacred trust,” Warnock said. “If I think about it, it’s a whole lot like being a pastor, which I know a little bit about.”

In his parting remarks, he assured those in attendance that he would continue to serve all of Georgia not as a senator who was once a pastor, but as a pastor in the Senate, and encouraged them to get out and vote as soon as they could, reminding them that early voting had already begun.

“I swore an oath to represent the whole state, to defend and be here for all of the people of Georgia, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do and what I will continue to do,” Warnock said. “And if you give me a chance to do it, I’ll do it for six more years.”