Georgia elections this year have been dominated by pocketbook struggles, rollbacks to abortion access and wavering confidence in democracy itself. But another familiar issue has elicited fireworks at recent matchups between candidates at the top of the ticket: crime.
In Savannah, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker flashed a police badge at the debate audience after Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock made targeted remarks that, unlike his opponent, he had “never pretended to be a police officer or threatened a shootout with the police.”
And during a heavily anticipated gubernatorial rematch last week in Atlanta, Gov. Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams sparred on crime repeatedly — first, over support for police, then again on gun access.
