Republican candidate Herschel Walker announced that he had conceded the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff election to incumbent Democratic candidate Senator Raphael Warnock on Tuesday evening.
The Associated Press called the race in favor of Warnock after 99 percent of the votes had been counted. Warnock won with a total of 51.4 percent of the votes (1,817,465) to Walker’s 48.6 percent (1,719,868).
Speaking to his supporters at his campaign headquarters in Atlanta, Walker said he would continue to work for Georgians and said he would make no excuses for his loss.
Here is the speech Walker gave:
“I am going to acknowledge my wife Julie because she is with me and she has been through a tough time,” Walker said.
“But I want to say that I want to thank all of you as well because we have had a tough journey, have we not?
“One of the things I said when they called the race, I said the numbers doesn’t look like it’s gonna add up.
“But one of the things I want to tell all of you is you never stop dreaming. I don’t want any of you to stop dreaming.
“I don’t want any of you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all.
“I want you to continue to pray for them because all of the prayers that you had given me, I felt those prayers.
“I want to thank all of my team, Team Herschel, because they put up with a lot.
“I want to thank all my donors because you guys, without you I couldn’t have done what I done. So I want to thank all of you as well.
“There are no excuses in life and I am not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight. That is what we got to do.
“Because this is much bigger than Herschel Walker. I told someone this the other day, ‘I have done a lot of stuff,’ you talk about Heisman trophies, talk about all these athletic awards, business awards I have won.
“But the best thing I have ever done in my whole entire life is run for this Senate seat right here.
“The reason I am going to say that is because I got a chance to meet all of you and hear what you guys feel about this country.
“I got a chance for you guys to tell me what you do feel about this country.
“I got a chance to go into your home, a chance to [see] you invested in Herschel Walker and I thank you.
“I thank you so much. As I said, you can’t blame no one because I want you to continue to believe in this country, believe in our elected officials.
“Most of all, stay together, don’t let anyone separate you. Don’t let anyone tell you that we can’t because I am here to tell you we can.
“As I said earlier on, God is good.”
Walker was praised for his gracious concession speech on social media, with many highlighting he did not go down the path of suggesting the election had been stolen.
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