Video above: Herschel Walker campaigns in Coastal GeorgiaRepublican Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Friday denied his previous support for an outright national ban on abortion, making the shift in his lone debate against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.Walker, a staunch anti-abortion politician recently accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging and paying for her 2009 abortion, accused Warnock of misstating his position by saying Walker had supported a national ban on abortion, without exceptions.Walker insisted his position is the same as Georgia's state law, the so-called heartbeat bill that bans abortion at six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant.But Walker had insisted at various points throughout the campaign that he supported a national abortion ban, without exceptions. "That's a problem" that there is no national ban, he said at a campaign stop in July.But on the debate stage, Walker tried to shift the question to Warnock. Walker blasted Warnock for being a Baptist pastor who supports abortion rights."On abortion, you know, I'm a Christian. I believe in life. ... I'll be a senator that protects life," Walker said, later suggesting that Warnock doesn't care about abortions in the Black community. Both men are Black. "Instead of aborting those babies, why aren't you baptizing those babies?" Walker asked. Warnock insisted he can support abortion rights as a Christian and as a pastor. "God gave us a choice and I respect the right of women to make a decision. These are medical decisions, they are deeply personal," Warnock said, adding that Walker "wants to arrogate more power to politicians than God has." The debate in Georgia's marquee Senate contest was held just days before in-person early voting begins Monday. The outcome will help determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years of President Joe Biden's term. The matchup is forcing both men to answer attacks — personal and political — that have flooded voters' television screens and social media feeds for months. Warnock and fellow Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff won their Senate seats in a January 2021 special election two months after Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. That was the first time in two decades Democrats won federal elections in the historically conservative state, raising questions about whether Warnock can replicate his victory in a midterm election, especially with Biden's popularity down among Georgia voters.Walker has seized on that landscape, caricaturing Warnock as a rubber-stamp for the administration. Warnock's answer has been to emphasize legislative accomplishments in Washington, with a focus on provisions he sponsored capping insulin and other health care costs for Medicare recipients, Democrats' extension of the child tax credit and infrastructure provisions that Warnock shepherded with Republican colleagues.A major variable in the debate is how aggressively Warnock chooses to directly attack Walker on various allegations and disclosures that have surfaced throughout the campaign. The senator typically has defaulted to his broad assertion that Walker is ill-prepared for office. But debate moderators brought the men into direct conflict on everything from their economic policies to their relationships with their children and families. Recent reporting by The Daily Beast disclosed records of an abortion receipt and a subsequent personal check from Walker to a woman who said the celebrity football icon paid for her abortion when they were dating. Walker continues to deny the reports, even after the woman identified herself as the mother of one of his four children. Other reports, including from The Associated Press, have detailed how Walker has exaggerated his academic achievements, business success and philanthropic activities, as well as accusations that he threatened the life of his ex-wife that go beyond details Walker himself acknowledged in a 2008 memoir and subsequent media interviews. Walker also acknowledged three of his children publicly for the first time only after earlier Daily Beast reporting. Before his Senate bid, he'd spoken publicly only of Christian Walker, his adult son by his first wife.Walker, as is typical of challengers battling incumbents, has proved much more eager to go after Warnock directly even before the debate. Citing Warnock's Senate financial disclosures, Walker blasts Warnock as using the Senate to get rich. Warnock reported income from a book deal after his Senate election. He also reported a monthly housing allowance from Ebenezer Baptist Church in excess of $7,000 — an arrangement that allows Warnock to continue receiving a considerable annual sum from the church for his role as senior pastor without violating federal ethics rules capping senators' outside income.National Republicans, meanwhile, have recently aired ads highlighting Warnock's personal life. One ad references a March 2020 incident in which Warnock's then-wife, Oulèye Ndoye, told police he ran over her foot with his vehicle. Police records state that officers found no evidence that Warnock did so. The couple divorced before Warnock's election to the Senate; they share two young children.Walker himself has avoided attacks on Warnock's family life, though he campaigned earlier this week with Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who chairs the Senate GOP's campaign arm that paid for some of those ads. The Savannah debate was the two rivals' only meeting because Walker declined to accept the three fall debates typical in Georgia campaigns. Warnock accepted that slate of proposed debates in June, only to have Walker balk and counter with Friday's debate. The Friday debate did not include Libertarian Chase Oliver, who did not meet organizers' polling threshold. Just one of those original three debates is still scheduled: Warnock will meet Oliver in a Sunday session sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club. In that debate, Walker will be represented by an empty podium because he declined the invitation. ___Barrow reported from Atlanta.

Georgia voters are set to decide the balance of power in Congress in a pair of high-stakes Senate runoff elections that will help determine President-elect Joe Biden's capacity to enact what may be the most progressive governing agenda in generations. Republicans are unified against Biden's plans for health care, environmental protection and civil rights, but some fear that outgoing President Donald Trump's brazen attempts to undermine the integrity of the nation's voting systems may discourage voters in Georgia.At a rally in northwest Georgia on the eve of Tuesday's runoffs, Trump repeatedly declared that the November elections were plagued by fraud that Republican officials, including his former attorney general and Georgia's elections chief, say did not occur. The president called Georgia's Republican secretary of state “crazy" and vowed to help defeat him in two years. At the same time, Trump encouraged his supporters to show up in force for Georgia's Tuesday contests. "You've got to swarm it tomorrow,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters, downplaying the threat of fraud.Democrats must win both of the state's Senate elections to gain the Senate majority. In that scenario, the Senate would be equally divided 50-50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker for Democrats. Democrats already secured a narrow House majority and the White House during November's general election. Even a closely divided Democratic Senate likely won't guarantee Biden everything he wants, given Senate rules that require 60 votes to move most major legislation. But if Democrats lose even one of Tuesday's contests, Biden would have little shot for swift up-or-down votes on his most ambitious plans to expand government-backed health care coverage, strengthen the middle class, address racial inequality and combat climate change. A Republican-controlled Senate also would create a rougher path for Biden's Cabinet picks and judicial nominees. “Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you. The power is literally in your hands,” Biden charged at his own rally in Atlanta earlier Monday. “One state can chart the course, not just for the next four years, but for the next generation.” Related video: Biden warns of high stakes in Georgia Senate racesGeorgia's January elections, necessary because no Senate candidates received a majority of the general-election votes, have been unique for many reasons, not least because the contenders essentially ran as teams, even campaigning together sometimes. One contest features Democrat Raphael Warnock, who serves as the senior pastor of the Atlanta church where slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. grew up and preached. The 51-year-old Black man was raised in public housing and spent most of his adult life preaching in Baptist churches. Warnock is facing Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a 50-year-old former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a year ago by the state's Republican governor. She is only the second woman to represent Georgia in the Senate, although race has emerged as a campaign focus far more than gender. Loeffler and her allies have seized on some snippets of Warnock’s sermons at the historic Black church to cast him as extreme. Dozens of religious and civil rights leaders have pushed back. The other election pits 71-year-old former business executive David Perdue, who held the Senate seat until his term officially expired on Sunday, against Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former congressional aide and journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the Senate’s youngest member if elected. The fresh-faced Democrat first rose to national prominence in 2017 when he launched an unsuccessful House special election bid. Democrats have hammered Perdue and Loeffler, each among the Senate's wealthiest members, for conspicuously timed personal stock trades after members of Congress received information about the public health and economic threats of COVID-19 as Trump and Republicans downplayed the pandemic. None of the trades has been found to violate the law or Senate ethics, but Warnock and Ossoff have used the moves to cast the Republicans as self-interested and out of touch.Perdue and Loeffler have answered by lambasting the Democratic slate as certain to to usher in a leftward lunge in national policy. Neither Warnock nor Ossoff is a socialist, as Republicans allege. They do, however, support Biden's agenda. This week's elections mark the formal finale to the turbulent 2020 election season more than two months after the rest of the nation finished voting. The stakes have drawn nearly $500 million in campaign spending to a once solidly Republican state that now finds itself as the nation’s premier battleground.“It’s really about whether an agenda that moves the nation forward can be forged without significant compromise,” said Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights icon and a Georgia native, who predicted “razor thin” margins on Tuesday. “There are a lot of things that are in the balance.”The results also will help demonstrate whether the sweeping political coalition that fueled Biden's victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new landscape.Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast in November. Democratic success will likely depend on driving a huge turnout of African Americans, young voters, college-educated voters and women, all groups that helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 to win Georgia. Republicans, meanwhile, have been focused on energizing their own base of white men and voters beyond the core of metro Atlanta. More than 3 million Georgians voted before Tuesday. The runoff elections come as Trump continues his unprecedented campaign to undermine election results across various states he lost. In a recording of a private phone call made public on Sunday, the president told Georgia's secretary of state to “find” enough votes to give him an outright victory in the state, even after repeated recounts, failed court challenges, and state certification. Campaigning in Georgia on Monday hours before Trump's visit, Vice President Mike Pence said he has concerns about “voting irregularities." He has also repeatedly described Georgia Republicans as “the last line of defense” against a Democratic takeover in Washington, an implicit acknowledgement that the Trump has indeed lost the election.Related video: Trump supporters rally on eve of Georgia electionCongress is scheduled to vote to certify Biden's victory on Wednesday. In another affirmation of Trump's hold on his fellow Republicans, Loeffler took the stage at Trump's rally and vowed to join the small but growing number of Republicans protesting the count on the Senate floor.“Look, this president fought for us,” she said. "We're fighting for him."