The responses from Conservatives regarding Herchel walker’s loss in the U.S. Senate runoff race for Georgia on Tuesday night were very mixed, with many throwing blame on former President Donald Trump for prompting Walker to run and even more calling out GOP leadership for failing to do enough to assist the NFL player turned politician.
The recent runoff against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) took place in the wake of neither candidate managing to secure the minimum 50% threshold to secure the seat cleaning during the initial midterm elections that took place last month. Warnock performed much better in this second attempt, managing to push out his margin of victory from 40,000 votes all the way out to 90,000.
“One of the things I said is when they call the race, I said those numbers don’t look like they’re going to add up,” explained Walker as part of his concession speech. “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, continue to pray for them.”
On the web, the reactions were fairly mixed with quite a few throwing blame on Trump, while others put blame on Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and a third camp attempted to blame Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Walker originally kicked off his campaign bid in the wake of Trump repeatedly calling on him to jump into the race head first, via a public statement from March 2021.
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?” claimed Trump in a release. “He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!”
Christian Walker, the 23-year-old son of Walker, threw the blame on Trump for the failure to secure the seat for GOP, stating that it was Trump who got him to take part in the race.
“The Truth: Trump called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run,” explained the son in a social media post. “Everyone with a brain begged him: ‘PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. This is too dirty, you have an insane past… PLEASE DONT DO THIS.’ We got the middle finger. He ran.”
The Truth: Trump called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run. Everyone with a brain begged him: “PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. This is too dirty, you have an insane past… PLEASE DONT DO THIS.”
We got the middle finger. He ran.
— Christian Walker (@ChristianWalk1r) December 7, 2022
“Republicans, we say we don’t play ‘identity politics’ and then you ran this man mainly because he was the same skin color as his opponent with no background other than football,” he concluded. “A boring old Republican could have won.”
A few other notable responses included:
- AG, political commentator: “Walker being a bad/inexperienced candidate meant he couldn’t fundraise himself, NRSC wasted all their $, and then Trump ate up all the small donors but then spent barely anything to back the guy he pushed on everyone.”
- Andrew Egger, writer: “I’m sorry, but ‘Senate Republicans didn’t do enough to help Herschel Walker’ is the most insane take I can imagine. Senate Republicans set aside every difference to try to lug Walker across the finish line! He proved himself unluggable!”
- Ann Coulter, political author: “I sure hope Trump has some more brilliant ideas for can’t-miss Senate candidates. Omarosa maybe? Carrot Top? Ghislaine Maxwell?”
- Caleb Hull, political commentator: “I hope we go into the next election with the realization that telling your base that their vote won’t matter because the election will be stolen isn’t a great strategy for winning… We had a layup this year and blew it. Time to move on.”
- Robert Davi, actor: “The GOP is basically BRAINDEAD in my humble opinion! They are culturally tone deaf – and they have not come up with solutions! The messaging in the GOP is like Mitch McConnell a tired unenergetic uninspiring bore!!!!”
- Joe Concha, The Hill: “Not surprising. If Herschel couldn’t win with Kemp on the ballot, he wasn’t winning in a runoff without him. Full picture: GOP gains a narrow majority in the House. Democrats gain one seat overall in a 50-50 Senate. Unpopular president in the WH. No party is winning right now.”
- Joey Jones, Fox News: “Republicans lost the seat much more than Democrats won it (again). At some point, perhaps, they’ll learn.”
- Scott Jennings, political strategist: “Georgia may be remembered as the state that broke Trump once and for all.”
- Erick Erickson, Georgia-based radio host: “When @GOPChairwoman claims only the RNC worked in Georgia remember @BrianKempGA kept his ground operation going. @LeaderMcConnell poured $11 million into the state. The RNC didn’t do as much, but McDaniel will want credit to save her job. It’d have been a blowout but for Kemp. … No RNC Chair in the history of the whole party has lasted as long as Ronna McDaniel without seeing at least one winning election season. She took the job in 2017, and the GOP has lost every election cycle since.”
