Even October reports that Walker pressured two ex-girlfriends to get abortions despite his call to outlaw the procedure seemed to have little effect. He took advantage of low expectations in his sole debate against Warnock. “Even Brian Kemp going all out for Walker after he secured his own reelection wasn’t enough,” Shepherd said. Jason Shepherd, the former chair of the Cobb County GOP, marveled at Warnock’s “solid, focused and disciplined campaign” in contrast to Walker’s failure to woo swing voters. Warnock, meanwhile, laid claim to the political center despite a liberal voting record. “He simply failed to make an energetic or reassuring argument to the base to vote as they did for Kemp to lead the ticket in November.” “Walker did not collapse,” said Jay Morgan, a former Georgia Republican Party executive director. One senior Republican called it the “best I’ve ever seen.” It featured a split screen of voters reacting to Walker’s bizarre statements on the stump. One of his final, and perhaps most effective, ads spoke directly to both blocs of voters. “But we also didn’t take our base for granted.” “I’m sure there’s some operative out there when tasked with running a race against Walker who might have said, ‘We’re just going to run as far left as we can.’ We didn’t do that,” said Quentin Fulks, Warnock’s campaign manager. His dual strategy was on display when he campaigned with former President Barack Obama to motivate the base and brought in the Dave Matthews Band for a concert in Cobb County to galvanize middle-age white suburbanites who epitomize the swing-voter base. “And on that front my opponent, bless his heart, falls woefully short.” “This race is about competence and character,” Warnock told Asian American voters in Midtown Atlanta days before the runoff. And he cast the race as a referendum on Walker. Senate than allying with Biden, often to the shock of supporters. He spoke more on the campaign trail about work he had done with Republicans in the U.S. He steered clear of Biden, saying talk of the president’s future should be left to pundits. To overcome the staunch support for his rival, Warnock had to motivate both liberal voters who form the Democratic Party’s base and middle-of-the-road Georgians who harbored concerns about both candidates. Many Georgia Republicans, and some others, continued to back Walker, looking past his vulnerabilities and seeing a man who called himself a redeemed “warrior of God” or one who, at the least, would be a reliable GOP vote. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers,” said Dan McLagan, an adviser to Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, one of Walker’s defeated rivals in the GOP primary.īut Warnock didn’t win simply because of Walker’s background. “Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. Long before Walker’s defeat, Republicans were sounding alarm bells about his history of violent behavior, pattern of lies and exaggerations, and tendency for bizarre and erratic statements that continued through the final hours of the runoff. And a shrewd scheduling move by the Democrat caused chaos in Walker’s campaign. A Democratic majority in the Senate, and the absence of other candidates on the ticket, changed the stakes. Warnock, meanwhile, held dozens of events to mobilize voters when they most needed the push. Credit: the Republican’s campaign, aides lurched from crisis to crisis so often it felt like a “death march,” said one staffer, one of a half-dozen Walker allies who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the inner workings of the operation.
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