Herschel Walker’s Loss Definitively Proves Donald Trump Is a Loser in Georgia

T he midterms finally came to an end with a familiar story: Republicans squandered another opportunity to pick up a Senate seat, this time in the Peach State, as Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker lost to incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock. In this loss, and in the other Republican victories that surrounded it, there are lessons for Republicans nationwide — if they are willing to heed them.

For one, we’ve seen this exact same movie before. And not just earlier in this cycle, when Trump-backed Republican candidates, such as John Gibbs for the House and Blake Masters for the Senate, prevailed in their Republican primaries only to lose to Democrats. The narrow loss of both Republican-held Senate seats in Georgia to Democrats just under two years ago is also still a fresh memory for Georgians. So, lesson one: In a lot of places, Georgia very much included, Trump is not an electoral boon but a drag.

Another fresh memory in Georgia is Trump’s post-2020-election tantrum, directed, in part, at Republican governor Brian Kemp for certifying the results of the election in the state, which went for Joe Biden, and at secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for refusing Trump’s demand to “find 11,780 votes.” The timing of Trump’s tantrum helped ensure the Republican losses in the January 5, 2021, runoff.

Thus, Trump remains unpopular here, even among Republicans. Not enough for Walker, a state football legend, to have lost in his Senate primary (as the runner-up in the contest, agriculture commissioner Gary Black, only mustered 13.4 percent of the vote to Walker’s 68 percent). But more than enough for Kemp to prevail over a Trump-backed opponent in a gubernatorial primary earlier this year. Kemp was challenged by David Perdue, who ought to be angrier at Trump than anyone, given that Trump’s post-2020 tantrum helped cost Perdue his Senate seat. Regardless, Kemp dispatched him soundly.

Kemp also easily defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams on Election Night, after having beaten her only narrowly four years before. It was a good night overall for the GOP in Georgia. As National Review’s Jim Geraghty noted, “Republicans won the statewide races in Georgia’s governor’s race, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state attorney general, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, state superintendent of schools, labor commissioner, ten out of 14 U.S. House races, 33 out of 56 state senate seats, and at least 100 out of 156 state-house seats.” Another lesson, then: Kemp and Kemp-like candidates are winners in Georgia.

Herschel Walker was a glaring exception to all of this. He lost to Warnock on Election Night, though neither cleared the 50 percent threshold in order to win outright (hence the runoff). Every other Republican running statewide cleared the 50-percent threshold for a runoff. What made Walker different from the rest of Georgia’s winning Republican slate? It’s that Trump had singled Walker out, promoted him, and urged him to run (against the objections of many close to him, according to his son Christian) because he had a good record on the one quality Trump really cares about: loyalty. Walker supported Trump’s 2020 campaign, speaking on his behalf at the 2020 Republican National Convention. Trump also took advantage of Walker’s obvious name recognition. He was likely excited about the possibility of having another pro-Trump celebrity, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania (who also lost), who had not only a high profile but also a high degree of personal loyalty.

But it turns out there are other qualities voters, especially Georgia voters, value in a candidate. Walker’s massive liabilities — including a troubled domestic history, multiple unacknowledged children, and allegations that he had paid for previous girlfriends’ abortions — became public after he easily won the GOP nomination. Warnock’s campaign constantly reminded voters of these character flaws. Warnock outraised Walker by over $30 million as it became abundantly clear Walker wasn’t in an ideal position to flip the seat.

This allowed Warnock to capitalize on other reservations voters had about Walker, such as his uncertain command of the issues on which he was campaigning. This created a separation of Walker from Kemp, as the former could not ride the latter’s coattails to victory on Election Night. Nothing that happened in the interim dispelled the criticisms of Walker that Warnock’s campaign made to voters — including some who voted for Brian Kemp. Many people underestimated the impact of Kemp-Warnock voters in the first round. But those voters played a significant role in this outcome. Despite Kemp’s joining Team Herschel after successfully winning a second term in the governor’s mansion, it was far too late for him to bail out a ship that had already sunk to rock bottom. Kemp is a deft politician, but even he could not salvage what Trump had given to his state. Mark another lesson down: Candidate quality matters.

Still, it is a mark of Kemp’s political talent and noble principles that he has helped extract his state’s Republican Party from the bitter internecine warfare Trump inflicted on it after 2020, which had at one point seemed like a task too strenuous to achieve. To be sure, he had help. The Left’s assault on Georgia, led by the Biden administration, after the state legislature passed a wholly sensible election-reform package helped reunite Republicans in the Peach State. As did the looming specter of Stacey Abrams, who, like Trump, denied the results of an election she lost in the state. But it still required immense electoral skill for Kemp, on the one hand, to distance himself from Trump and his fantasies about the “rigged and stolen” 2020 election, while, on the other, to successfully advance conservative policy in the face of opposition from the left, including someone who had been one of the Democrats’ rising stars. Kemp’s entire approach here, which won over conservative voters without embracing Trump’s delusions, constitutes a lesson unto itself for Republicans looking to exit from the counterproductive chaos of the Trump era.

Since his win, Kemp has provided yet more evidence of his contrast with Trump. Commenting on Trump’s dinner with Kanye West, which also included known white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, Kemp said that “racism, antisemitism and denial of the Holocaust have no place in the Republican Party and are completely un-American.” Kemp made these remarks prior to West’s bizarre praise of Hitler and the Nazi Party while insisting that the Holocaust never took place in a tirade on Alex Jones’s InfoWars show. These subsequent developments have only vindicated Kemp’s initial clarity and principles. This should be another lesson for Republicans: Just as important as saying what we believe is outlining what we don’t, and calling out things that are unacceptable can be both clarifying and politically beneficial.

Walker was always a flawed candidate, whatever his record was as a football player. He was also one of the last vestiges of Trump’s quest for vengeance against the state Republican Party, a pursuit that has for now come to naught. Fortunately, Brian Kemp and Republicans like him have proven that it is possible to succeed in Georgia without Trump. By rejecting Trump’s whims and foibles but continuing to advance conservative policy in a manner that appeals not just to Republicans but also persuadable independents (recall the Kemp-Warnock voters), Kemp has shown the way forward.

And not just for Georgia Republicans. Indeed, the last lesson of Walker’s debacle and Kemp’s triumph is that Kemp’s model — if not necessarily Kemp himself — could and should serve as a template for Republicans nationwide, whereas Trump’s model — and definitely Trump himself — is a failure. If Republicans are tired of the same story of failure, in Georgia and elsewhere, they should take this lesson, especially, to heart.