Voters Wanted GOP Control of the Senate but Rejected Kooky GOP Candidates

T he effort to blame GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s loss on the Republican Party’s supposed inability to master the mechanics of voting and elections simply doesn’t pass the laugh test.

While Walker lost the runoff election this week to Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock by three percentage points, Georgia Republican governor Brian Kemp defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams just a month ago by 7.5 points.

The split decision in Georgia can’t be chalked up to matters of policy or ideology because Kemp governed for four years as a staunch conservative. The voting bill that Kemp signed into law was demagogued by Joe Biden as the second coming of Jim Crow, and Kemp signed a ban on abortion early in pregnancy (when a baby’s heartbeat is detectable) that was in effect on Election Day.

Walker failed in a state where every single other statewide GOP candidate succeeded in 2022 for the simple reason that Walker was a mentally and morally compromised candidate who could not win the support of a critical slice of voters who generally preferred that Republicans control state and federal government.

According to one of the most accurate pollsters of 2022 — Siena/New York Times — voters in Georgia actually wanted Republicans to control the U.S. Senate by a significant margin. The final Siena/Times poll of Georgia before the November election showed voters preferring GOP control of the Senate by a four-point margin, but Warnock leading Walker by three points. If anything, the poll understated how much Georgia voters preferred a GOP Senate: The same poll that overshot Warnock’s final November margin by two points undershot Kemp’s margin of victory by 2.5 points.

The same story played out in Arizona, where the final Siena/Times poll was spot on: It showed a tied gubernatorial race (Republican Kari Lake lost by less than a point) and Republican Blake Masters trailing by six points (he ended up losing by five points). The same survey showed that Arizona voters preferred Republican control of the U.S. Senate by a seven-point margin.

In all-important Maricopa County, where Phoenix and 70 percent of the state’s voters are located, some Republicans won, while Masters lost by six points. Republican Kimberly Yee, Arizona’s state treasurer, won Maricopa by ten points. Republican Maricopa County attorney Rachel Mitchell — the woman who poked holes in the story of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford — won her county-wide election by seven points. David Schweikert, a member of the very conservative House Freedom Caucus, won a newly drawn congressional district in Maricopa by one point. (In 2020, Biden prevailed in Schweikert’s district by 1.5 points). Arizona Republicans won six of the state’s nine U.S. House seats and held onto control of the state legislature.

There are some big differences between the flaws of Walker and Masters. Walker was a flaky celebrity who openly admitted to threatening his ex-wife due to his multiple-personality disorder (a condition for which he has been treated) but denied a very credible allegation that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion. Masters was a brainy libertarian weirdo before he became a brainy New Right weirdo, and his past and present weirdness cost him dearly in the general election. (Masters and his mentor and patron Peter Thiel wrote in their book Zero to One that people with low levels of social intelligence have an advantage in Silicon Valley because they won’t follow the herd, but in the realm of electoral politics, having a high level of social intelligence is a big asset.) Both Walker and Masters lost because they were kooky Trump candidates in states where voters want normal conservatives such as Brian Kemp or Doug Ducey.

Trump played a key role in both Georgia and Arizona: He recruited and endorsed Walker, and Masters surged after Trump’s endorsement in the primary. Pennsylvania is another state that almost certainly would have reelected retiring Republican senator Pat Toomey but rejected GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, who was seen as a quack celebrity doctor and a phony. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s endorsement of Oz was decisive in the GOP primary. Oz prevailed over GOP rival Dave McCormick by less than one-tenth of a percentage point, and there was evidence that McCormick would have been a stronger candidate in the general election: A Democratic poll conducted in February found Democrat John Fetterman trailing McCormick but leading Oz. A McCormick candidacy wouldn’t have been a sure bet — Republicans in Pennsylvania were hamstrung by the campaign of GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, one of the worst candidates in America — but it almost certainly would have been a better bet than an Oz candidacy.

Candidates who in various ways embodied Trump’s worst characteristics also fared poorly in the House races. As Philip Wallach of the American Enterprise Institute reported, in 114 House races decided by less than 15 points, “Candidates bearing Trump endorsements underperformed their baseline by a whopping five points, while Republicans who were without Trump’s blessing overperformed their baseline by 2.2 points — a remarkable difference of more than seven points.” Perhaps the GOP’s worst self-inflicted wound on the House side happened in Washington State, where Trump and his allies purged pro-life Republican congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler because she voted in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. Herrera Beutler lost the primary by half a point to Republican Joe Kent, another kooky Trump candidate who spoke at a “Justice for J6” rally decrying the treatment of “political prisoners” who participated in the Capitol riot. Herrera Beutler would have certainly held the seat if she had been renominated.

Nationwide, voters backed GOP House candidates over Democratic House candidates by three percentage points. There are several reasons why the GOP had a disappointing year in the House and the Senate, but the party’s failure to recruit and nominate better candidates in key races was perhaps the most important factor. Democrats certainly had their own primary failures — they threw away a House seat in Oregon when they purged a moderate incumbent, and Mandela Barnes was a uniquely flawed Senate candidate in Wisconsin — but Republicans had more of them.