Herschel Walker (R) is bashing pronouns as he ends his U.S. Senate campaign.
Said Walker: “Why are they bringing pronouns in our military? Pronouns?! What the heck is a pronoun. I’m sick and tired of that pronoun stuff. Aren’t y’all sick and tired of that pronoun stuff?”
He added that he wants our military “to be at war fighting.”
“I want you to vote like democracy depends on it. Vote like healthcare depends on it. Vote like a woman’s right to choose depends on it, because it does. You ought to vote like it’s an emergency.”
— Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), quoted by The Hill, the day before the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia.
A new UMass Lowell poll in Georgia finds Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) leading challenger Herschel Walker (R), 51% to 46%.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball moves Georgia’s Senate runoff moves from Toss-up to Leans Democratic on the eve of tomorrow’s election.
Herschel Walker (R) needs a big Election Day showing to overcome what should be a decent-sized lead for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in the early vote.
“Arizona officials certified the state’s vote canvass on Monday, officially declaring winners in the high-profile gubernatorial and Senate races, among other contests, as GOP figures vow to fight the election results in court,” The Hill reports.
Cheryl Parsa told NBC News how Herschel Walker (R), who has been accused by several girlfriends and his ex-wife of mistreating them, grabbed her throat and threw a punch at her when she found him with another woman at his apartment in Dallas.
Said Parsa: “He had his hand on my throat, my chest, and then he leaned back to throw a punch. And luckily, I was able to avoid that. And the punch landed on the wall instead of me.”
Politico: “Both parties are expecting a close outcome on Tuesday in the closely divided state. After a November election that defied expectations in countless races around the country, a Walker victory is not out of the question.”
“But from Warnock’s first-place finish in the first round of voting to scattered polling and temperature checks of Democratic and GOP operatives, Warnock heads into Election Day as at least a slight favorite to win a full six-year term.”
Washington Post: Warnock, Walker make final pitches in Georgia Senate runoff.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: The 5 biggest questions of the Senate runoff.
Playbook: “Georgia is a bona fide purple state. Biden’s Georgia win was the breakthrough Peach State Democrats had been heralding for years, and the twin victories in the subsequent Senate runoffs only cemented that claim.”
“But states typically transform over multiple election cycles, and a Warnock victory Tuesday would confirm Georgia’s trajectory as the state’s demographic picture only gets more favorable for Democrats. Could we be looking at Virginia circa 2008?”
Key takeaway: “There’s a blueprint for flipping red states. Democratic organizers in conservative states have pleaded for years for more national investment, and if Warnock pulls it out, they believe they will have irrefutable proof of concept.”
Playbook: “Trump gets a much-needed boost. Speaking of the embattled former president, nothing could undermine the growing sense that Trump is a loser for Republicans than a come-from-behind win by his hand-picked candidate. It would make it that much harder to push the former president and current presidential candidate to the sidelines.”
“Brian Kemp is a political juggernaut. Moving to the runoff, Walker lost the chance to argue that the Senate majority is at stake. But he gained an active and effective surrogate in Gov. Brian Kemp, who kept his distance from Walker during his race against Abrams. Kemp appeared at multiple rallies and cut a direct-to-camera endorsement ad, and it’s hard to see Walker pulling it out without Kemp vouching for him to skeptical suburbanites.”
Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) seemed genuinely offended in a Fox News interview that Barack Obama joked about Walker’s comparison between wearwolves and vampires.
Said Walker: “Well, what’s sad is they’re always trying to mislead people. That’s the same as you listening to… Obama talking about I’m talking about vampires and werewolves… Why don’t they tell the whole story?”
“They’re not because they know right now that the House will be even so they don’t want to understand what is happening right now. You get the House, you get the committees. You get all the committees even, they just stall things within there. So if we keep a check on Joe Biden, we just going to keep a check on him.”
— Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R), in an interview with Politico, arguing he hasn’t seen any lack of enthusiasm from voters.
“Herschel Walker defended his campaign strategy less than four days before the Georgia Senate runoff and denied that he has been avoiding questions from voters and mainstream news organizations,” Politico reports.
Said Walker: “I’ve never been hiding.”
Playbook: “As predicted, some Republicans who dislike Walker no longer feel that voting for him is as existential anymore. Both Biden and Trump have decided to stay away, reducing the national circus-like nature of the race. And polls show a consistent Warnock lead: Of seven surveys released since early November, five showed a Warnock lead, one had the race tied, and one showed a 1-point Walker lead.”
“But the outcome will still have major implications. A 51-49 Senate means that committees will no longer have even memberships, making Chuck Schumer’s ’s attempts to get legislation and nominations to the floor easier. And the balance of power in the Democratic caucus will shift slightly to the left, denying Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) the extraordinary control he exercised in 2021 and 2022.”
“Some people don’t want some people to vote.”
— Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), quoted by Politico, pushing his supporters to vote early.
Teddy Schleifer: “I find it very hard to believe that SBF’s giving to Republicans matched his donations to Democrats—he was the second-largest disclosed donor to Democrats in the 2020 cycle at $40 million—and sources close to SBF don’t think this is true, either. In fact, an SBF adviser told a source of mine that the recent claim from SBF was flatly untrue. More likely, SBF was speaking loosely and hyperbolically, as he is prone to do.”
“But it is true that in the sprint, SBF’s aides at FTX and on his personal donor-advisory team began moving major money to G.O.P.-aligned groups, generally to entities affiliated with Republican leadership, I’m told. Some of that money was through disclosed vehicles, like McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund. But some of it was not.”
New York Times: “For weeks during the general election, Herschel Walker was joined on the campaign trail by top Republican senators, party leaders and conservative activists eager to help the former football star’s Senate bid in Georgia. Now, with certain exceptions, he’s often been the only draw at his events.”
“The shift reflects fresh doubts at the top of the Republican Party, where disappointing midterm election results last month have triggered an identity crisis among conservatives reeling from losses in a third consecutive campaign cycle.”
Washington Post: “Republicans have grown increasingly nervous about the final U.S. Senate election of the midterms, a runoff in Georgia that reflects larger concerns over candidate quality, infighting and ties to Donald Trump that loom over the party’s future.”
“Election officials on Friday reported heavy turnout in Georgia on the last day of early voting ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff election that will determine whether Democrats can add to their razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate,” Reuters reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
