Georgia
Republicans reflect and blame after Trump-backed
candidate Walker loses
Herschel Walker’s failure to win Georgia runoff is
latest in long list of midterm misfires for extremist candidates endorsed by
Trump
Richard
Luscombe
@richlusc
Wed 7 Dec
2022 14.07 EST
Deflated
Republicans were embarking on a period of introspection and blame on Wednesday
after Herschel Walker, Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate, fell well short in
his effort to capture Georgia’s Senate seat.
Walker’s
failure in the runoff against the incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock was the
most recent of a long list of misfires in the midterm elections for extremist
candidates endorsed by the former president, who announced his latest run for
the White House last month.
It secured
Democrats a 51-49 majority in the Senate, leaving Republicans powerless to
block key elements of Joe Biden’s agenda, especially judicial appointments, for
at least two years.
Hours after
Walker delivered his concession speech in Atlanta on Tuesday night, an
increasing number of prominent party members were suggesting they were ready to
look for a future unshackled by Trump and his lie that his 2020 election defeat
to Biden was fraudulent.
John
Bolton, national security adviser during Trump’s single term in office, was
forthright in a tweet urging Republican colleagues to cast him aside.
“The
outcome in Georgia is due primarily to Trump, who cast a long shadow over this
race,” he wrote.
“His
meddling and insistence that the 2020 election was stolen will deliver more
losses. Trump remains a huge liability and the Democrats’ best asset. It’s time
to disavow him and move on.”
John Thune,
a South Dakota Republican and Senate minority whip, also blamed his party’s
flops on the Trump factor.
“Was he a
factor? I don’t think there’s any question about that, because a lot of the
candidates that had problems in these elections were running on the 2020
election being stolen, and I don’t think independent voters were having it.”
Lindsey
Graham, the South Carolina Republican seen as a close ally of the former
president, did not refer to Trump directly in his own analysis, but saw blame
for his party’s lackluster midterms performance in poor-quality candidates,
such as Walker, focusing on Trump’s big lie.
“Democrats
have done a pretty good job of picking issues that motivate their base and that
have wider support among the public,” Graham told Politico.
“We need to
be doing the same thing. I think a lot of people in the Republican party don’t
see us doing it as emphatically as Democrats.”
Other
election-denying, Trump-backed candidates who were defeated included Kari Lake,
who was seeking the governorship of Arizona; Blake Masters, who lost his race
for that state’s Senate seat; and Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television doctor
and conspiracy theorist who was beaten by senator-elect John Fetterman in
Pennsylvania as Democrats flipped the previously Republican-held seat.
The Lincoln
Project, a political action committee consisting largely of disgruntled Republicans,
gleefully tweeted a video clip from the rightwing Fox News network, captioned
“And the runner-up is …”, showcasing 25 Trump-endorsed losers from various
midterm races.
Trump
himself remained defiant, posting on his own Truth Social network, in all
capitals, that “Our country is in big trouble. What a mess!” and without
accepting any responsibility for Walker’s defeat.
The
question now is whether the Republican party, which has remained fiercely loyal
despite his two impeachments, the 2020 election defeat and their failure to
recapture control of Congress, still sees Trump as the undisputed party leader
and the man to lead them into the 2024 presidential race. Many members are
proposing to switch allegiance from a man mired in legal problems over the
January 6 Capitol riot, his mishandling of classified documents post-presidency
and efforts in Georgia to overturn Biden’s victory, to someone more appealing
and without that baggage, such as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.
Trump’s
toxicity at the ballot box, especially among suburban voters, provoked
grumbling even before last weekend, when Trump was condemned for hosting dinner
at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with the antisemitic rapper Kanye West and
the white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Several
Republicans, including the usually loyal Senate minority leader, Mitch
McConnell, also spoke out this week when Trump demanded the “termination” of
the constitution to accommodate his election lies.
Mick
Mulvaney, White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, pointed to
the party’s mixed performance in Georgia, where the Republican governor, Brian
Kemp, and senior officials were re-elected comfortably in the generally
reliably red state. Trump lost Georgia to Biden in 2020, and watched Democrats
take both Senate seats from Republicans he endorsed.
“Trump has
now lost four races in Georgia in two years. One of his own and three by proxy.
Similar stories in [Arizona and Pennsylvania],” Mulvaney tweeted.
“He has a
swing-state problem for 2024 that is real. Again: those who win primaries, and
lose general elections, are still losers.”
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