Things are not looking too rosy for Herschel Walker in the final days of his campaign. A memo from his campaign manager was obtained by NBC News and it shows that donations have dried up. Walker is out of cash. But that’s not all. The passion in this race is on the side of the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are openly disgusted with Warnock.

“Simply put, we’re being outspent 3 to 1 by Warnock, and we’re being outspent nearly 2 to 1 by outside groups. We need help,” Walker campaign manager Scott Paradise wrote in the memo sent to donors Thursday, which was obtained by NBC News ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election.

The memo calculates that Warnock and the Democratic groups backing him have spent and committed a combined $92 million since the November election, compared with $45 million that Walker and his Republican allies have ponied up.

The problem Walker faces is that in the last days of the election, the Democrats have mounted an all out offense. Walker has nothing by way of defense. His entire campaign was built on the premise that he was going to save the senate for the Republicans. Once Catherine Cortez Masto won in Nevada, that took that off the table and Walker can offer no reason for people to vote for him.

Plus, other Republicans can’t stand him, most notably the Lt. Governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan. Democrats are leading in early voting and unless Walker can pull a rabbit out of a hat and motivate Republicans to come out en masse, he is likely going to lose.

The closeness of the race is emphasized in Paradise’s memo, which calls the contest “winnable” — but only if Republicans, who outnumber Democrats in the state, turn out in force.

So far, however, the opposite is happening. Democrats are dominating early voting, and more Republicans are publicly voicing their doubts about Walker, who has been savaged by news articles and Democratic ads that raise questions about his character, honesty and fitness for office.

Republican former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, an anti-Trump Republican, said he waited in line for an hour to get into the early voting polling station but ultimately didn’t vote because “the Republican Party deserves better than Herschel Walker.”

John Cowan, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran in 2020 against Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, described the GOP mood as “honestly not good” in a text message.

“Not a lot of energy here for Walker,” Cowan said, adding: “Current turnout favors Democrats. We’ll see what next Tuesday looks like.”

Do not forget, Walker got 203,000 fewer votes than Brian Kemp and he got 37,675 fewer votes than Warnock. And who knows how many of the votes that he did get were Republicans voting the straight party line? They were in the booth voting for Kemp and so Walker rode Kemp’s coattails. That isn’t the case this time. Walker’s out there by himself.

“Core Republican voters just can’t get fired up about Walker, and they came out in the general because they liked Kemp or their congressional candidates. But Walker wasn’t the reason, and they’re not coming out for Walker,” Bonier said.

“The other possibility is they’re waiting for Election Day,” he added. “But for that to add up, to be a plausible explanation, you would have to explain why more are waiting around for Election Day now than compared to this point in the general election in November.”

Occam’s Razor would dictate that nobody is waiting for anything, that they’ve lost interest.

Hope springs eternal. The New York Times ran an analysis suggesting that the two Democrats who won the runoffs last year, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, were an anomaly and that Georgia is a deep red state. There’s a good argument to be made for that. But it doesn’t trump the argument that Walker has nothing to offer the Republicans other than an R behind his name. Maybe that will be enough. It frequently is, especially in the South. But in this case, where so many Republicans disparage Walker and the Democrats are on fire, I think Warnock might blow this one out of the water.

 

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5 COMMENTS

  1. I have to believe that if the Black population takes an honest look at Walker, they should feel insulted. Being asked to vote for that person, over someone with integrity and morals has to feel like a slap in the face.

    • I can’t speak for Black Americans, as I’m not one. But I know that, as a Law and Order Liberal, I tend to hold those on “my side” to a higher standard because they oughta know better than to steal luggage, for example. So yeah, I would also assume that the average Black voter must be rather horrified by Walker.

  2. I was married into a black family and have been with a different black family for the past 16 years. There’s such a daily struggle to keep going & a deep cultural distrust & apathy where it concerns the law…it suppresses their motivation & belief that anything will significantly change. Hard to ignore 240 years of oppression of all minorities. Only white people believe the horseshit equal justice under the law. Black folks know it’s a lie.

    • Me too. I’m a Brit – my ex is black (West Indian) – so I too know how it is to fend off the barbs & live with the daily battles. The miracle to me is how the black population of America has risen above it all for so long – they can see you coming a mile off, they know how the enemy thinks & yet most of them have managed to be better than their foes. Notwithstanding the ‘nasties’ which every group has, nobody wants anything but peace, decency & fair play. That to me is a wonder ! i often enjoy imagining the horror of some white Americans if they wake up one morning with a black skin – could they learn from that i wonder ! No doubt they would commit suicide for they can imagine no greater horror !

  3. I wouldn’t call Georgia a deep red state. It’s not purple either, much less blue but it’s no longer deep red. Pink maybe. Had Stacey Abrams had a better showing I’d say that the pink was tinged with purple but for now I’ll stick with my assessment. If Warnock does wind up blowing out Walker a lot of folks in the GOP will start looking at how the hell their Party went along with Trump anointing him as their candidate. And also why he’s gotten (at least until now) solid support from the power structure. Add in Evangelicals, particularly the younger ones who aren’t as hung up on the old culture war crap as their elders, who care about climate change and other things that are in Democrat’s wheelhouse and I can see Georgia being legitimately purple in the next decade. The point though is that while it’s a tough place for Democrats (still), there are races where the right candidate can have a real chance at beating a Republican. And not just some asshat like Walker, as Ossoff showed.

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