We’re about to see a U.S. Senate campaign unlike any other.
On Tuesday, Herschel Walker entered the campaign after decades living in Texas and instantly became the GOP front-runner in a field devoid of other big Republican stars because former President Donald Trump had practically begged his old friend to run.
Walker released a statement this morning that sheds a little light on his strategy to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock.
He focused on his small-town roots, touted his success on the football field and in the business world, and declared, “The country is at a crossroads. I can’t sit on the sidelines anymore.” He also said he’d support “conservative values,” but he said nothing to hint about where he stands on specific policies or what he’d do in office.
We’re left with more questions than answers. Here are a few of the most burning ones:
What type of campaign will he run?
Thanks to his sky-high name recognition, Walker enters the Republican race in an enviable position. Polls show him with a lead over his closest GOP rivals and neck-and-neck with Warnock.
Judging by his approach before his rollout, we can imagine he won’t run a conventional campaign chock-full of public appearances and stump speeches on the trail. He skipped every major GOP event on the calendar this year and limited his rare comments to friendly appearances on Fox News.
Some Republican strategists expect Walker to continue that approach, confining his comments to social media, canned statements and scattered TV appearances.
Now that he’s a candidate, though, he’ll face intense pressure to hit the trail and introduce himself to voters, particularly the Republican activists and donors who hold outsized sway in GOP nomination contests.
How will he handle his troubled past?
In the runup to his announcement, a string of stories documented red-flags in Walker’s history, including abusive behavior toward his ex-wife that merited a court protective order. His history of mental illness also triggered violent episodes.
But Walker never responded to those disclosures or offered details about his past. For months, there was also no clear campaign team surrounding Walker to handle the responses for him.
But he’s now hired a team of aides charged with shaping Walker’s message and pushing back on the damaging reports that could hobble his campaign. They also must decide how he’ll discuss his dissociative identity disorder, a condition he said he’s struggled with for much of his life.
How helpful will Donald Trump be?
The former president has loudly encouraged Walker to run, predicting that he’ll be “unstoppable” as a candidate. Now that he’s in the race, a formal endorsement is sure to follow, along with plans to stage rallies in Georgia in the runup to the election.
We’re reminded of U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter’s comments about the hold that Trump retains on the Georgia GOP. Carter was pondering a Senate bid, but ruled out a run if Walker entered the race.
“I’m not interested in political suicide. I ain’t gonna run against Herschel Walker in the state of Georgia. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”
But Trump could also be a liability in a general election, as he was in in the 2021 Senate runoffs, particularly with the moderates in the wealthier suburbs and independents tired of Trump’s grip on state politics.
What does Kelly Loeffler do?
The biggest Republican name still undecided on the race is Loeffler, whom Warnock unseated in the January runoff. The wealthy executive has spent the last few months building out a grassroots organization meant to be the conservative answer to Stacey Abrams’ voting rights group.
She’s also stoked speculation that she could enter the contest, something that would make Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell a happy man. He’s said to be skeptical of Walker’s chances, and has urged both Loeffler and former Sen. David Perdue to mount a comeback. (Perdue has flatly rejected the idea.)
Our gut tells us Loeffler could yet enter the race – but not any time soon. We expect her to wait a few months and gauge whether Walker soars on the campaign trail or falls flat. If the latter happens, and Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black or the other GOP candidates don’t gain traction, she could play the role of the Republican savior by swooping in to qualify just before the March deadline.
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Was it worth it? That is the question we and others are asking U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.
She and nine other centrist Democrats had threatened to derail a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint, complete with some of the party’s top priorities, unless House leaders also agreed to take an immediate vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that has already passed the Senate.
In the end, the moderates went along with a plan that allowed the budget bill to advance, along with a promise that they will get their vote on the infrastructure bill by Sept. 27.
The New York Times reported that the days of back-and-forth between House factions eventually required President Joe Biden to personally lobby some of the holdouts, even as the crisis in Afghanistan spiraled out of control.
We asked Bourdeaux if she had gotten a call from POTUS, too.
“No. But I had a number of really great conversations with people in his office,” she said. “And that was very, very helpful.”
Separately, Politico reported that Bourdeaux made a late-night demand Monday to move a date certain for a vote on infrastructure up by a week. The date for the vote was ultimately bumped up by just a day.
A spokesman for the congresswoman disputed a portion of that report, telling us all of the centrists, not just Bourdeaux, made that request to move the timeline forward.
While all this was happening, Bourdeaux heard loads of criticism from progressive groups back home in Georgia. We’ll be paying attention in the coming days to how her constituents react to those Washington maneuvers and how, or even whether, it affects her support among liberals and independent-to-conservative voters. She’ll need them all to get reelected in 2022.
So was all the drama worth the result? We asked her last night. Her answer: “Yes.”
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All of the drama unfolding around Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux’s high-profile involvement in the House Democrats’ mega-deal Tuesday begs the question- where was U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath on all of this?
McBath represents the suburban Atlanta Sixth District House seat just next door to Bourdeaux’s Seventh District.
Like Bourdeaux’s district, state Republican leaders would love to find a way to tinker with McBath’s home base to make it more competitive for the GOP.
But unlike Bourdeaux, we heard almost nothing from McBath as the budget and infrastructure process played out.
The congresswoman instead Tweeted several times Tuesday, focusing her communications on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which also moved forward in the House.
McBath voted with Democrats on all of the measures Tuesday.
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We’ve heard from doctors and nurses around Georgia that COVID-swamped hospitals feel like a war zone again.
So it seemed all-too-appropriate that Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday that he will deploy 105 National Guard personnel to hospitals around the state.
The trained medical staff will support already stretched doctors and nurses at Southeast Georgia Health System (Brunswick),Northeast Georgia Medical Center (Gainesville), Wellstar Kennestone (Marietta), Piedmont Henry (Stockbridge), Phoebe Putney (Albany), Memorial Health University Medical Center (Savannah), Navicent Health (Macon), Grady Hospital (Atlanta), Piedmont Fayette (Fayetteville), and Houston Medical Center (Warner Robins).
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Heritage Action, the D.C.-based conservative political committee, is running ads targeting Georgia’s U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, as well as U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.
Politico reported that the $860,000 digital ad campaign opposes Democrats’ effort to include in the $3.5 trillion spending package measures intended to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
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We told you yesterday about the first ad from Sharon Gay’s campaign for mayor, which her campaign put $300,000 behind.
The AJC’s Wilborn Nobles reports that former Mayor Kasim Reed put out his first ad Tuesday, as well, dropping $590,000 on a crime-focused ad titled, “Atlanta can’t wait.”
As Nobles reports, the ad shows several people vouching for Reed’s experience in addressing crime. It also features Reed promising to train hundreds of new police officers “in a post-George Floyd way.”
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The Georgia Supreme Court declined Tuesday to overturn the results of a recent Long County, Ga. election. The election in question included invalid votes, but not enough to change the election results, the AJC’s Mark Niesse reports.
The ruling ends a yearlong case that sought a new election for probate judge after the losing candidate alleged double-voting, nonresident voting and incomplete absentee ballot documents.
The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's finding that six people voted twice and one person wasn't a resident of Long County, located in southeast Georgia. But those improper votes fell short of the number needed to overturn the election.
“Those seven ballots were not sufficient to place the results of the election in doubt given the nine-vote margin of victory in this case," Justice Carla Wong McMillan wrote in a 7-0 decision.
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Today’s Savannah Morning News features the funeral for the late state Rep. Mickey Stephens, the longtime Lowcountry legislator who died earlier this month after an extended illness.
Along with his duties at the state Capitol, Stephens was a former girls’ basketball coach and teacher in both industrial arts and engineering.
Stephens was remembered by his former colleagues state Rep. Al Williams, state Rep. J. Wayne Howard, state Rep. Ron Stephens and state Rep. Billy Mitchell.
Savannah-Chatham Public School System Superintendent Ann Levett, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, and Savannah State University President Kimberly Ballard-Washington all spoke as well.
“By saying his name, we ensure that his memories will sustain,” Williams said.
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As always, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
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