Momentum Swing: Has Herschel Walker's Debate Win Put Georgia in Play?

Last Friday, Herschel Walker defied expectations and won the lone Senate debate in Georgia, repeatedly hammering Sen. Raphael Warnock over his 96 percent voting record in favor of the Biden agenda. Partisans will always find a way to spin debates regardless of what happens, but the consensus seems to be that Walker did what he needed to do -- or was flat-out victorious.

You can tell it wasn't a good night for Warnock when prominent Democrats are saying things like this:

Prominent Georgia Democrat acknowledges Warnock had a bad debate without having to say so directly. https://t.co/A5fwP7PSJY
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 15, 2022

And when journalists are quoting Democratic sources conceding points like this:

“Herschel Walker had one mission tonight: make Kemp Republicans comfortable with him and stop ticket splitting,” said one Democratic strategist. “It feels like he did that.” #gapol https://t.co/bkrgWlhyDj
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) October 15, 2022

If Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who debated Stacey Abrams last night, is able to win big (let's say by seven points or more), he might be able to pull Walker over the line. Limiting Republican/center-right defections or undervotes was an important task for Walker on Friday, and both sides appear to believe that he succeeded. His job was to be a plausible Senator and a palatable option. By most accounts, he did well, boiling down the race to its essence in this referendum-on-Democratic-governance election:

Walker's opening statement: “This race ain’t about me. It’s about what Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to you and your family. Tonight, [Warnock is] going to try to sweet talk you that he’s doing a good job, but his record speaks for itself.” #GASenDebate pic.twitter.com/YRGogqnwuc
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 14, 2022

One wonders if Warnock might be regretting only agreeing to a single debate at this point. One also wonders if Warnock will offer any answers on this controversy involving his church (language warning).

"Unemployment benefits have expired, rent is due today, and many Georgia families are at risk of eviction in the middle of a pandemic," Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) wrote in a tweet in August 2020, charging that by failing to act, his political opponents were "clearly only concerned with serving their own interests." It may be good political rhetoric, but Warnock’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the senator serves as senior pastor—drawing a salary as well as a generous $7,417 monthly housing allowance—has moved to evict disadvantaged residents from an apartment building it owns, one of whom it tried to push out on account of merely $28.55 in past-due rent...The church is the 99 percent owner of the Columbia Tower at MLK Village in downtown Atlanta, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, which describe the building as a home for the "chronically homeless" and those with "mental disabilities." A dozen eviction lawsuits were filed against Columbia Tower residents over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the first one in February 2020 and, most recently, in September 2022. The total sum of past-due rent cited in the lawsuits is just $4,900, a figure that could have been covered by one of Warnock’s monthly housing stipends from the church. The lawsuits were filed by Ebenezer Baptist Church’s business partner, Columbia Residential, the 1 percent owner of the building, which manages its day-to-day operations...
The revelations threaten to undermine Warnock’s efforts to cast himself as an ally of struggling Georgians working to meet rent in the face of pandemic-era challenges...Columbia Tower residents, who told the Free Beacon they were unaware that Ebenezer Baptist Church owns their building, described living under the rule of landlords who don’t hesitate to go to court to evict them and their neighbors, even if they’re just a few days short on rent. "They treat me like a piece of shit. They're not compassionate at all," said Columbia Tower resident Phillip White, a 69-year-old African American who says he served in Vietnam and received an eviction notice on Sept. 20 for failure to meet a $192 rent payment. It was Columbia Tower’s second attempt to evict White, who received his first eviction notice in September 2021 for $179 in past-due rent. That case was dropped after White paid up, plus an additional $325 in fees, he told the Free Beacon.

Warnock is trying to deny it outright, but there are receipts:

Warnock saying they're not evicting tenants simply isn't true.

Here's the lawsuit.

Warnock's church, which pays him a $7,400/mo housing allowance, owns 99% of the property in reference here. pic.twitter.com/F3DiixDI2u
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) October 15, 2022

Warnock is suggesting that nobody can talk about these unfortunate facts because of Martin Luther King's connection to his church.

Ironic, considering MLK's name is at the top of each of the eviction lawsuits filed against the disadvantaged residents of its apartment building pic.twitter.com/vAS7X7Fa35
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) October 15, 2022

This is all public record!

Search for lawsuits filed in the Fulton County Magistrate court by "Columbia MLK Tower, Columbia Residential" and "Columbia MLK Tower, Columbia Residential Property Management."

Here's the link in case you need it: https://t.co/WzAHnpGx64
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) October 17, 2022

The national media flew into a frenzy over abortion allegations against Walker (whose denials have been unpersuasive to me, for what it's worth), with a heavy emphasis on hypocrisy and dishonesty. Shouldn't this housing scandal be the equivalent for Pastor Compassion? He was living large, courtesy of his congregants' cash, while a building owned by his church was squeezing the poorest of the poor out of their apartments in the middle of a pandemic -- all while he was railing against evictions during COVID? And when confronted with the proof, he's apparently lying about it? Meanwhile, here's Warnock voting early in Georgia yesterday, an act that undermines he and Abrams' insidious "suppression" lie, as several observers have pointed out:

In-person early voting in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware still hasn't started.

So much for “Jim Crow 2.0.”https://t.co/ymwOtQCqyf
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 17, 2022

17 days of early voting starts today in Georgia. State law requires counties to have at least two Saturdays of early voting as well.
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) October 17, 2022

I'll leave you with a pair of sports-related burns against Warnock:

Warnock just refused to support the Atlanta Braves keeping their name. ooops https://t.co/Qdd5NyU6GG
— Curt Anderson (@CurtOnMessage) October 14, 2022

🔥🔥🔥 @HerschelWalker got Warnock a “Team Biden” jersey for voting with Biden 96% of the time!pic.twitter.com/vgLsy780dx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 15, 2022