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Game Time: Herschel Walker Rips Warnock, Abrams, Biden in New Interview

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 15, 2022 1:45 PM

It's coming down to the wire in Georgia's crucial Senate race, which may well determine control of Congress' upper chamber -- again.  The incumbent is Democrat Raphael Warnock, who won a runoff election in January 2021, in which hundreds of thousands of Republican voters sat home, believing their votes wouldn't count.  Warnock has been a lock-step liberal Democrat, not distinguishing himself as an independent-minded purple state Senator in any meaningful way.  His challenger is Republican Herschel Walker, a football legend for the University of Georgia Bulldogs and a Heisman Trophy winner.

In a one-on-one interview with Walker on my radio program, I asked him about the steep learning curve of being a first-time candidate in a race with such high stakes.  I also asked about the top issues Georgians are talking about as he meets them on the trail, about his opponent's record, and about comments made by Democrats' gubernatorial nominee who called Georgia the worse state in the country in which to live.  

On that last point, Walker hit Stacey Abrams hard -- responding to her point and tying her to both his own opponent and to President Biden ("cut from the same cloth"):

Here's the full interview.  Walker has surged in this race in the last few weeks, pulling narrowly ahead in a number of polls.  It's an interesting match-up in that it features a sitting Senator who won a special election just last year, versus a statewide icon with no political experience at all.  Both men have major assets, but both have serious vulnerabilities.  Republicans are really coming after Warnock on one of his, which surfaced in 2020, too:


After quite a bit of back and forth, the two campaigns have agreed to a critical debate on October 14. Warnock is a smooth-talking pastor (misleadingly smooth, per his ex-wife) who is perceived to have an advantage in this sort of setting. Walker's task, having been criticized for running a low-profile campaign, is to demonstrate plausibility as a US Senator, rebutting detractors who call him a know-nothing.  If he can clear that bar, he'll have a real shot at winning the seat, which would represent a GOP gain.  Control of the Senate will likely boil down to a small handful of races.  A Walker victory would greatly improve Mitch McConnell's chances of taking the majority leader title back from Chuck Schumer.  On that score, I'll leave you with new polling from two other key races:

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Team McConnell is leaning hard into the cycle, trying to help fund GOP campaigns that have broadly been lagging far behind Democrats in fundraising:


I'll leave you with this.  Keep an eye on this dynamic: