As Donald Trump returns to Georgia alongside handpicked candidate Herschel Walker, Republicans’ Senate primary chaos is on full display. Here are five things you need to know about the messy GOP battle brewing in #GASEN:
- Republicans are “wary” and “frustrated” as internal divisions grow. Georgia Republicans have long warned of a Walker run, saying he has “serious baggage” and “no history of…serious policy positions.” “I don’t know a lot about him,” said Julie Woods Hill, an Alpharetta activist at the GOP Fish Fry Walker no-showed. “There’s a lot of uncertainty still. Obviously, he’s not here and I just don’t know where he stands on the issues.” Mitch McConnell “privately expressed his deep concerns” with a Walker candidacy, and CNN reports that the Minority Leader has been pushing failed former Georgia Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to consider running again in 2022.
- Chaotic Primary Infighting: Black going after Walker. Gary Black’s campaign — which has so far compiled endorsements from 55 legislative Republicans, dozens of sheriffs, and a handful of high-profile Georgia GOP figures — has been aggressively calling out Walker’s failure to show up and meet with Georgia voters, with his campaign spokesman saying that “there is a problem with Herschel that his team does not want us to know about” and comparing Walker winning the primary to “an extinction-level event.”
- Walker admitted last week that he had no hesitation to run for Senate because “I trust Donald, I trust the President, I trust him so much,” — reaffirming that his candidacy has less to do with helping Georgians and more to do with pleasing Donald Trump. In the same interview with the former president’s daughter-in-law — one of his only post-announcement appearances not on Fox News — Walker noted that he’s preparing to “campaign all over the country” for Georgia’s Senate seat.
- Walker will finally hold his first public campaign event after a month in the race — alongside Donald Trump. Walker’s first in-state campaign event was a private fundraiser with high-dollar conservative donors three weeks ago, and his early campaign strategy had been to “stay out of sight and severely limit his exposure to voters and the media” in order to limit mistakes — but the “whole lot of nothing” campaign approach and notable no-shows from GOP events aren’t helping his candidacy. His first public campaign appearance will finally come this weekend, alongside the former president at his Perry, GA rally.
- Herschel Walker’s “whole lot of nothing” campaign is off to a rocky start. The Trump-tapped candidate has established “a pattern of staying mum on most key issues” — and won’t answer basic questions about his vaccination status, his support (or lack thereof) for Brian Kemp, his opinion on Republican leadership, or just about any issue of consequence to Georgians. As Walker told Lara Trump last week, he seems to be under the impression that his opinions “don’t matter” to Georgia voters. Walker’s “rocky rollout” and “empty campaign calendar” are “unsettling some party activists” while many Georgia Republicans are “growing impatient.”
“Donald Trump’s rally will once again put Georgia Republicans’ infighting and internal chaos on full display — throwing lighter fluid on Georgia’s GOP primaries and feeding into long, divisive nomination battles up and down the Republican ticket,” said Dan Gottlieb, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “Look no further than the GOP Senate primary, where Trump’s influence is driving a wedge between Georgia Republicans and creating the nightmare scenario that Republican leaders in Georgia and Washington wanted to avoid.”