It’s fitting that old #34 lost roughly by a Sanford Stadium worth of voters.
Out of 3.5 million-plus votes cast, Herschel Walker, UGA’s legendary running back and beloved icon, lost by about 96,000 votes, or 2.7%, to Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock. In the scheme of things, this was a blowout. A month ago, in all of Georgia’s statewide races, the best a Democrat could do was lose by 5%.
We can thank Georgia voters, who are still largely a conservative lot, for turning back what would have been a national embarrassment for the state.
Herschel, an intensely competitive person but a disaster of a candidate, was perhaps the only Republican who could have lost in Georgia this time around. (And that’s including Kelly Loeffler.)
Dan McLagan, a GOP hired-gun and campaign staffer for Gary Black, one of Walker’s defeated primary opponents, summed up Walker’s candidacy perfectly to my colleague Greg Bluestein: “Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. And an orphanage. Then an animal shelter. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers.”