The Georgia senate election has grown to become an increasing problem for the Republican Party as football player Herschel Walker's past is coming back to haunt him.
Walker, who was recruited by former President Donald Trump, was ultimately supported by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The Washington Post explained that Walker hasn't been able to take on some of the discipline that typical candidates have. During a donor retreat for GOP candidates, Walker was asked about fiscal policy and the budget and he rambled about Black Lives Matter and the police, those attending the event revealed.
"The surprised reaction to Walker’s response was familiar to Republicans, who have been tracking his struggling bid in one of the most competitive Senate contests in the nation. Since easily winning his primary, his polling edge against Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) has become a deficit amid erratic campaigning, verbal flubs and disclosures about three children he had not previously spoken about publicly," the Post explained.
Not long before the primary election, Walker was polling well up against Warnock, nearly dead even with a margin of error of 3-4 percent. Now, Walker is down by ten points, and Warnock hasn't gone on a full attack against his GOP opponent yet.
Midterm elections generally have greater support among the party opposite the president's, as FiveThirtyEight explained. That along with gerrymandering that heavily favors Republicans should be handing the GOP huge wins. Commentators have spent the past several months assuming that the Democrats would lose power in the House and Senate and that President Biden would spend the last two years of his first term with gridlock similar to that former President Barack Obama had.
"The result has been a rescue mission, helmed in part by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has led to several veteran staff hires by Walker’s campaign, including Brett O’Donnell, the party’s most celebrated debate prep strategist," said the Post. "It is just one of the ways GOP leaders have found themselves dealing with cleanup efforts as they round the summer bend on what should be a banner Republican election season."
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz has been ridiculed for turning against Trump after his Republican primary. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman ridiculed Oz, using a video from Stephen Colbert, for shifting all of his campaign graphics from being bright red and featuring his support from Trump. Now they're suddenly blue and make no mention of Trump.
Typically, campaigns of carpetbaggers who move into a state or district to run for office aren't all that compelling. Fetterman, however, has managed to strike a chord as Oz continues to conduct campaign activity from his New Jersey home. There have been so many examples of Oz living in one place while campaigning in another that it's become a joke with Oz turning into a point of non-stop ridicule.
In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) was among the top most endangered Democrats, but after the Supreme Court's decision to eliminate Roe v. Wade, things have changed. With far-right opponent Attorney General Adam Laxalt being caught on tape saying he would work to make abortion illegal in Nevada, a state in which pro-choice voters significantly outnumber anti-choice ones.
Simon Rosenberg's New Democratic Network revealed that looking at nine polls since the Court overturned Roe shows that Democrats are leading by 1.7 percent in a Generic ballot for Congressional candidates. It's an increase of 3-5 percent from before the ruling.
Behind the scenes, Republicans are growing increasingly nervous, a GOP strategist revealed to the Post. "There are massive problems on the candidate front.” It was compared to the 2010 and 2012 seasons when Republicans had major leads, but still failed to win the Senate back due to people like Todd Akin in Missouri, Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Sharron Angle in Nevada.
Then there are problems where Republicans that are drawing the ire of Donald Trump could lose simply by MAGA world refusing to support them in the general election. In the case of Arizona, for example, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who switched parties from a Republican, could go up against businessman Blake Masters, who has ties to neo-Nazis or the attorney general that Trump hates.
In Ohio, moderate Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) will go up against JD Vance, who has lagged behind in recent polls. Meanwhile, the abortion debate has come up in that state as well, after a 10-year-old girl was raped and ended up pregnant. The child was then forced to travel to another state to get an abortion. It has forced Republicans to answer whether they put children first over a rape fetus. One Republican went so far as to call a rape baby an "opportunity" for the 10-year-old.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is also having trouble in Wisconsin. After a bizarre series of statements around Jan. 6, his involvement has prompted questions.
After years in office, Johnson is "roughly even with three of his four potential Democratic rivals" the Post said, citing a Marquette University poll from June before news broke of his office trying to hand off fake electors to Vice President Mike Pence. "Johnson was viewed favorably by 37 percent of the state’s registered voters in that poll and unfavorably by 46 percent."
The Senate races don't even start to cover the congressional members who might not make it through November either.
Read more at the Washington Post.