The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board lamented that the Republican Party had blown yet another winnable Senate race this year -- and it placed blame for the fiasco squarely at the feet of former President Donald Trump.
The editors described Walker's defeat at the hands of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) as "Donald Trump's final 2022 gift to the GOP," as Walker was just one of many hand-picked Trump candidates to crash and burn in a general election.
After taking a shot at President Joe Biden for falsely predicting that Georgia's new voting laws would strangle participation in the state's elections, the editors turned their attention to Trump, who went out of his way to make sure that Walker would be the Republican Party nominee despite a long list of well known character defects and scandals.
"Mr. Trump helped to clear the GOP primary field for Mr. Walker," write the editors. “'Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?' Mr. Trump said in March 2021. 'He would be unstoppable.' Mr. Walker had no serious primary opposition, but he was unvetted and inexperienced, and Democrats dug up and unloaded truckloads of unflattering personal history."
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The editors concluded with a plea to the Republican Party to look beyond Trump in the 2024 race, as they predicted he would have no shot of winning another general election.
"The evidence is overwhelming over the last three election cycles that Mr. Trump and the crazy parts of Trumpism alienate suburban voters and divide the GOP," they write. "Denying that is denying reality and will guarantee more needless Republican losses in 2024."