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You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Senator Warnock elected to a full term

Senator Warnock elected to a full term

by | 193 Comments

This post is in: 

At this moment, it is a 50/50 race but almost all of the remaining uncounted precincts are from Metro Atlanta.

The New York Times expects the incumbent Senator to win by 3 points or so once all the metropolitan counties are counted.

Reader Interactions

193Comments

  1. 1.

    RaflW

    OMG, YEAH!!!!

    Logged on after a couple hours of cleaning (used the nervous energy of waiting) and loaded this page first. Phew!

  3. 3.

    cain

    Congratulations to Georgia! This is great news – both the senators are democratic. This is the beginning of a good trend!

    Much love to the Georgia voters in voting Warnock.

    I hope that we can capture the Governorship after Kemp. Maybe that stupid motherfucker can be convinced to leave and try to run for President.

    ETA I’m #3 I’m #3, I’m #3!!!!

  4. 4.

    Nicole

    I cannot believe it was this close.  I remember when the term “yellow dog Democrat” was still a thing, but now I think it is past time to come up with a similarly themed term for Republicans.

  5. 5.

    El Cruzado

    The guy pretty much exudes the qualities one would want in their senator and his opponent… does not.

    But we’ve gotten to the point in the application of Cleek’s law where a R candidate is better the more he’s the opposite of what liberals would want (like, a competent person who also cares for their constituents’ needs).

  8. 8.

    David Anderson

    @Nicole: I disagree.

    Walker ran anywhere from 8 to 10 points behind the generic Republican in Georgia.  There was a huge chunk of reliable GOP voters who either did not vote at all for the Senate race or who voted for the Democrat.

    8 to 10 points of a single party coalition is a huge chunk of candidate quality responsive voters for a single coalition.  We saw in November that MAGA/Election Deniers were running ~5 points behind generic Republicans in most states, so that is what saved the Senate and kept the House close.  It is not a huge chunk of the GOP coalition that will say “fuck those loons” and vote Democratic but it is a vital chunk.

  9. 9.

    thruppence

    Fantastic! Now he can stop desperately asking us for money fifty times a day ;)

    I donated as much as I could and boy is it worth it.

  10. 10.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Congratulations to Raphael Warnock!  And now Walker can take on the important task of designing his own werewolf costume.

  13. 13.

    James E Powell

    Repeating myself from the thread below, a gajillion thanks to all the people who worked their asses off in Georgia and all the people here & elsewhere who wrote, texted, donated, prayed, sent positive thoughts through the cosmos, danced, and sang.

  15. 15.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

    Given the key role Balloon Juice played in this victory I expect a judgeship or ambassadorship for one of our Jackals

  17. 17.

    CaseyL

    Senator Warnock for 6 more years; Oh what a feeling!

    His terrific partnership with Jon Ossoff will continue.

    And no more power sharing in the Senate Committees!

    I am a happy person tonight.

  18. 18.

    Dadadadadadada

    Most excellent. A close race called within two hours of polls closing is a blessing I didn’t know I needed.

  19. 19.

    kalakal

    Hoofuckingray! Oh this is so good! Time for my happy dance and some fun on a guitar

    Doubleplus good

  20. 20.

    Soprano2

    OT – hubby’s Covid test was negative! Don’t know what’s making him cough and run a fever, but it’s not Covid!

    And hooray Warnock won. It’s awful how close it was.

  21. 21.

    Splitting Image

    @Nicole:

    I cannot believe it was this close.  I remember when the term “yellow dog Democrat” was still a thing, but now I think it is past time to come up with a similarly themed term for Republicans.

    “Trumper” pretty much covers it.

    Of course, you did say “similarly themed”, so perhaps “orange man Republican”?

  23. 23.

    different-church-lady

    Ah, Doug!

    New York Times Pitchbot
    @DougJBalloon
    ·
    53m
    Dave Wasserman says that Raphael Warnock has defeated Herschel Walker. But in this Pickens County Waffle House, they aren’t so sure.

  25. 25.

    different-church-lady

    I ask this question a lot, but never get an answer: did Sam Wang ever eat that bug?

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    Spare a moment to think of just how pissed off Donald Trump probably is right now.

    Just a moment; schadenfreude overdose is no joke.

  29. 29.

    Alison Rose

    Also, a comment on the NYT FB post said that Walker “put on a fight. He is a fighter.”

    To which I replied: Yeah, if the fight involves werewolves or child support payments”

  36. 36.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Yes! Congratulations to Senator Warnock! That’s one seat Dems have locked down for at least the next 6 years and no power sharing agreement in the Senate for the next 2 years.

    I believe all of the money we raised and the postcards we wrote helped make the difference. Thank you voters of Georgia!

    Given the racist history of runoff elections in Georgia and all the voters suppression efforts by the Georgia GOP, this is especially awesome

  37. 37.

    Kent

    @dmsilev:

    Spare a moment to think of just how pissed off Donald Trump probably is right now.

    Just a moment; schadenfreude overdose is no joke.

    Honestly we can thank Trump for having a Democratic Senate today and frankly in 2020 as well.  Without the personal intervention of Trump we might not have seen a single bit of Biden’s agenda pass not to mention Ketanji Brown Jackson

  39. 39.

    Mousebumples

    Quick shout out to all the Juicers who joined me for the #GOTV postcard threads – whether you were writing with me, distributing addresses, cheering us on, and/or giving us some great tunes to listen to. We helped do this! 🤩

  40. 40.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

    right now Dump is saying, “I don’t know Walker, I’ve never met him, I wouldn’t know him if he was standing next to me.”

  41. 41.

    mrmoshpotato

    @cain:

    Congratulations to Georgia! This is great news – both the senators are democratic. This is the beginning of a good trend! 

    And neither are insane.

    ETA I’m #3 I’m #3, I’m #3!!!!

    Want a cookie?  (I don’t have any.)

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @different-church-lady:

    I think the Nobel Committee (or whatever they’re called) should create a Nobel Prize for Tweeting, for which  “New York Times Pitchbot” — whoever that guy is — would be a leading contender.

  44. 44.

    jonas

    Now that idiot celebrity candidates like Oz and Walker have gone down to defeat, the GOP will perhaps take a moment to reflect and…mmmmmphwwwhaaa! hahahahahahahah!

    Of course not. Their conclusion is always the same: we weren’t batshit insane enough. We ran a candidate, who, while reaaaaally fucking crazy and incompetent, obviously just didn’t reach our core voters who are looking for some sort of cross between Hitler and the alien from Predator in a senator. Only with more severe brain damage, or something.

    I’m thinking next time around they run a comatose Jon Voigt with a swastika tattooed on his forehead like Charles Manson. Or hell, maybe just run the corpse of Charles Manson. That would be a huge draw. He really showed those Hollywood elites!

  45. 45.

    cmorenc

    Just a shout of HALLALUJAH!  That Warnock won re-election midterm runoff in Georgia is a beam of beautiful light on the possibility sane, humane people may prevail over dark forces. .

  46. 46.

    Ken

    There’s something completely American, though not in a good way, that Warnock had to win four elections to get a single full Senate term.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    @kalakal:

    Even as I write this the walls of MAL are running red with ketchup

    Someone earlier today, after the TFG Org was convicted on all counts, noted a great disturbance in the Force, as a million ketchup bottles were smashed against the M-A-L wall(s). Hard to improve on that one.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev:

    Spare a moment to think of just how pissed off Donald Trump probably is right now.

    “Ketchup” was already trending on twitter earlier, when his company was convicted by a jury (I started to say of a criminal offense, but I’m having a brain fart as to whether it was criminal or civil)

    @jonas: talk of celebrity candidates got me thinking of Congressman Sonny Bono earlier today (everybody here is old enough I don’t have to explain, right?). He served for a term and a half. His widow took the seat, and served for 15 years. She’s a lobbyist now (yes, I had enough time on my hands to look up her wiki; yes, I had many, many real things to do with that time.

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Soprano2:

    OT – hubby’s Covid test was negative! Don’t know what’s making him cough and run a fever, but it’s not Covid! 

    Good to hear!  Hope he beats the bug soon!

  57. 57.

    Annie

    I’m really glad Warnock won but it makes me a little sick that it was this close.  Who on earth could possibly think Herschel Walker was qualified to be a Senator?

  58. 58.

    cain

    @jonas:

    I’m thinking next time around they run a comatose Jon Voigt with a swastika tattooed on his forehead like Charles Manson. Or hell, maybe just run the corpse of Charles Manson. That would be a huge draw. He really showed those Hollywood elites!

    They’d just say that he made a mistake and he really wanted to put the Hindu swastika – but they did it wrong! Honest!

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    I finished off my box of Flipsides cracker-pretzel chimeras to celebrate! DEMOCRATS + EMPTY CARBS!!!

  62. 62.

    Kent

    @Annie:I’m really glad Warnock won but it makes me a little sick that it was this close.  Who on earth could possibly think Herschel Walker was qualified to be a Senator?

    Trump.

    We actually have Trump to thank for the fact that the Senate is blue.

  64. 64.

    kalakal

    Just because I like to see these things, Warnock is starting to pull away bigly in the count, up by 50,000

  65. 65.

    NorthLeft

    I remember seeing a video of an older white guy /Republican saying he voted early for Walker but that Walker was probably going to lose. He then said that Warnock was a fine man and would be an excellent Senator.
    When asked why he voted for Walker he said “I’m a Republican”. FFS.

  66. 66.

    Captain C

    @David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch:

    right now Dump is saying, “I don’t know Walker, I’ve never met him, I wouldn’t know him if he was standing next to me.”

    “He played for some worthless team in that league that I owned.  You know, the one Rozelle screwed me out of.  I can’t believe I sold it to him for three bucks.  Great running back, almost as good as I was in college.  Do you know they gave me a secret Heisman Trophy?  They said sir…they called me sir even then…sir you’re so good we have to give this to you in secret.  I could have played in the NFL, but I wanted to get rich instead…”

  67. 67.

    Evap

    Turnout was over 90% of turnout for the general election in Nov, astonishing for a runoff election.  Tonight I am happy to be a Georgian!

  70. 70.

    Another Scott

    NewYorker.com:

    ATLANTA (The Borowitz Report)—Sounding an alarm on the day that Georgians head to the polls, the Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker claimed that the runoff election was rigged against the person with fewer votes.

    “I cast my vote and I saw all of these election-type people in there behind these tables,” Walker told reporters. “They’re going to count up all the votes and, shazam, whoever got more votes is the winner. How is that fair?”

    HW’s press people are trying to rewrite that without being caught for plagiarism.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  71. 71.

    jonas

    @Annie:  Who on earth could possibly think Herschel Walker was qualified to be a Senator?

    Oh, they knew perfectly well he was unqualified. That was part of the appeal for Republicans. They know Democrats like smart, qualified pols who are committed to serving their constituents and promoting the greater good, and so vote for the opposite just to spite us. Like someone upthread already observed, it’s just all Cleek’s Law now all the time.

  72. 72.

    Nicole

    @mrmoshpotato: Oz’s very odd grocery shopping video, as I recall, mentioned guac and salsa as potential dips for crudité. (Though it might just have been salsa. All I know is, as a born-and-raised Keystoner, the correct answer was “French onion dip” and he sure didn’t say that.)

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kalakal: I think Warnock will end closer to 100,000 up. Most of what’s left is a quarter of DeKalb County. That’s almost all Warnock votes.

  76. 76.

    Alison Rose

    Just saw this tweet from Warnock from yesterday and it made me giggle

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can’t have Herschel Walker representing my mama.
    — Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) December 6, 2022

  78. 78.

    different-church-lady

    Good night Jackals. Remember: this was a good day for the country, but a terrible day for Cole — let’s send him all our love and strength in the coming days.

  79. 79.

    jonas

    @Another Scott: ​
    It took a second or two between the time I thought “oh yeah, I wouldn’t have expected any less (stupid) from Walker,” and when I saw Borowitz’s name and caught the joke. Damn if that wasn’t spot-on. He could have worked in something about vampires rigging everything, but sometimes less is more, as they say.

  80. 80.

    Layer8Problem

    @cain:  48% of the voters, which seem tonight to be like 3.5 million people, out of 7 million “active voters” in 2021.

  81. 81.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    Been watching the details over at kos, and–whew–what a relief. Lots of congratulations and praise to go around. Thanks for all of the amazing efforts here to support his candidacy! Does Water Girl really want to be a judge or ambassador?

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jonas: had me up until Shazam, then I checked the byline

    still would be entirely plausible from some Walker-quote-generating AI

  83. 83.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I know Herschel Walker has done some horrible stuff in his life but I still hope he’s got some people around him who’ll help him recover from the loss. You just damn well know the GOP will just abandon the guy since he’s a loser and of no value to them anymore.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    Great News! And now I can go off to dreamland happily content, at least about Warnock and the Senate.

  85. 85.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    The Lt Governor of Georgia on CNN is claiming he went into the voter booth and didn’t vote for either Warnock or Walker

  86. 86.

    jonas

    @NorthLeft: ​
     

    When asked why he voted for Walker he said “I’m a Republican”. FFS.

    As I wrote in another thread, they hate Democrats more than they love America.

  89. 89.

    lamh36

    Symone Sanders said it right… the GOP in Georgia put forth a Black candidate they knew was subpar because they truly thought Black folk would just vote for ANY Black candidate. Hershel Walker’s candidacy was an insult to Black voters in Georgia and even in the face of all the new Jim Crow laws to make voting harder in Georgia for Black voters, Black voters in Georgia and other POC…showed up and came out!!!

    Accrording to MSNBC, Warnock becomes the 1st African American male Senator elected to Senate for FULL TERM in Georgia history…wow!

  90. 90.

    jonas

    @Mai Naem mobile: ​
      Walker is damaged and clearly needs help. But he’s also a grown-ass man who made a choice to let Trump and the Georgia GOP turn him into a punchline so they could pwn another Black man. CTE causes aggression, memory loss and other things. But it doesn’t turn you into a goddamn narcissistic fool. He needs to apologize for wasting everyone’s time, go back to Texas, and think long and hard about making amends with his family and all his kids. While he still has time.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @jonas:they hate Democrats more than they love America.

    And we can keep pointing it out, over and over, that this is literally ALL that they’re offering their voters: own the libs!

    Doesn’t seem to do much for inflation, health care, roads, schools, or anything else.

    Doesn’t seem to offer a very high quality of candidates, or anything to vote *for*.  Just unending hate and stupidity.

    I’m okay if we continue to win relatively close elections this way.  The Rs have a lot of structural advantages, but if they want to suck in terms of candidate quality and message, then…let. them. suck.

    (er…you know what I mean!)

  92. 92.

    OverTwistWillie

    Walker’s NFL comp is Matt Forte, a solid second round pick and long time Bears and Jets journeyman running back.

    Clods like Trump kept overrating Walker for trucking nineteen year old future outside sales reps while at UGA.

  93. 93.

    Brachiator

    @Annie:

    Who on earth could possibly think Herschel Walker was qualified to be a Senator?

    Trump. Walker was Trump’s choice and the GOP leadership and many GOP voters meekly fell in line.

    I am SO glad that Warnock won. This is a good night for Democrats. But it is sad to see how many people voted for Walker.

    I think that voter turnout was around 48 percent. I wonder if these are people who truly don’t care, or don’t think they understand the issues, or what?

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    apparently Walker just gave something like a concession speech (?) but it was so short MSNBC couldn’t cut away in time. I assume they’re prepping video?

    and twitter tells me Doug Flutie was on the stage with him

  95. 95.

    danielx

    And Manchin and Sinema lose their ability to screw things up just because they can. Okay, in Manchin’s case his motives are fairly clear if not admirable. Sinema, though, seemed to enjoy it simply as a matter of ego.

  98. 98.

    James E Powell

    It wasn’t that long ago that we would have questioned the sanity of anyone claiming we’d have two Democratic senators from Georgia, neither of which are anything like Zell Miller.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    The establishment GOP is *pissed* at Trump this evening.

    This is exactly why McConnell didn’t want to run Walker. Look how bad he underperformed Kemp in almost every county. Candidate quality still matters.

    — Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) December 7, 2022

    [ womp, womp ]

    Moscow Mitch, and all the rest of them, had their chance to be rid of TFG and to do the right thing.

    They didn’t.

    I hope the lack of handshakes today eat at him and McCarthy the rest of their days.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:I have friends and family in Georgia who were beyond pissed at the Walker campaign…the image of Walker barely even talking coherently sitting between his two white handlers as if they didn’t trust him to speak for himself…really had folks LIVID and insulted. That image alone had folks…pissed.

  102. 102.

    Captain C

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The Lt Governor of Georgia on CNN is claiming he went into the voter booth and didn’t vote for either Warnock or Walker

    LtG:  “I just drew a lewd picture on the ballot instead to protest the paucity of choices.”

  103. 103.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

    This race was over once Walker alienated the vampire and werewolf vote

  104. 104.

    Mike in NC

    Lowlife GOP representative Ted Budd was recently elected next North Carolina US senator, because in the former Confederacy any white man gets an automatic 50% better chance of getting elected than any non-white person. Maybe that will change in 50 years, or maybe not.

  106. 106.

    Kent

    Warnock’s lead is now up to 1.8% percentage points and 60,000 votes.

    It grows with every new update.

  107. 107.

    jonas

    With the stinging defeat of perhaps his biggest endorsement of the 2022 cycle, plus his company’s conviction on tax fraud charges, plus the potential of *many* more indictments and convictions to come, plus his recent luncheon with an avowed neo-Nazi, methinks the orange spray-on shine is finally starting to wear off the tangerine shitgibbon. As they say, things like this happen slowly. Then all at once. I’m not sure where the previously inviolable dam of Trumpism will start to give way, but keep a lookout for cracks and spray breaking out in various places over the next week or so. Apres lui, le deluge.​
     

    ETA: I’m not saying Trumpism is dead, but that Trumps days as the standard-bearer of a particular kind of American neo-fascism are probably numbered. Who gets to bury the corpse, like Alexander’s generals fighting over his body, is what’s next.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @lamh36:

    Symone Sanders said it right… the GOP in Georgia put forth a Black candidate they knew was subpar because they truly thought Black folk would just vote for ANY Black candidate.

    To the contrary. Nobody sane believed that Walker would attract black voters. And sure enough, we find that Donald Trump personally chose Walker.

    In the midterms Warnock got 90 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls. Walker got 70 percent of the white vote and only 8 percent of the black vote.

    Trump loving conservatives would have votes for a rock if they believed that rock would be against abortion and narrowly pro evangelical.

    The runoff vote may show similar demographic results.

  113. 113.

    lamh36

    Soooo does this means Manchin and Sinema’s “power” to hold up things is over?

    With Warnock in along w/VP Harris as vote that extra vote if needed…what power do they have now?

  114. 114.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Brachiator:

    The GOP leadership meekly fell in line.

    The ongoing cowardice of these career politicians takes my breath away. Deep down, they all know that Trump is a lunatic but they just can’t stop kissing his ring.

  120. 120.

    Kattails

    My mom will be 94 in a couple of weeks.  Today she made it through a 5+ hour surgery to completely repair a very old hip replacement.  The bones had worn so thin that they were concerned they’d just shatter if she took the wrong kind of fall, so she’s been in bed in the hospital for a week.  Got the call at 5:30 that she was out and resting.  Amazing.

    Between that and Warnock, a rather tense day up here in rainy NH (mom and husband are in FL). Should have made sure there was a bit more wine in the house.

    The Dems are really going to have to produce for the next couple of years, and brag about it. The voters have come through and we need to repay that trust in spades.

  121. 121.

    OGLiberal

    @OverTwistWillie: As a Giant fan I had to deal with Herschel as a guy on my team for one season.  The dude’s freak athleticism allowed him to break a big run or two here or there that might have padded his numbers but more often than not the dude ran perpendicular, shook his shoulders to no avail, and wound up with .5 yards after all that, dancing out of bounds.  Yeah, he had huge numbers in the rich guy vanity league but, come on, it was the USFL.  I don’t begrudge a guy avoiding getting hit but he obviously didn’t do that enough and still did the sidelines dance on many runs.

  123. 123.

    lamh36

    @Brachiator: You can best believe Trump chose Walker because he truly believes any Black candidate would have been good and Black folks would go out to vote for them.  You can tell the contempt Trump has for Black voters and politician in the way he spoke of and acted towards Obama.

    Now the rest of the GOP, folks like McConnell etc, who “probably knew better” went along for the ride.

    ETA: Trump’s contempt for voters, but especially Black voters (and other POC) was blatant.  So Walker is EXACTLY the kinda guy he would support, cause in Trump’s mind Walker and Obama are both Black so I guess the same

  124. 124.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Warnock’s victory speech is great. Talking about voter suppression in GA and how voters overcame it for democracy. I can really see why he got to this position

  125. 125.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @lamh36: Re 113: My understanding is no, but now you can play them off against each other to get to the magic 51. Happy to be disabused if that isn’t correct.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wanda Sykes @iamwandasykes 22m
    I bet they asked Herschel Walker if he was ready to make his concession speech, and he said, “Yes, two hot dogs please.”

    Congratulations @ReverendWarnock

    Thank you GA!

    Wanda Sykes is going to be one of the short-term interim hosts of The Daily Show after Trevor Noah moves on, along with Al Franken and a bunch of other people

  128. 128.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    apparently Walker just gave something like a concession speech (?)

    I agree with Rachel Maddow’s description of Walker’s speech. It was conciliatory but wasn’t a concession speech.  On the one hand, he didn’t congratulate Warnock, but on the other hand he didn’t follow the example of Kari Lake and deny his defeat.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @El Cruzado:

    The current republican party does not want a democracy or the people to make their own choices. They really do want a theocracy. They want the world to be run like they think it was over 2000 yrs ago, you know how that book about religious non freedom tells them. They want white to be the color of skin and any other color to be in slavery. If they only knew that the color of skin is determined by melanin, carotene, and hemoglobin and all humans have these chemicals. They are no different than people of color. OK other than ignorance and hate. And we all have those as well. And both of those can be overcome. But that takes desire to be better. And that  many of them don’t seem to have.

  131. 131.

    Captain C

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    apparently Walker just gave something like a concession speech (?) but it was so short MSNBC couldn’t cut away in time. I assume they’re prepping video?

    and twitter tells me Doug Flutie was on the stage with him

    New Jersey Generals ’85 reunion.

    I was thinking about Walker; he’s definitely someone who shouldn’t be near the Senate (let alone a couple percentage points away) and has done and said some pretty awful things in his life.

    But he also seems to have been used by some pretty awful people in this Senate race that he from a mental and probably physical health standpoint probably shouldn’t have been in.

    I was a Generals fan in my early teens (that’s how I first found out about Trump–I was not pleased with his decision to move to the fall and sue the NFL which of course resulted in the folding of the USFL), and went to a few games.  IIRC I had a tween-level hagiography of Walker. Earlier this campaign I calculated the number of hits Walker probably took in his career. If you add up college and pro (3 years in the USFL and 12 in the NFL), he had nearly 5,000 touches between rushes, receptions, and returns, and that doesn’t count blocks (which I remember him doing a lot in 1984 when Maurice Carthon also ran for 1000 yards for the Generals). If you assume just one average high-end college or pro hit per touch, that’s a lot of big hits, and from an era where they were much more casual about concussions and other head injuries. Plus, he was a power runner (with a ton of speed) who loved wearing oversize shoulder pads, the better to blast into opposing defenders.  I can’t imagine his head or his body have been in good shape for some time, no matter how much he exercises and trains.

  132. 132.

    RaflW

    @jonas: The NYT politics desk is made up of irredeemably idiotic people.

    @peterbakernyt
    Walker’s loss will almost certainly lead to soul-searching for a Republican Party that must decide how firmly to tether itself to a former president who has now absorbed powerful political blows in three successive cycles, say
    @jonathanweisman & @mayaaking

    There is zero track record to suggest that this will happen. It’s pure wishcasting by people who clearly want a different GOP, but somehow work in news rather than for a political party. It’s shameful and, frankly, grotesque.

  134. 134.

    Kattails

    @Kent: I can’t even imagine what a Walker senatorial speech would sound like.  How the flying f*ck that man would have the slightest clue how to deal with legislation.

    How did Walker get any votes?  Maybe partly because Republicans have spent so many years tearing down government as a viable, useful entity that their base thinks it’s a GOOD thing to elect complete performative idiots. to public office.

  137. 137.

    Jinchi

    @lamh36: Democrats needed 52 to neutralize Sinemanchin completely, but at least this prevents them from playing Good Senator/Bad Senator on key votes.

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @SFAW:

    SFB couldn’t afford a million bottles of catsoup.

    You know that in reality by this time tomorrow SFB will only be worth $1.95, as he’s rather rapidly losing the support of all the quality rethuglican sponsors that exist and it seems it’s pretty difficult to find any more than the 1 1/2 that are left.

  139. 139.

    Martin

    @SFAW: What’s astonishing is that given how successful he has been at trolling the shit out of NYT, the NYT hasn’t caught on and addressed what’s wrong with their political reporting operation.

  140. 140.

    CaseyL

    @lamh36: The VP doesn’t vote in the Senate unless there is a 50-50  tie.  That could still happen, because Manchin or Sinema could still vote with the GOP, but not as frequently as she had been.

    Speaking of Manchin and Sinema… I do wonder what they’re thinking right now.  He might switch parties because otherwise he’s likely to lose in ’24 to a “real” Republican, but I’ve heard people say he won’t do that, for Reasons. Also, he did work with the Biden Administration for months on the revived, if slimmed down, BBB bill, which took me completely by surprise and makes me wonder if he does care about not being tagged as the person who did the most to make sure Biden failed.

    Sinema is a narcissistic flake who might switch parties just to be “transgressive” and “daring”… or because someone pays her a vast quantity of money to do so.  I don’t know that anyone will, though, because switching parties just restores the status quo ante of 50-50, and they’re unlikely to get the kind of ROI they would have if (god forbid) Walker had won.

    As it stands, now that Warnock has won, both Manchin and Sinema would both have to switch parties to give the GOP a majority in the Senate.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It’s disturbing that Walker would get any black votes at all.

    I can accept that the 8 percent of black people who voted for Walker were ultra conservative, anti-abortion, etc, or crazy.

    I find it perversely fascinating that so many white people voted for Walker. And I suspect that some white people who did not vote were racists who would not consider either black candidate acceptable.

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kent:

    There are black Republicans.  Look at Clarence Thomas.  And that insane MAGA sheriff from Milwaukee.

    Tim Scott, and John James, who squeaked into the House, and damn near got elected to the Senate in 2020

  143. 143.

    redoubtagain

    I’m in the Lowcountry, and in the last days of the campaign the Warnock people ran ads of him as “a son of Savannah”.  Not just emphasizing the local ties, but also a subtle criticism of Herschel-imported-from-Texas-Walker.

  144. 144.

    dww44

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): he also said it last week on Fox  during the early vote.  Duncan is a non MAGA Republican who elected not to run for re-election because he couldn’t embrace Trump.  But he still wants to retain his Republican bona fides so he couldn’t cast a vote  for the better candidate.

  145. 145.

    sdhays

    @jonas: The big tell in 2015/2016 that Trump would be the nominee was that no one with the resources and standing – not Jeb(!), not Ted Cruz, not Chris Christie – would directly challenge Trump on anything. Trump would be stupid and nasty and they would just take it, pathetically hoping he’d just go away. A few lower tier candidates said some mean things, mostly as they exited the race (when no one gave a shit what they had to say).

    I wonder how weak Trump has to seem for anyone credible to challenge him for the leadership of the party.

  146. 146.

    jonas

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     

    but I’m having a brain fart as to whether it was criminal or civil

    Today’s conviction was on criminal charges for the company, not Trump personally, and involved the Trump Org giving certain executives gifts and perks w/o paying taxes on them. Weisselberg would have been the one taking the fall for this, but he cooperated for leniency. The actual penalties (as for most corporate/white collar crime) — mostly fines — will be pretty minor, though. The civil trial underway led by AG Tisha James about the Trump Org’s alleged scheme to undervalue their properties for tax purposes, while over-valuing them to get bank loans, is actually more serious. If found guilty, the company could potentially be shut down and barred from doing business in NY State.

  148. 148.

    Captain C

    @SFAW:

    I think the Nobel Committee (or whatever they’re called) should create a Nobel Prize for Tweeting, for which  “New York Times Pitchbot” — whoever that guy is — would be a leading contender.

    Perhaps he could be up for the Nobel in Literature?

    @Martin:

    What’s astonishing is that given how successful he has been at trolling the shit out of NYT, the NYT hasn’t caught on and addressed what’s wrong with their political reporting operation.

    I think they can’t really grok the trolling on a very deep level, as then they’d have to admit to themselves what they are (at least the ones who need it.  The ones who do the excellent journalism on page A17 probably laugh and then sigh when his tweets hit a little too close to home, as does Krugman).  I would not be overly surprised to hear that the ones at the FTFNYT who do need the sort of clue provided by the Pitchbot think that it’s some sort of weird little actual bot that gives them some excellent ideas for their next piece from time to time…

  149. 149.

    Captain C

    @jonas:

    The civil trial underway led by AG Tisha James about the Trump Org’s alleged scheme to undervalue their properties for tax purposes, while over-valuing them to get bank loans, is actually more serious. If found guilty, the company could potentially be shut down and barred from doing business in NY State.

    IANAL, but doesn’t the criminal conviction make it easier for the civil action to succeed, as now some things can be taken as proven?

  150. 150.

    RaflW

    @danielx: A different spin on this is that Manchin gets to do his contrarian thing to hep him keep his seat and vote ‘yes’ for judges and key big policy pushes (erm, well, the House will not be sending those over), but can do his W.Va. schtick and maybe hang on and keep the seat (because there’s no freakin’ way a Democrat is going to succeed Coal Joe in that state). He’ll be up in /24, which is likely to be a tough year for Senate Dems.

    (I still think Joe is a d*ck. Right down to his Maserati. But he votes for the Dem majority leader and to my recollection, and least, doesn’t play games on judicial votes)

  151. 151.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I can now delete the gazillion Warnock emails I’ve gotten. My inbox will probably go down by 5 percent or something.

  153. 153.

    Kent

    @CaseyL: I don’t think Manchin or Sinema switch parties.

    Manchin voted to impeach twice and he voted for all of Biden’s judges.  Every single one.  There is NO WAY he gets through any low-turnout GOP primary.  His ONLY chance of keeping his seat is to make it to the high-turnout general election.

    Sinema is even less electable in a GOP primary.   A bisexual Democrat who voted for all of Bidens judges and all of his legislation?  And who voted for impeachment/conviction of Trump?  Surely you jest. The GOP will put up another crazy like Lake who will mop the floor with Sinema in a low-turnout GOP-only primary.

    Neither Manchin nor Sinema have the slightest chance of winning a GOP primary in either state where the GOP voters will have a chance to vote for a real batshit-crazy Republican.

  156. 156.

    Another Scott

    @Captain C: +1

    FTFNYT is rather notorious for stealing reporting from others without attribution.  Their headline / first paragraph writers probably read his feed religiously.  As, I’m sure, Ms. Dowd does.  [ snicker ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    smike

    @Soprano2: I have a friend who recently found herself in similar circumstances. It lasted a couple of weeks, and then was gone. Never identified.

  158. 158.

    piratedan

    @RaflW: wellllll… it IS Peter Baker after all, still trying to normalize these shitstains.

    As has been mentioned upthread, the GOP has had multiple opportunities to un-tether themselves from the Big Orange Fascist Bastard with Impeachment 1, Impeachment 2, January 6th committee hearings and they’ve passed all of those political exits, even if they were insincere, they could have cut him loose and thrown him and a few committed staffers under the bus/to the wolves etc etc etc…  and then moved the fuck on with their same game plan, just with slightly less crazy.

    Fuck them, I hope that they end up under the overpass, sans curtain rods and no sparrows.

  159. 159.

    dww44

    @Brachiator: you are likely correct about the non voting Republicans who couldn’t/wouldn’t vote for a Black man, but I also believe many of them were like Geoff Duncan who couldn’t vote for the Dem while recognizing that the latter was the better candidate. Because it’s the R that matters.

  160. 160.

    sdhays

    @Jinchi: Sinechin’s importance is also lessened since the Republicans will control the House. They’ve been mostly solid on judges and administration appointments and any passable legislation is going to be the sweet, sweet bipartisan kind they crave because it has to pass the House – no more reconciliation bills. They won’t be a problem there.

    Sinema might check out after she loses her primary, but will anyone notice?

  167. 167.

    RaflW

    @piratedan: Yes, though I was thinking more broadly than just Fpotus. The notion that the GOP, as constituted for quite some time now, will do any ‘soul searching’ is just risible.

    Was it 10 years ago that the party spent a bunch of money on a big deal post-mortem about how they needed to change after failing to dislodge Obama, and then threw it in the rubbish bin within hours of it being released?

    The party is multiples more rigidly fixated on ressentiment and authoritarianism now. They’re gonna ride House hearings like Major Kong rode the Bomb. Only professionally, intentionally myopic folx like Baker think the GOP can do introspection.

  169. 169.

    danielx

    Walker’s loss will almost certainly lead to soul-searching for a Republican Party that must decide how firmly to tether itself to a former president who has now absorbed powerful political blows in three successive cycles, say

    Right. And pigs might have wings, too.

    Is Peter Baker trying to fool himself, or others? I’ve seen no signs that Republicans – individually or as a group – have any great interest in soul searching. That famous postmortem they did after the 2012 election certainly provoked a lot of change, did it not?

  170. 170.

    Layer8Problem

    @HumboldtBlue:  Assuming that that is his kid, I am so sorry for her.  We shouldn’t speculate on what drove this.  He’s a narcissist and an asshole, but we just don’t know.

  174. 174.

    CaseyL

    I finally had a chance to hear Warnock’s victory speech, and it is everything.  I actually teared up, which I never do for political speeches.  The cadence was definitely “Obama-esque,” but the sheer emotion was all his own.

    Amazing speech.

  175. 175.

    RaflW

    The people who own & manage FTFNYT do not believe there is anything wrong with their political reporting that Democrats should be empowered enough to set their tax rates.

    FTFY.

  176. 176.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @David Anderson:

    8 to 10 points of a single party coalition is a huge chunk of candidate quality responsive voters for a single coalition.  We saw in November that MAGA/Election Deniers were running ~5 points behind generic Republicans in most states, so that is what saved the Senate and kept the House close.  It is not a huge chunk of the GOP coalition that will say “fuck those loons” and vote Democratic but it is a vital chunk.

    If the Rs nominate Ron DeSantis (or the likes of Marco Rubio & Tom Cotton) in 2024, does this disaffected block come home, sit out, or continue to vote D? The fate of the republic seems to hang on it.

  177. 177.

    jonas

    @Captain C: ​
      IANAL either, but yeah, I imagine it doesn’t help. Weisselberg was careful never to directly implicate Trump in any of his testimony, however.

  178. 178.

    jonas

    @RaflW: ​
      Right. There will be no soul-searching, simply a Machiavellian scramble to figure out how to get rid of Trump while still claiming his mantle of deluded Christian ethno-nationalism. It will be like watching The Death of Stalin.

  179. 179.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The New York Times expects the incumbent Senator to win by 3 points or so once all the metropolitan counties are counted.

    If that holds up, that is good news because 3pts is big these days. Hot doggies.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Deep down, they all know that Trump is a lunatic but they just can’t stop kissing his ring.

    He’s a fucking racist. He’s white. He won the presidency. He’s insane.

    In their minds that’s all that counts. They do not want a working government. They sprout that a working government is the end of their racism, hate, theft of anything they can get their hands on but especially equality and freedom from as well as of religion. There are just too many things they want to do that a fully functioning federal government will stop. They want power, not a democracy.

  184. 184.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Martin: What’s astonishing is that given how successful he has been at trolling the shit out of NYT, the NYT hasn’t caught on and addressed what’s wrong with their political reporting operation.

    Assuming you aren’t snarking by all accounts the NYTs is really that arrogant  The one story that sticks in my mind is the DPRK News Service got mistaken for the real thing by the BBC and the NYT,  and the guys behind the account said the BBC reporter who called them for a interview thought it was hilarious they pull one on the BBC while the NYT reporter was just outraged.

  185. 185.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    The GOP’s problem with TFG is that even if they want him gone, they still need the votes of the Deplorables – so they can’t afford to have their fingerprints on the knife in his back, so to speak. They had chances to get rid of him, yes, but if they did the right thing in either of the impeachment proceedings, they’d have lost the loyalty of the cult – and without that, they’re dead in the water electorally, and out of power for probably a generation.

    And that – taking, wielding, and retaining power – is more important to them than the continued survival of American democracy.

  187. 187.

    evodevo

    @Soprano2: Might be RSV…one of the grandkids gave it to us a couple years ago, and it went into bronchial pneumonia for Mr. Evodevo, so get a chest xray…I coughed for weeks…it’s nastier than you would think…

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: The count last I checked this morning gives Warnock about a 2.7% lead, just under 100,000 votes, so they were pretty spot on. I estimated about the same before I went to bed last night just based on the vote that was still out in the metro Atlanta counties.

    The super-close margins with alternating leads for Walker and Warnock through most of last night were an illusion based on those counties not being in. This kind of thing happens somewhere just about every Election Night.

  190. 190.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: Herschel Walker, like Donald Trump, was a celebrity candidate with sky-high name recognition. These people get a certain amount of automatic “wouldn’t it be cool/funny” voting on top of everything else.

    And for many white racists, athletes are the only Black people they have any respect for.

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