The story of Herschel Walker, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, and the failure of Gov. Brian Kemp

The 12th Lieutenant Governor is a Republican named Geoff Duncan. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.

The surprise involving the Republican nominee in the Georgia US Senate race Herschel Walker has changed the political landscape, but it was always going to be that way. Just as there should not be two Democrats representing a center-right state like Georgia in the US Senate, the Republican Party should not have found its chance of regaining a Senate majority hanging on an untested and unproven first-time candidate.

Walker won the primary because of his work ethic and not because of his ideas. He trounced his opponents because of his performance on the football field 40 years ago and his friendship with former President Donald Trump – neither of which are guaranteed tickets to victory anymore.

Everyone in America deserves due process, and Walker vehemently denied the Daily Beast report suggesting he had paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 after the two conceived a child while they were dating. Walker opposed abortion rights. He was threatening to take legal action against the publication. The impact on the court of public opinion was immediate and intense. Even influential conservative personality Erick Erickson described it as “probably a KO.”

Republican infrastructure members are nervously watching to see if Walker can weather the storm. To his political credit, Walker has faced other serious allegations, including domestic abuse, an exaggerated business career and an erratic personality. He has a Teflon quality about him and it would sink most mortals. Walker is testing in October and it is his most serious test to date.

Meanwhile, the Georgia governor’s race offers Republicans a better path forward as a party. A blockbuster re- match between the incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and the Democratic challenger has turned into a relative snoozer. Abrams has so far failed to re-capture the magic of her 2018 run when she raised nearly $28 million dollars and became a rising national Democratic star.

Some Republicans tried to make light of Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 elections. Abrams, apart from a court challenge, never tried to overturn the outcome of her race.

Yet Kemp is breathing easier this year for factors that extend beyond Abrams’ flaws. He has his own record to fall back on, and it is one of accomplishments and results. Georgia was recently named the best state for business for the ninth consecutive year by Area Development magazine. Kemp’s decision to open the state from the Pandemic quicker than many others has angered even President Trump. Georgia has taken significant steps towards becoming the East Coast’s technology capital as more and more people have re-located to our state.

Reply to Warnock’s Blame for Biden: Nominating a Candidate Who Gets What the American Dream Can (Measure)

Meanwhile, incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock has maintained a slim but steady lead over Walker. He has done so despite voting more than 96% of the time with President Joe Biden in a state where just 44% of voters approve of the President, compared to 53% who disapprove, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey.

Those numbers do not lie. Our Senate race should be a referendum on Warnock’s blind rubber-stamping of Biden’s agenda. In an evenly divided upper chamber, Warnock could have stopped every piece of flawed legislation that passed along party line votes, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and the $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act, both often cited by conservatives as some of the culprits for inflation rates at four-decade highs.

If we want the American public to take us seriously, we need to take the first step by nominating candidates they should take seriously. That process goes beyond celebrity or fame. It requires leaders capable of winning elections by articulating a conservative vision for governing.

The three candidates joined by Hazel were against both of the other candidates and wanted to send the election to a run-off. (If no one receives a clear majority on Election Day, the top two finishers advance to a one-on-one contest.) But it was the two major party candidates, who ran tight campaigns four years ago with Kemp emerging the narrow victor, who dominated the debate stage. Their disagreements were pointed, as they were in 2018, their attacks and rebuttals well-rehearsed and, to a large degree, predictable.

Abrams, unlike so many other Democrats running this year, has not sought to distance herself from the President and recently said publicly that she would welcome him in Georgia. First lady Jill Biden visited last week for an Abrams fundraiser, where she criticized Kemp over his position on abortion as well as his refusal to expand Medicaid and voting rights.

Georgia families are facing 40 years of high inflation and high gas prices because of the bad policies of the Democrats in Washington, DC, and I want to try to help them fight through them, so people should know that that is my desire.

Asked if he would pursue such legislation if reelected, Kemp said, “No, I would not” and that “it’s not my desire to” push further abortion restrictions, before pivoting to an attack on Biden, national Democrats and more talk about his economic record.

On the tape, Kemp, though he didn’t seem enthusiastic, said, “You could take up pretty much everything, but you’ve got to be in legislative session to do that.”

The first question we asked Abrams about the 2018 birth of a woman: “I am going to work hard for every Georgian”

Kemp signed a so-called “heart Beat” bill, which banned abortions at around six weeks after the Supreme Court wiped away part of the legalized abortion industry. Before the ruling, abortion was legal in the state until 20 weeks into pregnancy.

She is promising to reverse the law even though she would face stiff opposition in the state legislature.

One of the first questions posed to Abrams centered on her speech effectively – but not with the precise language – conceding the 2018 election to Kemp.

Still, she was asked on Monday night whether she would accept the results of the coming election – and said yes – before again accusing Kemp of, through the state’s new restrictive voting law, SB 202, seeking to make it more difficult for people to cast ballots.

Kemp countered by pointing to high turnout numbers over the past few elections and, as he’s said before, insisted the law made it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

Mr. Kemp, what you are trying to do is keep telling the same lie that you have told many times and I believe that you think it is true. I support law enforcement and did so for 11 years (in state government),” Abrams said. I worked with the sheriff’s association.

Kemp was accused of trying to weaponize criminal justice and public safety issues by pitting her against police. She said that the reality was not cut-and-dry.

I lead a complicated life where we need help. She said we need to know we are safe from racial violence. I know a lot of people who have had that experience.

The message was simple. He said that he supported safety and justice and that he was pressed on the effect of loosened gun laws on crime.

“When I gave my inaugural address, I said, ‘I’m going to work hard for every Georgian, whether you voted for me or not,’ ” he recently reminded a crowd of supporters as he seeks a second term this year. “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”

Insights from the State of Georgia: The Impact of Inflation, Preferential Education, Voting and Healthcare in the Running of Georgia’s 2020 Election

But beyond those perennial topics like public safety and education, the country’s governors have also been tested by events that would have been hard to anticipate just a few years ago, like the demise of Roe v. Wade, a global pandemic and a tumultuous 2020 election.

On the campaign trail, Kemp doesn’t talk much about the fallout from the 2020 election, nor last year’s overhaul of Georgia’s voting laws that Democrats have roundly criticized.

But he does refer back to 2020 in other ways, often launching into his stump speech by recounting his decision to reopen schools and businesses early in the pandemic, when most governors did not.

“We’re the incubators of democracy,” Kemp said in an interview. “A lot of the things that you’ve seen that are good for our states end up maybe being good national policy or are better done at the state level than the national level. I think covid did a great job of making that worse.

The campaign of the Democratic candidate for governor of the state of Georgia has centered around reproductive rights. As governor, Kemp signed a law banning most abortions after about six weeks.

In an interview, Abrams said that governors have the greatest amount of power that people rarely understand. The U.S. Supreme Court stripped women of their right to choose, and the Voting Rights Act weakened, making it more likely that the power to make decisions is being left to the states.

Still, an issue that may help decide tight races in Georgia and other states is mostly out of governors’ hands – inflation. Kemp and other Republicans have tied rising costs for everyday expenses like groceries and gas to Democrats’ control in Washington.

While governors can’t reverse inflation on their own, both candidates have outlined ways the state can help relieve voters’ economic pain. For example, Kemp has kept the state’s gas tax suspended for months now. Abrams has redoubled her pledge to expand Medicaid.

But as the two candidates top midterm ballots in Georgia for a second time, they have laid out very different visions for the state – on everything from economic development and the state budget to healthcare, voting and public safety – at a time when Georgia’s demographics and politics are in flux.