Republicans Don’t Know Who to Blame for Herschel Walker’s Loss

As the right grapples with Republican Herschel Walker’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff, a circular firing squad has emerged between Donald Trump loyalists and detractors over whether the former president has become the kiss of electoral death. Walker, a former star football player who was dogged by endless scandal throughout the race, dominated the GOP primary thanks to an early endorsement from Trump. But in his Tuesday runoff against Senator Raphael Warnock, he delivered a far worse performance than every Republican candidate who ran statewide in Georgia, prompting a cascade of finger-pointing.

On Fox News, host Laura Ingraham took shots at the Republican National Committee, blaming Walker’s loss on the party’s supposedly lackluster leadership despite his myriad character flaws. “We felt this coming. To me, it never felt like the Senate Republicans wanted this guy in office. He was a Trump pick, they didn’t like that…but there wasn’t the intensity on the part of the Republicans as there was on the part of Democrats,” Ingraham said shortly after the race was called on Tuesday night. “We have the same people in place in leadership. The same people in place, apparently at the RNC, perhaps that’s not changing. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I’m pissed tonight, frankly. I’m mad.”

On the other end of the spectrum, commentator Erick Erickson pitched a markedly different theory. “Donald Trump picks the weakest candidates, and those tied to Trump lose in places that matter,” he wrote in a postmortem column Wednesday, while Senator John Thune called Trump an “albatross and a real liability,” according to HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney.

Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the incendiary Georgia Republican, attempted to pin the blame on Walker’s team, seemingly arguing that he lost because his campaign did not sufficiently embrace Trump during the runoff. Greene’s sentiment came in response to John Bolton remarking that the Republican shortfall in Georgia was “due primarily to Trump” and his persistent lies about the 2020 election. “This has to be the dumbest assessment of our Senate loss,” she replied in a tweet. “His campaign told Trump to stay out, so don’t blame Trump,” she added. “Blame the one who was hand-holding him all over the state, among many other reasons.” It’s unclear who Greene is referencing with regard to “hand-holding.” However, it’s worth noting that Senator Lindsey Graham––not Trump––appeared to be chaperoning the former footballer in various media appearances throughout the final weeks of the race.