Barely a month after the midterm elections in the USA, President Joe Biden's Democratic Party can celebrate another success. In the runoff election for the last open Senate seat in the state of Georgia, the Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock prevailed against his Republican challenger Herschel Walker.
Because of the outstanding importance for the power structure in the Senate, well-known politicians from both parties got involved in the election campaign. Warnock, a 53-year-old black Baptist pastor, was supported by Biden's predecessor, Barack Obama. Ex-President Donald Trump had campaigned for the former football star Walker, who was also black, seven years his senior. But that was a mistake from the Republican point of view. Because the runoff election in Georgia has confirmed what the other midterms results had already shown: If the Grand Old Party relies on Trump and his protégés, they will reap defeats.
In the midterm elections, in the run-up to his third candidacy for the White House, Trump actually wanted to fill the US Congress and the state legislatures with allies who owed their offices to his support. But contrary to what he and his party had expected, the ex-president's often controversial and radical candidates failed the voters in droves. Walker now joins a long list of failed Trump supporters such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Tim Michels in Wisconsin, Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.
No Republican presidential candidate had lost in Georgia for 30 years when Trump ran for re-election two years ago. Still, Biden and the Democrats won the majority vote and both state Senate seats at the time. And now they are defending a Senate seat against a candidate who had been put in the running by the former president - and who also resembles him in a special way: Walker, like Trump, is a scandal-plagued celebrity-turned-politician who is spreading the lie that the 2020 presidential election is been manipulated.
"There was no Herschel candidacy until Trump opened his mouth," fumed former Georgia Republican leader John Watson. The die was cast a year ago when the ex-president chose Walker. The result was "a whole bunch of pissed off Republicans in Georgia."
The bankruptcy in the southern state will probably also have noticeable effects on Trump's application for the presidential candidacy of the Grand Old Party. "Any defeat by a Republican pushed by Trump is likely to anger donors," writes US broadcaster CNN.
While the ex-president still has a large following among his party base, and that could give him a boost when the campaign gets underway next year, the lack of success is eroding Republican voters' confidence in the 76-year-old's political potency . And possible rivals of Trump are likely to feel encouraged by the apparent weakness of the multiple failure to also throw their hat in the ring for 2024.
Four weeks ago, when it became clear that the expected "red wave" of Republican victories would only be a light splash, Trump had come under fire from his own ranks. After the defeat in Georgia, Republican calls for a new leader are likely to grow louder. Scott Jennings, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and confidant of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, wrote on Twitter: "Georgia may go down in history as the state that broke Trump's neck once and for all. "
Sources: Politico, Washington Post, CNN.
