Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock debate: Highlights from the Georgia race face-off

Walker repeatedly claimed that Warnock has voted in line with Biden's position on legislative issues 96% of the time — and he’s right!

According to Five Thirty Eight, the Democratic senator has voted with the president 96.4% of the time, as of Sept. 28.

It remains to be seen whether that’s as sick of a burn as Walker thinks it is. Georgia’s a purple state, meaning it doesn’t lean too heavily in one political direction. What’s for sure is how high the stakes are in this election. Control of the Senate could come down to this race.

Weeks before this debate, Walker described himself as “not that smart” and made a point of mentioning Warnock’s nice suits. Yes, that was a way of lowering expectations, but it was also an effective way of calling attention to a divide that persists in the South: the divide between the educated Black people who speak what’s called “proper” and the less educated who might be considered more common, less refined people.

To be clear, the description “proper” in the Black South is rarely used as a compliment. It’s meant to convey arrogance and condescension. Warnock, who has the rhetorical skills one would expect of a southern Black Baptist pastor (one who uses those skills in Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, no less) seemed aware of coming across as condescending while debating an opponent who struggles to fluently express himself.  

Near the end of the debate, Walker, whose rural Southern accent and phrasing was quite pronounced, again made a point of bringing up Warnock’s “smooth talk,” but there was nothing particularly smooth about Warnock’s presentation. Maybe it’s because he was confronted with some tough questions he didn’t want to answer — including questions about his church evicting poor people and his ex-wife questioning his parenting — but as someone from the Black rural South who was always reminded that I was “proper,” my money’s on Warnock deciding that sounding too well spoken while next to Walker wouldn’t be a good look.

I am so torn on this, so forgive me while I work out my feelings via blog post. On the one hand, I think it’s important that candidates give voters the chance to see them side by side, debating how they view the role that would be granted to them and the policies they’d work to enact while in office. Refusals to debate your opponent are often rightly seen as a sign of weakness and inability to stand by your positions under scrutiny.

On the other hand, the modern political debate format yields very few actual insights. The performance we saw from Warnock and Walker wasn’t the worst example I’ve ever sat through, but the idea that one hour is enough time to cover the breadth and depth of issues that the American people face, and U.S. senators are required to engage with, is madness. The whiplash between topics, the inability to have a proper back-and-forth, the lack of fact-checking as things that are patently untrue are said, none of it really speaks to the seriousness of the job these men are asking to perform.

Instead, the brevity of the format doesn’t allow for much of an impact beyond judgments on the aesthetics on display, the oratorical stylings of each candidate, and the barest bones of where each stands on the bills they would either seek to enact or try to prevent in the Senate. America really deserves higher-quality debates if we’re going to keep this tradition going. And I know we’re in an era where attention spans are dwindling, but let’s be real: The sound bites we got tonight won’t even play well when chopped up on TikTok.

It was clear almost from the beginning why Walker has been doing his darndest to lower expectations ahead of this debate. The stumbles and strange moments that might have derailed another candidate’s chances were instead by and large ho-hum — prop badge aside.

As for Warnock, the Democrat and his campaign clearly feel comfortable where they are in the polls — he played it safe on virtually every answer this evening. The hour summed up both candidates well to voters who are just tuning in, but it’s unlikely to change the trajectory of the race — and that will suit Democrats just fine.

The list of things Walker does not understand appears to be long, but apparently one of the items on that list is health care. When asked whether Georgia should accept federal funding via a Medicare expansion to close the “coverage gap,” Walker instead said that people should be working to make sure that everyone has good health care.

Specifically, he said “if you have an able-bodied job, you have health care.” That … makes no sense, when you consider how many people who are working are still uninsured. A major reason why working Americans are uninsured is because either they are unable to afford the plans available or their employer doesn’t offer subsidized coverage because of the hours they work. Walker then accused Warnock of wanting people to be dependent on the government instead of independent, which is … wild.

Before tonight’s clash, I asked whether Walker could debate the issues. As Hayes Brown touches on, Walker’s answers on health care are showing that the answer is “no.”

Asked how he would increase access to doctors and hospitals for Georgians, Walker blamed Warnock for not already doing it, then suggested he would meet with hospital administrators. No real ideas, no concrete policies. If he does want to cross the finish line first, it’ll be on vibes alone.

If you were caught lying that you used to be an FBI agent, you probably wouldn’t double down on that lie on television. But you are not Herschel Walker.

When Warnock pointed out that his opponent had pretended to be law enforcement (specifically, an FBI agent and a Cobb County sheriff), Walker flashed an honest-to-goodness sheriff’s badge — or at least a replica.

An already bizarre moment got even stranger when one of the moderators interrupted Walker to remind him that the debate rules prohibited props.

“It’s not a prop,” Walker protested. “It’s real!” 

Truly one of the weirdest political moments in years.