October 12, 2022 11:29 AM UTC

Why Can't Republicans Jettison Herschel Walker? Joe O'Dea

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• by: Colorado Pols

As anyone even casually following national politics is aware by now, Republicans once thought to have a lock on winning back the U.S. House and Senate during the 2022 midterms elections are approaching Election Day facing serious deficiencies in their fielded candidates, as well as persistent distrust of the Republican brand after the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021 seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections.

The candidate quality dilemma is particularly problematic for Republicans hoping to reclaim the majority in the U.S. Senate, where the GOP’s path to a majority has been dramatically narrowed by disastrous candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Blake Masters in Arizona doing their best to blow what could have been winnable races. And in Georgia, Donald Trump’s hand-picked Senate candidate Herschel Walker isn’t just in political freefall, but hitting every rock on the cliffside on the way down as allegations of moral hypocrisy combine with stupendously obvious incompetence to make even some diehard MAGA Republicans think twice.

But as CNN reports, there’s basically no path to a GOP Senate majority without Herschel Walker:

“I think we’re going to stick with Walker….we’re going take it all the way to the end,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview with CNN that aired Tuesday afternoon. “I think they’re going to hang in there and scrap to the finish.”

…The Senate math is simple. Republicans need to net a single seat to win the majority. But, with Dr. Mehmet Oz trailing in Pennsylvania where Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is retiring and Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly running surprisingly strong against Blake Masters, Republicans are looking at a very narrow window of opportunity to make the gains they needs.

A two-seat window, in fact. Nevada, where Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is in a very tight race with Adam Laxalt and, you guessed it, Georgia where Walker continues to run competitively against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

There’s just no other seat that has come on the board for Republicans that could allow them to step away from Walker. [Pols emphasis] New Hampshire was, at the start of the election cycle, widely seen as a potential pickup but popular Gov. Chris Sununu decided not to run and Trump-aligned Don Bolduc emerged as the Republican nominee. While Republican strategists still view Sen. Maggie Hassan as vulnerable, she is clearly in a better spot than many expected her to be even a year ago. In Colorado, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet’s numbers are somewhat soft but a Marist poll released this week showed him leading Republican nominee Joe O’Dea 48% to 41%.

As the record of spending on the race has made clear down the stretch, Joe O’Dea was never anything close to a top-tier U.S. Senate candidate. Multiple polls show O’Dea locked in an 8-10% deficit behind Michael Bennet, with no time left to alter that dynamic as mail ballots deliver next week. The hope expressed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that O’Dea might seriously threaten Bennet created some circular media buzz, but didn’t change the situation on the ground in Colorado where every investment by Republicans into O’Dea has been more than countered by all-in support for Bennet from national Democrats.

If O’Dea had at any point shown real competitiveness in his run against Bennet, Republicans would have flooded the state with money instead of spending the massive amounts currently being expended to prop up Herschel Walker. It’s not that Republicans are morally repelled by Walker, or if they are they’ve been able to suppress it to the point of culpability (see: McConnell above). The simple fact is that without Herschel Walker, McConnell is very likely to remain Senate Minority Leader.

Joe O’Dea had a chance to ride to McConnell’s rescue, but it was not to be.