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SAVANNAH, Ga. — Republican Herschel Walker won a moral victory by avoiding disaster at his sole televised debate with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) Friday.
In the process, the former football star will have given his party hope that he can overcome a checkered campaign to prevail in the race, which could plausibly determine control of the Senate.
But Walker also climbed further out on a limb regarding the story that has dominated the race’s closing stages — the accusation from the mother of one of his children that he had previously paid for her to have an abortion.
Walker, who campaigns on an emphatically anti-abortion platform, again insisted without equivocation that the woman’s story was “a lie.” The tactic may be effective — but only so long as it is not disproven by any new evidence.
Warnock holds a small lead in polling averages, but Georgia retains an underlying Republican lean despite narrow Democratic victories during the 2020 election cycle.
This year, it is one of three states, along with Pennsylvania and Nevada, most likely to flip in the battle for the Senate.
Walker put in a much sharper performance than Democrats and many pundits expected. He was helped by having set a notably low bar for himself — and by the commonly held belief among liberals that he would be hopelessly exposed on the debate stage.
“I’m not that smart,” the Republican candidate said last month. “He [Warnock] is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate.”
Walker more than avoided embarrassment. He jabbed back at Warnock — prompting occasional applause and cheers from his sometimes-raucous supporters in the audience — and appeared at times to rattle the incumbent senator, who won a narrow victory in a January 2021 runoff.
