walker, herschel walker s son, it was donald trump who drafted the former running back into this race. he said this was the final staple and the reality for republicans that simply turning out gop loyalists, trump loyalists, it does not work. it didn t work in 2020, it didn t work in 2022. republicans have to change their strategy. they have to turn to persuasion here because what the greater metropolitan voters of atlanta, those republicans as well as conservative independents, yet again they showed a willingness to vote for a democrat. you saw them do it. they voted for two democrats for the u.s. senate in the 2021 runoff and voted yet again for the democrat for the u.s. senate here and it s just like what we saw in the state of arizona where for a third election cycle in a road they voted for kyrsten sinema in 2018, they voted for mark kelly in 2020 and again in 2020. republicans and conservative
brian kemp. after he met the ire of donald trump, he roundly defeated the trump-backed challenger, beating david perdue by 50 percentage points. he then won the general election against stacey abrams by 8 percentage points of the and yet where was herschel walker in these closing days? it wasn t metropolitan atlanta, it was out in the rural counties, forsyth county, hall county, where he was stumping with the likes of lindsey graham and john kennedy, the senator of louisiana, because their whole focus was turning out that trump loyal gop base. there was no change in messaging. he was still talking about the idea of men and women s sports. this was a message that herschel walker did not attempt to jump off of what campaign commercial were they running with in the final month of this campaign? it was a female swimmer who was making the case with transgender athletes and women sports. this was not a pivot campaign
independents are willing to change parties depending on the character and integrity that the republicans put forward as their candidate. we saw that again last night shall guys. vaughn, as we look at the map of georgia, can you zoom in on cobb, dekalb, gwinnett county and what happened there. steve kornacki walked us through the map a little while ago where herschel walker got wiped out by huge margins there and perhaps a sign of donald trump s impact on suburban voters not just in atlanta but across the country. right, and the republican party didn t listen from the lessons that voters sent them in 2020. you can see the wild shifts. i mean if you even talk about dekalb county, the extent to which democrats grew on their margins there. when you re looking at cobb county, a place that mitt romney used to lay the reins of. brian kemp results are most telling. no one is going to question the conservative credentials of