Midnight Train (Back) to Georgia (with Greg Bluestein)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bullwork. And this week, we’ve got Georgia on our minds because it is runoff time. So Republicans had a solid night in Georgia on November eighth. Governor Brian Kemp beat Stacey Abrams a second time, winning by around seven and a half points.

Secretary of State Brad Rathonsburger, a personal favorite of mine, got reelected by around nine points then there’s Virgil Walker whose controversies we discussed at length in the Last Georgia episode with Thai reporter, Mollie Ball, he can only pull in about forty eight point five percent of the vote. So this vote focus group that we did was super interesting. Most of the group voted for Hersha Walker, but for one or another, when we did our screener to find people, they screened as on the fence about the rough, so undecided. I’ll also add that this entire group voted for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen, and all but two voted for him in twenty twenty. Now my guess today is Greg Bluestein, political reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the author of the book flipped how Georgia turned purple and broke the monopoly on Republican power.

Greg, thanks for being here. I’m so excited to have you. Oh, I’m honored to be here. Thanks for having me. So one of the things that has been just like great fun on this podcast is I’ve gotten to have sort of the the job roster.

You know, the people who are, like, the political person from the state. Listen to the groups. And you’re that you’re that person there in Georgia, which has become such an important state in the political conversation. But so what are you doing right now as we head into this runoff?

So we’re taping this on the Friday before the runoff. And this is the peak behind the the curtains for reporters. I am spending the day finishing my prep for next week. So not only do we have to have stories saying, Walker one or WarNock one, but we also have to start our why they won or why they lost type stories as well. So I finished up the two big prep stories about just so we’re ready for either scenario happens.

And hopefully, there will be a scenario. Hopefully, it won’t be this long drawn out legal battle over ballots. I don’t even wanna jinx this. And then ICE next have to go to write the the why they won type stories.

I talked to lots of reporters who are working on prerights, but Prewriting the why has gotta be interesting. Like, do you have a theory of the case of why either one of them could win in advance? Like, you already have that theory?

Yeah. I mean, look. Things right now at least seem like they’re tilting pretty decisively in War NOx’s favorite. You know, your last episode, you mentioned a lot of the issues that Hersha Walker is having and a lot of things that are playing into War Knox camp. I think one of the biggest issues is is kind of what we’re hearing from this focus group we’re about to talk about.

But the split ticket voters, the camp warnock voters are signaling at least it’s impossible to know. But, you know, I’ve just done tons of interviews with them. And many of them are at least they tell me they’re going back out to vote for warlock once again. But in this focus group, you also have even walker supporters who were worried about going back out to the run off for him. So, you know, that’ll be part of the why if Warlock does end up winning, why he won.

But, of course, there’s also all sorts of issues that have plagued Walker’s campaign throughout this entire election season that are even getting worse in some ways. Republicans here were baffled that Hersha Walker was off the campaign trail for five full days, doing Thanksgiving break at the same time when senator Warren had more than a dozen events, and he tried to drum up early voting over the the weekend before the last week of early voting. So there’s been just inexplicable gaps. There’s been great ads from the warnock campaign. They’re out spending walker.

Nearly three to one right now in Georgia. There’s just a lot of things that are tilting into the Democrats’ favor, but at the same time, you never know who these runoffs and the Hersha Walker could pull off setting up

set. So before we jump in to this, I just wanna ask you, like, as a reporter. So after the twenty eighteen governor’s race, the twenty twenty presidential election those, like, twenty twenty senate runoffs that cost the GDP of, like, a small island nation. And then, like, another crazy cycle in twenty twenty two Georgia’s got to be the most exhausting place in America to cover politics. And you are the most like, you’re the biggest political war in the state.

What is your life like? It’s

busy. My family’s ready for Tuesday. I’m ready for Tuesday, but they also were were kinda used to it. And, you know, frankly, this might sound crazy. But I bring my kids on the campaign show with me to events.

So I’ve got a nine year old, a twelve year old, they’ve met all the candidates. In fact, in the twenty twenty runoffs, they interviewed all the candidates for what they call BlueSTEAM blogs. So they got to interview John Ossov for Rafael. Warner David Purdue Kelly Leffler. So so they get to see a a fun side of the campaign drug.

Because I bring them up to, you know, events in small towns or events with free doughnuts. With free food. So we bond sometimes on the campaign trail. I’m lucky at the AJC. We have a a big team as well, so I don’t have to be at every single event.

I can take a day like I am today and work on enterprise work on on other stories. But also, as you know, once the election’s over, our work is not done. We’ve got to write what’s next.

Yeah. We

gotta cover the legislative session. We gotta cover the less sexy things coming up in Georgia. So we’re also we have we have one eye on that. We have meetings about the year to come that are starting right after the runoff ends. Howard Bauchner:

Well, I love your work. And I can tell, like, you know, if you’re a political junkie, obviously, I know it can be a lot, but it also sounds like it’s a ton of fun. Love that you take your kids. Alright. Let’s talk about this senate race.

So WarNOC as you point it out seems like he’s in a pretty good position because Walker is just a lousy candidate in many ways. So this group that we talk to is a group that Walker should have locked up — Mhmm. — you know, to be where he wants to be. Yet, several of this group are still sort of teetering on the brink of indecision. Let’s listen.

What I have done and I didn’t do as much beforehand because I knew I was gonna go with Kemp

and I was gonna go Republican. But ever since this happened, and then

you see all the negative ads, I’ll tell my research. I’ve read up on warnock. I’ve read up on Hersha Walker. And, you know, obviously, both have their flaws. There’s no doubt about it.

So do I? I personally think the biggest issue right now is crime. You know, and who is gonna do the best for us to take care of some of the crime in Georgia and Atlanta and that sort of thing. And I do think that Walker is leaning a little more that way for me.

I voted conservative the first time for Walker almost for default value. To me, the more important issue was crime, and I felt he would be a stronger candidate. I voted for Kemp with no second thoughts about it. But the issue with commercial is almost like the first time I voted for Trump. I voted for Trump the first time and I didn’t the second time.

Because after I saw him for a while, I just started I just started having second doubts about it. And I admit, I am being influenced by a lot of these a television ad that they’re putting on. Walker just comes off to such a buffoon sometimes. And yet, if I look at the core values, I think he’s more of a Republican candidate, but I’m really on the fence between the two of them. I’m not as worried of course, I’m done a woman, so it’s easy for me to say that.

I’m not as worried about the abortion issue because he seems to have such an extreme abortion issue that is not with rape, like you’re saying, or any of those other situations. I I don’t think you can get that passed to that extreme. So I I have a fundamental belief that that that will be moderated. A great deal more.

So you just heard people in this group that they all voted for Kemp without a second. Mhmm. Many of them, like, really liked Kemp. So it seems like a genericish Republican would still do really well in Georgia. And so the Republicans in the state learning a lesson from Walker.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we did a group. Sounds like you listened to it of of it was a group of swing voters, and they were like a hundred percent camp wornock. Mhmm. Like, there was, like, one guy who wasn’t gonna go for wornock, and even he was kind of on the fence about it.

And so do you think there’s any lessons being learned here after these last couple cycles and and so Yeah. Tell me about it.

Yeah. And first off, I mean, those camp were not voters were the decisive factor — Donald. — in the midterm. They were the difference between Republican outright victories in every statewide contest except for this one. Where it was driven to a runoff because senator Warwick was able to attract a significant number of these crossover voters.

Two hundred thousand fewer people voted for Hersha Walker than Governor Brian Kemp. So that that kind of says it all. Right? There. And this focus group is so remarkable because There’s no talk of from Democratic supporters of senator Warlock in the first round of saying, oh, well, we’re worried about voting for the second round because we’re we’re worried about his history or his background.

There’s none of that. The bigger issue for the Democrats is just getting them back out to the polls, not about convincing them another time to vote. But meanwhile, as we heard, even Hersha Walker supporters, like the the second gentleman we just heard are concerned about voting for him, and they’re being swayed by these TV ads and more than three hundred million dollars spent on TV ads in Georgia. Eighty million dollars has been spent doing the runoffs on TV ads. So they’re having an impact at least some voters, and it’s just remarkable that even Walker supporters are now having second doubts, even supporters who voted for them despite the history of violence, the erratic behavior, the lies, and the campaign trail, the abortion allegations.

You name it. They still held their nose and voted for him in November. And now some of these voters are still on the fence about voting for him in December. We’re gonna

delve into that just a little bit more. But first, we’re gonna play kind of a long section, but I want to give you a real sense. This group was so good. It was. And and when I say good, I guess, I mean, they’ve clearly been marinating in this race for like such a long time.

They were just incredibly clear in being able to articulate how they were thinking about things, what was making them stick with Walker, if they were, and how they were rationalizing it. Like, so the critical mass of the group. Right? So the people who don’t think that Hershel is a good candidate, they’re doing the thing that should be drinking game on the Focus Group podcast, which is just the lesser of two evils. But I want you to hear how these very conflicted voters are thinking about Walker and how they’re getting there with him.

I want

to counter the Democrat control and pull the lever at this point for Walker now just because it is a numbers game. And so While I don’t think he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer, there are an awful lot of folks in Congress who are are not terribly bright, quite frankly, some of them from the state. So I can’t really hold that against him per se. I can’t really hold hypocrisy or lying against him because they’re all do it. So it really does get down from my perspective to trying to at least get a better balance of power in there and trying to at least get more of a bipartisanship if that’s even possible in this day and age, which it certainly doesn’t seem like it now.

But at least if you have a fifty fifty senate, somebody’s gotta go over to the other side or unless it’s a one vote decision by the VP. So that’s kinda my stance on why I’m gonna go ahead and vote for for personal. It’s

the big picture of control of the Senate, and the warm up will be in there for six years. So on the twenty twenty four election, he’ll already have that seat for another four years. I’m probably in the minority of a pro choice Republican. But with the overturning of the supreme court of the world versus Wade, it’s now the state level. You know, it’s the state legislature, the state senate, it’s our governor that makes the decision now.

All the states make the decision on abortion. I mean, what Warnecke or Walker’s opinion is on abortion really doesn’t matter. We’re not going to have a federal law or any kind of federal deal on abortion. It’s not gonna happen. Walker is a horrible candidate.

And I’m not just saying that as a Tennessee fan, but, you know, he was a terrible candidate. And there’s no doubt about it. WarnerK is horrible too. He’s been terrible senator. So he just gotta look at the big picture and say, hey, you wanna have you know, the Democrats at fifty one to forty nine makes a big difference than fifty fifty.

So that’s why I decided to vote for Walker. I

think it’s crucial that we have fifty-fifty. And to be honest with you, two weeks ago, I was considering not even voting because I kept hearing things on the news when they were saying, you know, so until one and there’s one one and And then they said, well, there’s no point now. It doesn’t matter if partial wins or not because even if he does, the Republicans still won’t

win

by senate. But if he wins, we will at least half half half and that to me is crucial. I don’t like either candidates. I really don’t like crucial. In these last two weeks.

I think the ads that they’ve been showing have been just awful. He just looked like a buffering, but I’m going back for him. And Jim, you’re saying that about the fifty fifty. That really struck the chord with me. So I will definitely be the commercial.

I don’t want to, but I’m going to. Man,

and and that was very Yeah. If you don’t play all of them, but I would say that was for the people who were gonna vote for Walker, and not all of them are in this group will get to that. They basically were like taking Walker out of it almost entirely. And really just talking about control of the senate. But I gotta say so this group seems to think that there’s a marginal benefit to the extra Republican seat even with no majority on the line.

And so our listeners may recall that in the twenty twenty runoffs, you know, the set up majority was on the line. So how do you think the enthusiasm is different from twenty twenty one? When people were highly engaged, but enough of them didn’t turn out because, you know, they thought the election was stolen or whatever happened. I guess I was surprised to hear them have this rationale about the fifty-fifty matter because I thought that was kind of be off the

table. So

anyway, what do you make of that? Yeah. You

know, I I love, by the way, she’s like, he’s a buffoon, and I’m still gonna vote for him. We we hear that all the time. All the time. We heard that throughout the first phase of the election. We heard that in the primary even Republican saying, hey, I don’t I don’t mister, I like him.

I don’t like what he’s saying. I don’t like his history. I don’t like his lies, his exaggerations, but I’m still in a vote form because he’s a the Republican vote. And we certainly heard that in the context of Donald Trump in sixteen and twenty here in George and elsewhere. But it struck me as interesting that these are obviously well versed voters who are paying attention to the narrative and their chains to the news.

Because, you know, the conventional wisdom was the moment that senate control wasn’t at stake that would help senator warn us. And I still think it does. Right? Because it takes away that core argument from Walker’s allies that, hey, a vote for him was a vote for Republican control of the senate. And now that Democrats will have a majority with the time breaking vote no matter what.

But these voters are saying, hey, it’s still important to get it back to fifty fifty. And some of them are paying attention enough to say, yeah, it means a different sort of power sharing agreement in the senate. It makes it harder for Joe Biden to press his agenda. It makes harder for him to get his presidential appointments through because Republicans won vote closer to flipping back control the chamber. So it’s interesting hearing them articulate that because I’ve certainly heard strategists talk about, hey, the stakes are still high.

I’ve heard Democrats frankly say the same thing to try to not take the wind out of their sails saying, hey, this gives us wiggle room in case Joe Manchin hooked the facts or Kirsten Cinema votes against a key policy. So it still shows that, hey, the stakes are still very high here. If not as high as they were in twenty twenty one when Senate Control was online. Howard Bauchner:

I was

really blown away by how how deep — Yeah. — that that was with them in terms of a rationalization. I gotta say the one thing that I thought was interesting is the way that they talked about Hershel as a buffoon. Right? So they think that he’s, like, he’s not a talented politician, etcetera.

But it the ads are about him holding a gun to his ex wife’s head. It is his son saying that he threatened their lives and, like, they had to move. Like, it’s weird to me that the takeaway is, like, walkers of buffoon versus He’s dangerous or something. Yeah. That’s right.

They don’t seem to be convinced of, like, the danger side of it. And why do you think that is? Because the ads are I think quite effective. Well, when you have as

much money as senator Warlock, you can you can push all sorts of ads. So, yes, we have seen ads literally just focusing on his ex wife’s you know, very compelling testimony about his violent threats against her. But we’ve also seen ads and very effective ads of just Hershel Walker on the campaign trail saying bizarre things about bad air from China. It’s about vampires against werewolves. About we have enough trees in on earth already.

Why are we why are we worried about climate change? Things like that that have created memes. They’ve they’ve gotten a different level of notoriety for Hersha Walker than just the violence and, you know, misstatements he’s made on the campaign trail. So I think that’s where she’s going with the whole buffoon statement because it’s

hard to

turn on a TV in Georgia right now. Without seeing one of those ads that literally just put Hersha Walker using his own words against him. And that’s been a core argument for senator Warmnox campaign throughout. They they weren’t necessarily seizing on the violence at first. They weren’t necessarily seizing on these abortion allegations that we’ve talked about.

Instead, they’ve just said, hey, he’s unfit for US Senate because he’s not a serious candidate. And then they’ve highlighted the remarks he’s made about COVID sprays that inoculate you from COVID, things like that from the very get go of this campaign kind of underscored

their argument. When I

started doing the focus groups in Georgia, like a long time ago, going into the primaries, when I was just trying to get a handle on how voters felt about Hersha Walker, one of the things that struck me because I was initially when Trump was putting him forward and and Mitch did go along with it. I was like, Why? This guy can’t string two sentences together, but then I started doing some focus groups in Georgia and I was like, oh, these guys think he is a god. I remember one of my favorite comments in a focus group, and we talked about it on this podcast. We’re talking to the group and we’re saying, like, have you heard about him playing Russian group?

Let with himself, the that he would hold a loaded gun to his head and pull the trigger. And people were kinda like, hadn’t heard of that, but somebody said, well, I guess Hersha keeps winning. You know, that’s what Hershel does. He wins. And I remember being like, oh, man, the love for Hershel Walker is so deep.

In the state that it started like with Trump was one of the things I really missed was how familiar people felt with him because of his television show — Mhmm. — when I started doing focus groups on photos. Like, the number of people who’d watched his show and had a a feeling of a personal connection to him, a comfort with him because he’d been in their living rooms for eight years. I had just, like, totally missed that element of it. But anyway, as all the buffoonery and all that stuff, like, has it really eroded just like the warmth and good feeling?

For Walker in the state? Oh, sure. And

he had to know that he had to know that half the state would end up or at least, you know, a significant number of voters would end up hating him. By the end of this because he came into this with much higher approval ratings. Right? I I guess this can help put it in context. I grew up in Georgia to parents who could care less about football.

Didn’t watch football, didn’t care about UGA sports. And I still grew up hearing about the legend of Hersha Walker. When I saw him at an airport, I don’t know, half a decade ago, I dropped everything to go take a picture of them because he’s this icon in Georgia. I know Democrats who named their dogs Hershel. Whose garage codes are thirty four thirty four after his number, who say and not jokingly that had he run-in a democratic open primary for state wide office.

He probably would have won too. Right? Mhmm. That that’s just his name brand appeal. You can’t buy that sort of name ID.

And then you add to that on the Republican side Donald Trump’s endorsement later on Mitch McConnell’s endorsement. It froze the field. Really good candidates. Like attorney general Chris Carr or congressman Buddy Carter said, I can’t compete with that. You know, they got out of the race early.

You know, in hindsight, they probably I don’t know if they could have won, but they would have had a much better standing against senator warnock for sure than Hersha Walker has. You wouldn’t be talking about all these split ticket voters with candidates like that. But also Hershel Walker, I mean, he had this he has this name ID. You just cannot buy in Georgia. So he came in with this sort of legendary status that he used And frankly, if you go back to the primary campaign, a lot of the issues we’re talking about here, we talked about in Georgia since last August.

You know, is Texas residency violence against women, bizarre statements. None of this is really new. There’s been plenty that have come out since that that have amplified those arguments and those those concerns. But we’ve been talking about these same issues now for a year about Hersha Walker. Gary Black, his main Republican that rival even cut an ad saying, this is what Democrats will use against Thursday Walker in November and October if he wins the primary.

And Gary’s ad was pretty much spot on. There’ve been a lot more that’s been added to that, but the sort of the core arguments were spot on. And yet still, you know, even knowing the baggage, even knowing the issues, Hershel Walker was unbeatable.

There’s a

CNN poll that has wornock fifty two forty eight. But one of the things they talked about in it was how Warnecke has basically, like, completely locked up the black vote that Hershel just isn’t getting. And I guess I always thought that maybe Hershel would pick up more of the black vote, but obviously when things come down to turnout, like, well, a, talk to me about the black vote in Georgia. And then also, your sense of enthusiasm turnout? Like, was Stacey being on the ticket helpful for voter enthusiasm?

Or do you think Wonack will be better, like, on his own? Yeah,

this was totally a theme of the midterm election because senator Warlock was always pulling pretty well with black voters and and pretty well means, like, ninety percent plus. Because to win in Georgia as a Democrat, you’ve got to block up the African American base. That is the most important and reliable block of voters in Georgia for Democrats. And Stacey Abrams was the one lagging behind. She was in the seventies and low eighties at a time when senator Warlock was double digits ahead of her in some of these polls and it was very concerning to Stacey Abrams and her allies.

And she had events specifically geared at black male voters. She tailored her message. She started talking about reparations and other issues that she thought would appeal to more black voters. And in the end, it really didn’t matter. Right?

I mean, she lost, but she ended up consolidating the black voter base to a similar degree as as senator Wardock. And when you’re going into this to this runoff, where it’s all really about that base turnout, that’s so important for him to continue to consolidate that black base. And the concerns you’re hearing from black leaders here, Georgia but Hershel Walker, isn’t just that he’s a Republican who supports a lot of far right policies that they oppose, but also that he’s being propped up by white Republicans and images of Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham kinda sandwiching Hershel Walker in interviews on Fox News have played terribly with the African American base. You’ve seen memes and tweets and press release events and all sorts of things from black voters saying that that’s one of the biggest concerns they have with Hershell Walker that essentially he’d be a tool of white Republicans. And he has not been able to counter that because, frankly, he’s not responding to anything at all.

Any of our questions, any media questions at all. He’s done very few events. He’s done very few interviews with outlets that are gonna ask him any probing questions. Instead, he’s really just kept to his his same, really by now, predictable stump speech over and over again, and he’s avoided even shouted questions for the press he’s putting up barriers twenty feet away from him so that press can even get close enough to even shout a question out and let alone ask him

a question.

Wow. Well, I wanna close this senate race conversation, but then I’ve got more I wanna talk to you about. But this last part I wanna play a couple of the people who are sort of right leading Republican oriented, but they’re gonna vote for warmock. And I think this is the part of this group that should put a hit in the walker campaign’s stomach. Let’s listen.

I actually did not vote in the general, but I am planning on voting on Tuesday, but I don’t really like either candidate whatsoever. Big fan of hemp, he did a lot for teachers. I think he did a really solid job during his tenure. Right now, I am leaning towards Wornock, I would say, primarily because the abortion law really scares me right now. And so that is pretty much my prime reason for leaning

towards worn off at the moment. I am a Republican, you know, and I tend to go right down the ballot, republican, republican, republican, and that’s how I did the first time. Two days ago, I said, I just can’t do it. I don’t want that person making decisions for me. No experience.

Holding a gun to your wife’s head, you know, lying, you know, I almost feel like it’s well, we wanna prevent abortions unless I impregnated them, then go ahead and do an abortion. You know?

We

wanna have more Republicans in the house than Democrats. That’s probably one of the factors I was thinking of the first go around But, you know, after seeing the ads and doing a little research and influenced by my husband who’s who was saying the same as me as, you know, no can’t do it.

So

this is incredible to me because you’ve got the first woman who did not vote the first time. Didn’t come out. She’s pox on both their houses. But now she has decided that specifically because of abortion she’s going to come out in the runoff and vote for warnock. And then the second woman voted for Walker the first time, and at this point now had already early voted for warmock.

She has changed her mind because the first first time it sounds like she just went straight ticket for Republicans. You know, she’s KEMF fan, but the second time she’s flipped and already voted for warmock and and that to me is really wild.

Yeah. And again, someone someone who is reliably Republican. And again, that’s the biggest factor to me in this this race because it’s so different from the twenty twenty one run off that that Warlock won where he just basically honed in on Liberals and said, hey, if we can get the same base that we got out back Joe Biden. In November, we can win this runoff, and he he didn’t really focus on Kelly Laffler. He didn’t really focus on his Republican opponents.

He just focused on his agenda, wherein this race, yeah, of course, he’s highlighting the votes he made, and he’s highlighting his push to cap the price of insulin at thirty five dollars and such. But he’s making this a contrast with him in Hershel Walker and it’s so effective because you’re hearing again and again these people that we just heard from this this focus group are not anomalies out on the campaign trail in my inbox when I’m just going around town in Georgia. I hear all the time from Kemp Warlock voters who insist they’re gonna come back out of the polls. I was just talking to a senior Republican adviser here in Georgia who is noting that in Buckhead, which is a very wealthy neighborhood in North Atlanta, today on Friday, the last day of early voting, there are lines wrapping around the building. And I said, that is camp worn out territory.

He goes, yep. That’s why we’re so worried right now. I mean, just huge turnout in these areas of sort of mainstream Republican voters who just can’t vote for Hersha Walker whatever reason. Some of them are not gonna vote at all and some of them as we heard are gonna go and hold their nose and cast their ballot for for Rafael Warlock.

Yeah, can I just say to you? Because several people mentioned abortion in this group. And that one woman who loved Kemp. Even though he signed the heartbeat bill, but she for abortion totally disqualifies Herschel. And I think that this is so interesting on the abortion issue it’s like when they don’t like somebody or they think somebody’s extreme like a portion is often their way in and they want to like say, abortion is this.

But, like, if they like a candidate, like, I think in Texas, you saw this with Abbott, you saw it with Rhonda Santos, and and with Kemp, they don’t seem to let abortion be disqualifying for that candidate. Howard

Bauchner: Yeah, and you heard from a few of these folks on this focus group who said, oh, wow. It’s such a rare instance. And one of them didn’t like Hersha Walker’s call for a total ban on abortion, but said, oh, that will never pass. Right? So they’re sort of writing it off as a possibility.

This is a race full of unbelievable divides between the candidates and policies. Abortion is one of many, but there’s just staunch divides between them and healthcare, on guns, on crime. You know, you name it. There’s there’s big a big huge chasm between them on issues. And it’s one that, of course, senator warnock has played into.

I mean, it’s not the focus of his campaign message. Frankly, the focus of his campaign message has long been that appeal to those those swing voters. They’ve identified I mean, I’m talking about basically a year out, these swing ticket voters will be crucial to them, decisive to them. They’ve executed this campaign strategy to make it easier for these swing ticket voters to hold their nose and vote for Senator Warmack. The way he does that is he doesn’t talk about Joe Biden in the campaign trail.

Joe

Biden’s approval ratings in Georgia are about forty percent most polls. He’s not talking about you know, really polarizing issues. He’s instead talking about how we can work with Ted Cruz on the campaign trail. He can work with Marco Rubio. And it’s often to the shock of people in the crowds.

I’ve seen Josh drop when he talks about working with Ted Cruz on a Highway Bill. And then he explains it saying, hey, you know, this shows I can work with anyone, even Ted Cruz, if it means helping Georgia. Alright.

Prediction time. Who do you think is gonna win? This is where I get in

trouble. But the luck. You know, I’ve I’ve talked to even many, many Republicans who say it’ll be really, really difficult for Hersha Walker to win. And it’s not just all these gaps in these errors, but it’s some stuff out of his control. Right?

Once senate control was clinched by Democrats that made Hersha Walker’s case to the skeptic Republicans that much harder. There have been a lot of gaps even in the runoff period. There’s been that misstep I talked about where he was off the campaign trail for five days. It was inexplicable. There’s

been a lot

of campaign turmoil within the the Walker campaign that has really complicated their effort. To drive home a unifying message and senator warnock hasn’t had any of those issues. He has he’s been free of of in fighting and controversy. And he’s and as you noted, he’s been able to consolidate his base of support. And he has the resources to press his campaign.

He’s he’s far outraised Hersha Walker in his final stretch.

So the

odds are definitely in considered a warmock’s favor. But the big caveat is that election day tends to go decisively for Republicans. Right? Percher Walker beat senator Monarch on election day by double digits. And Republicans say there’s still a path to victory.

So while I’d give Senator Warlock the Edge, you know, he could very well win by four or five points right now. If there’s a huge election day turnout, then all pets are off. But I don’t know if we’re gonna see that. I don’t sense the same enthusiasm for Hersha Walker out there that we see for senator

Warrnock. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I’m really sorry to do this to you. But Go for it. We got it. Talk just a little bit about Trump twenty twenty four.

Sure.

Because, you

know, we asked the group if they were excited to see Trump’s announcement and nobody raised their hand. I, like, really wanted to talk to, like, hardcore Trump voters and see where they were on Trump. And so we did a different group earlier this week with two time Trump voters. And there was only one person in that group. Who was excited to see Trump running again, and then the rest were, like, nah, and a couple were, like, absolutely not.

But in this one, you know, we asked at the end and To be clear, not everyone in this group voted for Trump in twenty twenty. They all voted for from in sixteen. There’s a couple of them didn’t in twenty, but the two people you’re about to hear did. So let’s listen to them.

It’s time to move on. Everybody feels you’re not gonna vote for an eighty year old guy Lone can go for four more years. It is time to move

on.

It’s over. End of story. He’s just very divisive. I mean, people either hate the guy or love the guy. I mean, there’s just no middle ground of Trump.

And, unfortunately, it seems the haters

are far

more. And candidly, I mean, he’s he’s a bit immature. I mean, he he he’s a bit petulant sometimes. And but, you know, who knows what it’d be like to be sloughering the the slings and arrows he did for four years as president of the United States at the time. But I think it is time to move on.

I want the candidate as the best chance of winning who brings common sense to the role who is a little bit more polished, if you will.

So

I gotta say Georgia — Yeah. — I’ve been fascinated by Georgia voters and their relationship with Trump because everywhere else in this country, Trump got the primary candidates he wanted. But him primarying Mhmm. Kemp and even Brad Ravensburger who underperformed Kemp by a lot, but still got it done. Like, what is the relationship with the voters and Trump?

In Georgia now because these people were not into him. Trump’s

track record in Georgia was awful because it wasn’t just Brian Kemp and Brad Ravensburger who beat back Trump back challengers. But it was also the attorney general, Chris Carr, and even the insurance commissioner John King be basically, an unknown Republican who’s based his entire campaign on Trump and accusing the Republican incumbent of woke insurance policies, which no one knew what the hell that meant. And then when you even say, look, Hershel Walker did have Trump’s endorsement and blessing. But Hersha Walker did not need Trump’s endorsement or blessing to win the Republican primary. I’m sure it helped with some voters, but we can’t really put Hershell Walker in the same category as as we put like Blake Masters and other national Republicans who got Trump’s blessing and, you know, it helped them emerge from obscurity into allegic contender because Hersha Walker is Hersha Walker in Georgia.

He had a sky high name recognition and that the UGA background I I talked about earlier. But, yeah, we have this unique relationship, our Republican Party, because even after Kemp easily defeated David Purdue, you could definitely look at that moment of him beating back Donald Trump’s hand picked challenger and said that was the moment he unified the Republican party. That Trump did keep a favor in a sense by doing this because you know, Kemp had ninety five percent of support in polls over the summer after he beat David Purdue from Republicans. So there was no sort of sense of the MAGA crowd turning against him and withholding their support from him against AC Abrams. So David Purdue helped Brian get UNIFY Republicans behind him.

By launching that that ill fated challenge. And going into this next twenty twenty four cycle, we see a number of Republicans who want nothing to do with Donald Trump. Starting with Brian Kemp. He withheld any criticism of Donald Trump throughout the primary and throughout the general election campaign because he didn’t wanna do anything to ostracize. The former president and get him off the sidelines because Trump was also pretty silent about Trump through the general election campaign.

But right after he won, he took a veiled shot at Donald Trump in his victory speech. And these guys got death threats. You know, they got booed at Republican gatherings. All sorts of internal pushback because of Donald Trump’s lies, so they are not going to bend over backwards and help Donald Trump. And many of their supporters feel the same way.

And right now, Brian Kemp is the most popular Republican in Georgia. It’s not Donald Trump by a long shot. And we see that with the fact that Donald Trump has not come to Georgia rally for Hersha Walker. Instead, it’s Brian Kemp who Hersha Walker wants at his side right now. So you’ve seen than there to really flip.

And I’ve seen internal polls that show Kemp’s support among likely runoff voters is at sixty percent, whereas Trump’s is at thirty or thirty five. So that tells you all you need to know. Do we count Donald Trump out? No. Because we know that in a crowded primary field, even thirty, thirty five percent of support can do the trick.

But it certainly was not this, you know, game changing moment a few weeks ago when Donald Trump announced this comeback bid. Most Republicans were kinda like, okay. What’s

next? Totally.

And I’ll tell you speaking of what’s next, Ron DeSantis has been having, like, a big moment in the focus groups for, like, a while now. We can’t find anybody to say a bad thing about them. And so we asked this group if they would prefer to scientists or Trump in a primary, and it was a clean sweep for DeSantis. And everybody you’re about to hear is a two time Trump voter. There

are people that will vote for Ron DeSantis that won’t vote for Donald Trump.

And

that’s that’s the bottom line for me. In

our neighborhood, there are

already

signs for DeSantis, for

president. He does what he says he’s coming to, you know, from living in Florida for four years. I just thought he was fantastic. And I just thought he governed with the people in mind more so than anybody I see now. I just thought he was fantastic.

So here’s the thing

that shocked me about this group. We asked her about twenty twenty four, and they all started talking about the scientists. We ran through some names. We had pens, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, and everybody was kinda like, Nobody said brain camp. Yeah.

I was

wondering that too. I was wondering Oh, I wish we’d asked.

We didn’t ask explicitly. We were just three wheel anchor. I just can’t believe that nobody brought him up. What is going on? Why is DeSantis like, really just that much and people bras that they don’t realize in Georgia they’ve got their own successful governor who beat a much tougher opponent than Rhonda Sanchez did down in Florida.

So it’s

funny. I asked one of Kemp’s key aids about this. Right after he won the election, he went to the RGA Republican Governors Association. And, you know, I I said, what was the reaction? He got a hero’s welcome.

But the same aide said, but the Santos was like in a different stratosphere. I mean, you know, the guy won and what was used to be a swing state by twenty points. I can get one by eight points, so it’s nothing to sneeze at against Stacy Abrams. But the Santa’s one by, like, a literal landslide. And I just think Camp is starting his second term.

He is definitely a national figure now. There’s no there’s no doubt about that. And I think he’ll definitely be looked at as a potential running mate for one of those non Trump candidates. And he’ll even be talked about as a twenty twenty four candidate. It’s not something he’s shying away from because it certainly helps his profile.

But I think internally, it’s not something that’s also being seriously talked about. Instead, I think he’s going to be vetted as a potential running mate, and maybe he’ll become a running mate. Who knows? But I think also he’s seriously looking at a senate run-in twenty twenty six, which is a whole different can of worms. But certainly camp look, he beat Donald Trump and he beat Stacey Abrams in the same election

cycle. And

Stacey Abrams is the arch nemesis. They’re not just a lot of Georgia Republicans, but a lot of national Republicans too. So coming off of that sort of election cycle, it’s he’s definitely seen as a as a twenty twenty four player. I just don’t think a lot of folks in Georgia right now see him that way in gonna be really interesting to see how that plays out the next two years as the jockeying really intensifies for twenty twenty four. Yeah.

It will be,

especially because I have very serious doubts about the political talent of Rhonda Santos, the enthusiasm for him in the focus groups, which is super real and off the charts, It’s also quite shallow. Mhmm. Like, it’s like, they saw him yelling at kids in masks on a YouTube clip, and then they saw him yelling at Disney and they No, he did a good job with COVID. And obviously, he’s done it in this big bombastic way that the media has paid a ton of attention to. And Kemp He also kept things open on COVID and blocked the national trends there.

He took on major league baseball. He took on coca cola — Yep.

— over the the voting bill. And maybe

you could tell me because I I haven’t watched him up close as much. These pretty smooth guy, like, like, what’s your evaluation of guessing this is, like, political talent? Yeah. So one of the biggest things he’s got going

for him is is he’s tireless. You know, he loves being out there. He loves going to events. Even when he was getting booed at Republican gatherings, he would sit there for hours before and hours after and take every single question about Donald Trump’s election lies and whatever it might come from from, like, angry people holding signs calling for his head. And sometimes his aides and his wife didn’t like the fact that he was so willing to do that.

But that’s that’s who Kip is. And secondly, he’s very on message. I mean, one thing that got Stacey Abrams is she would speak off the cuff a lot and sometimes get herself in trouble. And governor Kemp, you could ask different variations of questions about Donald Trump and you give the same answer fifty times. And he was very good at that.

And even interviews we’re seeing with national broadcasters this week about whether or not he wants to run-in twenty twenty four. Right? They’re asking that question. He says the same thing over and over again, which is our focus needs to be on Hersha Walker. And I’m not even thinking about twenty twenty four.

And he says variations of that. Time and time again. So he’s got that going for him. You know, he’s not this sort of magnetic personality. He doesn’t have a cult of personality around him.

He’s good on the stump, but he’s he’s not going to bring tears to your eyes. You know, he’s not he’s not a magnetic speaker. What he does have is he’s very good strategically, and he can kinda see around corners. And that helps him a lot. He knew at a time when folks like me had no idea.

I was scared to death, frankly, when he reopened the economy early in the pandemic. Even the hardcore conservatives were still living in their basements. Right? It was weeks into the pandemic, and he allowed borrowers and bowling alleys to reopen. And people like me were writing, oh my god, this is going to be the biggest test of Brian Kemp’s administration.

And he knew that would be a defining moment for him and knew to run his campaign with that as one of its central messages. And guess what? It worked. Right? It worked for him.

You know, he has really good political instincts. My gut still tells me that his political instincts will not him to the White House in twenty twenty four. Like, he won’t run. I think, you know, he he’s he’s gonna end up being much more focused on the second term as George’s governor and helping other Republicans. But Mike Pence and him are very close.

Mhmm. If you go back to Mike Pence’s first big break with Donald Trump, what was it? It was endorsing Brian Kemp right before the primary and coming to Georgia and and having a big rally for Brian Kemp just days before the May vote earlier this year. So I will not be shocked to hear Mike Pence talking about Brian Kemp as a potential running mate in a

few months. Interesting.

Interesting. Greg

Bluestein. I loved having you on. Thank you so much for coming and talking to us about the ins and outs of one of the most important states right now. This was awesome. And thanks to all of you guys, like, I’m sorry to tell you, but I think this is our last episode for the year.

I won’t promise it. As I can’t as soon as I can’t help myself, but we’ve had a great year, great election cycle. The focus groups were always right, told us what we need to know, but I really appreciate all of you listening and coming on this journey with us. And unless I break down, I will see you next year. Bye.