Herschel’s Wife Wanted him to Win 50% of Black Vote

• Herschel Walker wanted to court Black voters for the Georgia Senate race. Per Politico
• According to the report, Julie Blanchard Walker stated that Walker should have been receiving strong Black support.
• A source close to the campaign said that her idea became obsessive and she was now focusing on it.

This year’s Georgia Senate race was unique in that it featured two Black major-party nominees — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker — for the first time in state history.

The importance of the Black vote was not lost on the Georgia midterm election ballot, where it was contested by two high-profile candidates who had sharply divergent views about virtually every issue.

Black Georgians make up 33% of the state population and in a good turnout year, Black voters — the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party — generally comprise of roughly 28% to 30% of the overall electorate.

Many Republicans believed that Walker’s candidacy would help them win over Black voters. Walker was a star player at the University of Georgia in the 1980s and then went on to the NFL.

Throughout the GOP Senate campaign, Walker and his wife — Julie Blanchard Walker — wanted to visit Democratic-leaning parts of the state to court Black voters, but staffers instead wanted the Republican to focus on boosting turnout among base voters — a strategy that they later emphasized after Walker was forced into a December runoff without GOP Gov. Brian Kemp is at the top. according to Politico.

Politico said that Walker and Blanchard Walker were not fully capable of steering campaign decision-making. The pair reportedly questioned strategies presented by GOP operatives, and spent “excessive” time looking at proposals before making campaign stops.

Walker staffers told Politico that Blanchard Walker floated the idea that Walker should have been earning up to 50% of the Black vote in the state — which would have represented an unusually high share of the vote for a Republican candidate. One staffer said that Blanchard Walker repeatedly told her husband that he needed to “get him in front people, in his community.”

A source close to the campaign said that she believed we should be obtaining more African American voters than any Republican in modern history has ever gotten. “And that became an obsession.”

The biggest obstacle to the Walkers’ attempts to engage with Black voters was Warnock, the senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, was the biggest obstacle. deeply-rooted connections in the Black religious community and with Black voters in general — and their support wasn’t going to be easily transferable.

The senator’s victory in the 2021 runoff was fuelled by strong turnout by Black voters in the metropolitan Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus and Savannah areas, as well as in rural areas of the state where Democrats previously had difficulty getting the vote out. Walker’s campaign strategy focused on conservatives and the state’s rural evangelical community. Walker campaigned extensively in these areas throughout his entire campaign.

Last month’s general election saw Warnock winning. edged outWalker 49.4%-48.5% in the state, the incumbent senator won 90%, compared with 8% for Walker. according to CNN exit polling.

Walker sought to make inroads among the electorate in the diverse Atlanta suburbs during the runoff campaign, but by the time early voting started in November, Warnock had already locked the support of most of those voters — and the senator’s victoryTuesday’s announcement revealed how much he had gained in the state relative last month’s contest.