The NPR Politics Podcast - Will Georgia Voters End Joe Manchin's Reign As King Of The Senate?

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

All eyes are on Georgia's Senate runoff election as Democrat Raphael Warnock fights for his first full term. He's up against Republican Herschel Walker, a former college football celebrity and political newcomer who faced a number of allegations of abuse and personal misconduct. The race, which concludes on Tuesday, won't determine control of the Senate, but will determine how much influence more conservative senators like Joe Manchin have in crafting legislation.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, WABE politics reporter Rahul Bali, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Katherine Swartz.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Stacey in Atlanta, Georgia, on a very, very rainy morning. But I'm here outside an early voting location, ready to cast my vote in Georgia's senatorial runoff election. This podcast was recorded at 1.37 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, December 1st, 2022. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I'll be one of the record number of Georgians that early voted in this runoff election. Okay, here's the show. Okay, such a fitting time stamp. Thank you, producers, for that. Wonder how long she stood in line. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.

I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And of course, today on the show, we are going to be checking in on that Georgia Senate runoff. And to do that, we are joined by Raul Bali of WABE in Georgia. Raul, it is good to have you with us. It's great to be on again. So in Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, is hoping to keep his seat in a race against Republican Herschel Walker. Voting ends on Tuesday, but it's been a little while since we talked about this race. So, Raul, can you just give us a quick refresher on who these two men are? So, as you mentioned, Democrat Raphael Warnock is up for

re-election. Before being elected last year, he was best known as the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church here in Atlanta, which was once pastored by Martin Luther King Jr., Warnock still holds that position. This is the fifth time he's appeared on the ballot in Georgia since November 2020. He even pokes fun at it, calling his bus tour the one more time bus tour. Now, his Republican challenger is Herschel Walker, best known for being one of the greatest college football players of all time. He played at the University of Georgia along with his career in the NFL. This is Walker's first run for political office. Now, why are we here in a runoff? In November, Warnock finished ahead of Walker by 37,000 votes, but did not get the necessary 50% to avoid a runoff as the Libertarian pulled 2 percent. And there were thousands of

voters who just skipped the race. OK, so, Raul, you mentioned that these two men have already competed against each other in the general election, which was held in November. I am curious how the campaign has changed since that point in time. Probably the notable things that you see is what they're saying on the campaign trail and what you've seen in their ads. Let's start off with what Senator Warnock is doing. He's very much trying to put that coalition back together of voters who are in the Democratic wing along with what looked to be about 200,000 voters who voted for the reelected governor, Governor Kemp, and then possibly turned around and voted for Raphael Warnock or someone else or skipped. And a perfect example of this was a recent campaign stop he made on the campus of Georgia Tech.

And he had brought up a couple of stories of how he worked together with Ted Cruz and worked together with Marco Rubio. And then he said this. I'm telling you this so you can tell your Republican friends that if you want a practical senator, somebody who knows how to bring people together, you've got one sitting in the United States Senate right now. And if you send me back to the Senate, I'm going to keep looking for ways for us to come together to do the work that we must do on behalf of all of the people of Georgia. Now, for Herschel Walker, he's very much taken a different approach. It's starkly different. He's really stuck with a lot of the messaging he did

in the general election and even did for the primary. Red meat, Republican issues, you know, he's brought up abortion, you know, very pro-law enforcement, pro-military. And one other issue that we've heard him mention much more than he did in the past is this issue around transgendered kids playing in girls' sports. And he talked about it this week at a campaign stop in Dalton, Georgia. Men should be in women's sports. Y'all don't want Hershel Walker competing against y'all daughter, do you? Right.

But the bottom line is what you're seeing is Walker stick with very much conservative and then right-leaning issues here on the campaign trail. Raul, can I ask you a quick question? Who gets to vote in the runoff? So any Georgian who was registered by November the 7th, that was the day before Election Day, the general election day, is allowed to vote. And that's actually one of the interesting things that we've noticed. There have already been roughly 40,000 voters who did not vote in November who've already cast a ballot in this race. And one of the interesting things there is looking into that data that is publicly available is a good chunk of it are voters under the age of 30.

Which suggests what? That who's getting those voters? You know, my colleague Sam Greenglass has been out on the campaign trail and has run into quite a few college students who either happen to be in town or visiting that did not have an opportunity to vote back in November. And this was the time they voted. You know, generally what we've seen in the polls is that Herschel Walker was doing better when it comes to older voters and Senator Warnock was doing better with younger voters. But, of course, those numbers can blur sometimes as well. Samara, I want to ask you a broader question, which is that at this point, Democrats already do control the Senate chamber, narrowly, very narrowly. But in practice, if they do win this seat in Georgia, it would be a 51-seat majority, which is a difference. And I want you to help us understand what that means and why Democrats are so focused on winning this extra seat.

Yes, it makes a huge difference whether you have 51 or 50. Just on a practical level, the vice president, Kamala Harris, will not have to break any ties if it's a 51-49 Senate. Also, it means Joe Manchin is no longer the center of the universe. In other words, there's a little breathing room for Democrats. They don't have to worry about getting every single one of their people to vote for what they want. So one holdout doesn't gum up all the works. And also something that people often overlook is committee assignments. Right now, the committees in the Senate are 50-50. That makes it harder to bring things to the floor. But when you have a true majority, you can have more Democrats than Republicans on the Senate committees. Got it. All right. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll

be back in a moment. Covering politics means there is a lot to keep track of. One week, it's health care. The next week it's taxes. The week after that it's trade policy with China. Like, I'm not an expert in any of these things. The trick is knowing who the experts are and translating what they say. Like, I don't have to have all the answers to the questions, but I need to know who the people are that might know the answers and to get to those people. And that's my job.

Tools of the Trade with our own Sue Davis. That's in our next bonus episode for NPR Politics Podcast Plus listeners. You can subscribe to hear it and support NPR in the process at the link in our episode notes. And a reminder, bonus episodes come out every couple of weeks on Saturday. Regular weekday episodes have not changed and they will always remain free. And we're back. And Raul, I want to ask you about the Republican governor there in the state of Georgia, Brian Kemp. He won re-election this past November rather easily. And I was struck when I was down reporting in Georgia by how uninvolved he seemed to be in the Senate race. He seems to be taking a very different tone now

during this runoff. Absolutely. It's a very different approach. You know, we asked him multiple times, you know, are you going to get involved in the Senate race? He made very clear he was running his own race. But you're right. It's been a big change. I've already been on the campaign trail. He did a stop with Herschel Walker here in suburban Atlanta. And he's cut an ad for him. Kemp's face is now appearing on Herschel Walker mailers. And interestingly, in some of these ads and some of these mailers, it's mainly Governor Kemp. And in some cases, just Governor Kemp. So that was one of the things that jumped out at me.

And let me give an important number for your audience, and that is Governor Kemp got 200,000 more votes than Herschel Walker. Governor Kemp easily winning while Walker is in a runoff. of people who voted for him and didn't vote for Walker the first time or all of a sudden going to vote for Walker the second time when the majority of the Senate is not hanging in the balance? That's the hope. I mean, that is absolutely the hope. That's the reason you've seen Mitch McConnell and his PAC, you know, try to use some of the engine that was built by Governor Kemp, that campaign engine, that data operation, the door knockers. They absolutely believe that that's got to be part of helping Hershel Walker get over the line. You know, one thing striking to me is also, though, who is

not involved in this runoff. And notably, that's the former President Donald Trump and the current President Joe Biden. Whoever wins the Senate contest, in some ways, it feels like a referendum on both of those men. And yet we don't see those two men down there in Georgia campaigning. You're absolutely right. We haven't seen, you know, those two figures down here. Now, Herschel Walker does talk about Joe Biden a lot and connecting the current president to Senator Warnock. You don't hear Senator Warnock talk about the former president as much, and you don't hear voters talking about it much. You know, when we're out on the campaign trail, it's other issues that are coming up. Inflation, gas prices, abortion, those are the issues that are coming up.

But rarely does a voter bring up the current president or the former president. But, you know, Raul, this is interesting because Walker brings up Biden. I am assuming he thinks that Biden will turn off voters and get more voters for him. But Warnock has been using Trump in campaign ads. That is true. We've had the one campaign ad, which was basically just a long video clip of the former president when he announced that he was running for president, mentioned Herschel Walker. But outside of that, a lot of Warnock's campaign speeches and ads are focusing on other issues around Walker, specifically some of the personal issues dealing with Herschel Walker. The current president and the former guy might not be campaigning there, but another former president has been campaigning there.

What's the significance of that? So former President Barack Obama did campaign for Senator Warnock back before the general election, and he's back this week. And what to me is important there is who you saw in the crowd. You saw black voters and you saw young voters, you know, two groups that Democrats absolutely need to win elections here in Georgia. And those are two groups that are absolutely engaged by former President Obama. So, Raul, one last question for you. We know that voting is already underway.

It is going to wrap up on Tuesday. But I'm curious what you are watching for in these final days. The couple of things that I'm paying attention to are where Senator Warnock and Hershel Walker campaign and who they campaign with in these last few days. And then it's going to be interesting to see what happens on Election Day, whether we have another big rush of voters, whether they're long lines. That's the other thing I'm going to be watching for on election day. And of course, we'll see what happens with the results. All right. Well, Raul Bali of WABE, thank you very much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Always great to be on. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.