Herschel Walker Bluntly Predicts He’ll Flop in Debate: ‘I’m Not That Smart’ and Warnock ‘Will Show Up and Embarrass Me’
(Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker offered an amusingly blunt assessment of his debate skills, telling a local newspaper “I’m not that smart” and predicting that his opponent, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), would “show up and embarrass me.”
Walker was heavily criticized by his primary opponents for being a no-show at their debate, but won the primary anyway. He and Warnock are scheduled to debate in front of a live audience in Savannah on Oct. 14, finally agreeing to the terms after a lot of back-and-forth between the campaigns.
Like several other GOP candidates who won their primaries with the backing of former President Donald Trump, Walker has struggled to get traction in the general election. The Heisman winner’s penchant for getting his name in headlines for all the wrong reasons — from his many inexplicably bizarre comments to the troubling allegations that he threatened his ex-wife at gunpoint to the revelations he had multiple “secret” children — is not helping his chances.
The Savannah Morning News’ Latrice Williams interviewed Walker about the upcoming debate, and asked him what he was doing to prepare.
“I am getting out talking to people and talking to you,” replied Walker, referring to the media.
“I’m a country boy. I’m not that smart,” he continued, saying that Warnock is “a preacher” and “is smart and wears these nice suits. So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate Oct. 14th, and I’m just waiting to show up and I will do my best.”
According to Williams, Walker “became aggravated” when she asked him why he had initially refused to agree to a debate, claiming it was necessary to hunt down Warnock and tell him to “put his big man pants on.” The Warnock campaign had a very different interpretation of their debate negotiations:
“He may not even show up for that one,” said Walker. “He has made every excuse not to show up. I begged him until I chased him down and then he decided he was going to show up Oct. 14. I didn’t agree to do his debate because it wasn’t fair. A fair debate is doing it in front of the voters, and I’ve agreed.”
A spokesperson with the Warnock campaign responded by saying the Republican nominee was sent an invite over the summer.
“Shortly after the May 2022 primary, Reverend Warnock was the first to announce that he would participate in three debates and in June, named the three debates he agreed to and invited Walker to do the same…for nearly two months, Walker continued to dodge committing to any debate, a complete reversal from his previous statement that Reverend Warnock could, ‘Call the time, he make the place, I’m ready to go.’ Then, Walker went out of his way to accept a totally different debate than Reverend Warnock.”
The latest polling in the Georgia Senate race, by Quinnipiac taken Sept. 8-12 with 1,287 likely voters, has Warnock up by 6 points with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 points.
