The Raphael Warnock debate gaffe the media missed

Herschel Walker’s performance in Friday night’s Georgia Senate debate provided a good example of the benefits of lowered expectations and the difficult task facing Democrats in November. Walker’s country drawl came across as charming and allowed him to navigate the thornier questions that have faced his campaign in recent weeks. Incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, meanwhile, struggled to defend his avowedly partisan record during his brief time in office.

Campaigns will spin even in the face of clear losses, but the Walker campaign was ecstatic over their candidate’s performance, which they view as a definitive boost in the closing weeks of the election cycle. When the worst thing your candidate did all evening was to flash an honorary police badge in violation of debate rules, you know you had a good night.

If we know why Walker succeeded — showing his trademark charm, handling the debate stage capably, silencing his more extreme critics who have questioned his capacity to be in the Senate — the question is why Warnock failed. For one, he is now operating from a very different position than he was two years ago as a political outsider and neophyte — now he has a record of voting with Joe Biden 96 percent of the time to defend. It’s one thing to run for office as a pastor full of promise; it’s another to run for re-election after those promises have not been met.

But one particular question that Warnock had to know was coming shows how the left’s preferred coalition has utterly broken down. Speaking while the Atlanta Braves were fighting to make it back to the World Series (they ultimately lost to the Phillies), Warnock was asked about the political incorrectness of the franchise’s name, its trademark cheer and tomahawk chop. To say his answer came across poorly is putting it lightly:

Warnock’s refusal to take a position in favor of his own state’s baseball team isn’t just about political correctness and appealing to the woke left. He’s been put in a dicey position thanks to Stacey Abrams and his fellow Georgia Democrats who pushed for a boycott in the wake of the state’s new voting laws. This led to Atlanta losing the MLB All-Star Game to Denver — something Atlanta-area businesses still complain about, and justifiably so. It effectively shivved Atlanta’s majority-minority community for lily-white Denver over complaints from woke non-baseball fans.

The whole MLB controversy has become even more ridiculous thanks to the fact that these same voting laws, decried by Joe Biden as making “Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” have led to a surge in voting. But rather than just come out and say that, Warnock has to be woke and partisan instead of just supporting the most popular pro-team in his state.

The final portion of the debate also included dodges from Warnock on whether Joe Biden should run for president again in 2024 — a question that will only get harder for Democrats to answer after November — and whether the Supreme Court should be packed with more justices. But it’s his dodge on the Braves that is the most enlightening. For a party that has spent decades claiming to represent the interests of minority communities and the working class, stands like these do nothing to ingratiate them to these voters. They send a message that Democrats are more interested in serving the loudest voices on Twitter.