Who's to Blame for Georgia Loss? Conservatives Argue Among Themselves

A number of Republican figures are blaming their own party for Herschel Walker's loss in the Georgia Senate runoff election.

Walker was defeated by incumbent Raphael Warnock, capping off an already miserable midterm performance from the GOP. The party failed to win control of the Senate and only just achieve a 218-seat majority in the House, instead of the predicted "red wave."

The former NFL's star's defeat, which gave the Democrats a 51-49 majority in the Senate, also meant that yet another Donald Trump-endorsed candidate went on to lose their midterm election.

Even before the Georgia runoff, a number of GOP figures were blaming Trump for their party's poor November 8 performance, as voters rejected the former president's extremist and election-denying candidates across all forms of government.

The criticism of Trump has only increased now Walker has become the latest candidate backed by the former president to be defeated.

"The only way to explain this is candidate quality," GOP Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told CNN. "If we don't take our medicine here, it's our fault. ... Every Republican in this country ought to hold Donald Trump accountable for this."

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, a former staunch supporter of the former president, also continued to attack Trump in the wake of Walker's defeat.

While replying to a tweet about the GOP's success in school board elections during the midterms, she wrote on Wednesday: "Thank your lucky stars that Trump doesn't know what a school board election is, or he would have f-ed those up, too."

Elsewhere, Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham voiced her anger toward Republican Senators for not supporting Walker, whose entire campaign was dogged by controversies and scandals, on the night of his election defeat.

"We felt this coming. To me, it never felt like the Senate Republicans wanted this guy in office. He was a Trump pick, they didn't like that," Ingraham said on her show shortly after the election of Warnock.

"I'm p****** tonight, frankly. I'm mad," she added.

Former Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also blamed the GOP Senators who didn't openly back Walker in the race for his loss.

"To the 49 Republican senators, where were most of you?" Conway said, during Sean Hannity's Wednesday night Fox News show.

"Where were the other senators to say, 'I want Herschel Walker, not Raphael Warnock, in the Senate with me?'"

Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took a different route and blamed the two Republican senators who did campaign on behalf of Walker for his defeat.

"This is for Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and the rest of the Republican senators; you guys are the reasons why we are losing Republican races all over the country," Greene told Steve Bannon on his WarRoom podcast.

Greene also claimed she was prevented from campaigning on behalf of Walker, which hindered his chances of victory.

"The audacity and really frank rudeness of the campaign consultants and Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham where they thought, you know, we're going to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene away from Herschel Walker and we don't need her voice at his campaign rallies and events where we're campaigning all over the state," she said.

"I think is really a major mistake and an insult to me and insult to people who support me and Republicans all over Georgia."

In a tweet shortly after the runoff election was called, Greene also suggested that "campaign strategies, messaging, and missteps" were to blame for Walker's defeat.

Walker has been contacted for comment.