Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said on CNN that he waited in line for about an hour to vote recently. But when he had the ballot in his hands, he just couldn’t bring himself to vote for the Republican nominee, Herschel Walker. This is not the message the GOP wanted to get out less than a week before the Georgia Senate runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Walker.
“It was the most disappointing ballot I’ve ever stared at in my entire life since I started voting,” Duncan told CNN’s AC360 on Wednesday. “I had two candidates that I couldn’t find anything that made sense for me to put my vote behind, and so I walked out of that ballot box, showing up to vote but not voting for either one of them.”
RELATED STORY: ‘He is not well,’ says yet another of Herschel Walker’s exes
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Duncan, who has repeatedly spoken out against Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, did not seek reelection. When he announced his decision not to run in May 2021, Duncan said he wanted to work instead on “healing and rebuilding the Republican Party” and “build out an organization called GOP 2.0 on a national level.”
Duncan's successor as lieutenant governor will be a Trump-backed candidate, Burt Jones, who supported Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Jones is under criminal investigation by both the Justice Department and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for participating in the fake electors scheme.
Walker, who formerly played in the United States Football League (USFL) for Trump’s New Jersey Generals, won the Republican primary after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Trump has stayed out of Georgia during the runoff campaign.
In the Nov. 8 election, about 200,000 Georgians cast ballots for incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Warnock. Kemp has thrown the full backing of his political machine behind Walker at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Duncan said Walker had done nothing since Nov. 8 to win over his vote or those of thousands of other Georgia Republicans who share his view. At the least, Duncan said, Walker could have pushed back on Trump’s “whole fake election narrative” and not hit “the mute button” when it came to denouncing the dinner meeting Trump held at Mar-a-Lago with white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. “Those were ways to convince the suburbs that you were a serious player that didn’t want to be Donald Trump’s puppet,” Duncan said.
As for the runoff election, Duncan said that all the momentum is on Warnock’s side. “There’s a serious imbalance of energy right now,” Duncan said. “The Warnock campaign seems to be gaining steam and momentum, and every time you turn on the TV, there’s a Warnock ad running, and it’s not necessarily the case on the Walker side. There was a brief five-day period where he was kind of absent from the campaign trail. The ads don’t seem to be as numerous, and there does not feel like there’s a ton of energy.”
RELATED STORY: Warnock up slightly, winning independents by double digits in new CNN poll
Duncan, who is considered a staunch conservative, said he and many other Republicans across the country “just want real leadership” and that a Walker defeat should serve as a catalyst showing that “there needs to be a new direction for the Republican Party.”
Duncan appeared in a panel discussion with Democrat Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst and former South Carolina legislator. Usually, Democrats and Republicans on these panels argue and talk over each other. But Sellers said:
Let’s hope more Republicans follow Lt. Gov. Duncan’s example and stay on the sidelines next Tuesday.
Are you fired up and ready for a 51-seat Democratic majority in the Senate? Give $5 right now to make that dream a reality on Dec. 6!
Early voting is already going strong in Georgia. You can help keep the momentum going and get out the vote from the comfort of your own home. Here are all the activities you can be involved with to help Warnock over the finish line.
“It was the most disappointing ballot I’ve ever stared at in my entire life since I started voting,” Duncan told CNN’s AC360 on Wednesday. “I had two candidates that I couldn’t find anything that made sense for me to put my vote behind, and so I walked out of that ballot box, showing up to vote but not voting for either one of them.”
RELATED STORY: ‘He is not well,’ says yet another of Herschel Walker’s exes
YouTube Video
Duncan, who has repeatedly spoken out against Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, did not seek reelection. When he announced his decision not to run in May 2021, Duncan said he wanted to work instead on “healing and rebuilding the Republican Party” and “build out an organization called GOP 2.0 on a national level.”
Duncan's successor as lieutenant governor will be a Trump-backed candidate, Burt Jones, who supported Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Jones is under criminal investigation by both the Justice Department and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for participating in the fake electors scheme.
Walker, who formerly played in the United States Football League (USFL) for Trump’s New Jersey Generals, won the Republican primary after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Trump has stayed out of Georgia during the runoff campaign.
In the Nov. 8 election, about 200,000 Georgians cast ballots for incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Warnock. Kemp has thrown the full backing of his political machine behind Walker at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Duncan said Walker had done nothing since Nov. 8 to win over his vote or those of thousands of other Georgia Republicans who share his view. At the least, Duncan said, Walker could have pushed back on Trump’s “whole fake election narrative” and not hit “the mute button” when it came to denouncing the dinner meeting Trump held at Mar-a-Lago with white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. “Those were ways to convince the suburbs that you were a serious player that didn’t want to be Donald Trump’s puppet,” Duncan said.
As for the runoff election, Duncan said that all the momentum is on Warnock’s side. “There’s a serious imbalance of energy right now,” Duncan said. “The Warnock campaign seems to be gaining steam and momentum, and every time you turn on the TV, there’s a Warnock ad running, and it’s not necessarily the case on the Walker side. There was a brief five-day period where he was kind of absent from the campaign trail. The ads don’t seem to be as numerous, and there does not feel like there’s a ton of energy.”
RELATED STORY: Warnock up slightly, winning independents by double digits in new CNN poll
Duncan, who is considered a staunch conservative, said he and many other Republicans across the country “just want real leadership” and that a Walker defeat should serve as a catalyst showing that “there needs to be a new direction for the Republican Party.”
Duncan appeared in a panel discussion with Democrat Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst and former South Carolina legislator. Usually, Democrats and Republicans on these panels argue and talk over each other. But Sellers said:
Let’s hope more Republicans follow Lt. Gov. Duncan’s example and stay on the sidelines next Tuesday.
Are you fired up and ready for a 51-seat Democratic majority in the Senate? Give $5 right now to make that dream a reality on Dec. 6!
Early voting is already going strong in Georgia. You can help keep the momentum going and get out the vote from the comfort of your own home. Here are all the activities you can be involved with to help Warnock over the finish line.