@coriander « Republicans had hoped Mr. Walker would make inroads with Black Georgians. Encouraged by signs that Black voters, particularly Black men, have been softening to Republican messages in recent years, the party has made attempts to speak more directly to Black voters and recruit Black candidates. Mr. Walker looked to some like the best possible shot of taking back a seat Mr. Warnock won in a stunning Democratic surge just two years ago.
[…]
But as Mr. Woodson, a Democrat, stood on the front steps of his home in his majority Black, middle-class neighborhood, he said he saw Mr. Walker’s candidacy as a political ploy engineered by Mr. Trump in an attempt to win Black voters.
“I saw through all the politics,” he said. “I know why Herschel was picked. And I know who picked him, and I’m not with that.”
“Insulting” was the word Deron Simmons, a 44-year-old social worker, used as he left a polling center in College Park, a suburb just outside Atlanta.
“As a man, he is who he is, like everybody has their issues — mental health issues, life circumstances — I am not going to call him an embarrassment,” said Mr. Simmons, an independent who has voted for both Republicans and Democrats. “But he’s definitely not someone who should be representing, in the political field, my vote or anybody else’s vote.” »