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Herschel Walker's defeat in the Georgia Senate run-off election to Raphael Warnock has capped off what turned out to be a miserable midterms for Donald Trump.
The Democrat incumbent beat the Republican candidate endorsed by the former president on Tuesday night, achieving 51.4 percent of the votes compared to Walker's 48.6.
The result now means the Democrats have a 51-seat majority in the Senate, with the party already regaining control of the upper chamber in November. Even if Walker won Tuesday's run-off election, the Democrats would still control the Senate in a 50-50 split by way of Vice President's Kamala Harris' tie-casting vote.
Walker has now also become the latest high-profile midterm candidate to get the backing of Trump who went on to lose their race.
Trump was widely blamed, including by those within the Republican Party, for the GOP not regaining control of the Senate and only just scraping past the 218-seat majority in the House, rather than a "red wave" as predicted.
The former president also endorsed a number of extremist and election-denying candidates in gubernatorial and secretary of state midterm elections across the country who were rejected by voters.
It was in the Senate where Trump made some of his riskiest endorsements, backing political newcomers Walker in Georgia, Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance in Ohio, and celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.
While all three won their GOP primaries, with Vance going on to win election into the Senate on November 8, Oz and now Walker are among the GOP's most significant losses in the midterms as the Republicans failed to capitalize on the backlash against the Biden administration to regain control of the upper chamber.
In total, eight of Trump's endorsed Senate midterm candidates went on to lose their respective races.
Out of Trump's 254 general midterm election endorsements, 208 went on to win their races, albeit a majority of these being incumbents who would have been widely expected to win regardless of Trump's backing.
Trump's Losing Endorsed Senate Candidates
- Herschel Walker—defeated in Georgia by Sen. Raphael Warnock.
- Kelly Tshibaka—defeated in Alaska by Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
- Blake Masters—defeated in Arizona by Sen. Mark Kelly.
- Adam Laxalt—defeated in Nevada by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
- Mehmet Oz—defeated in Pennsylvania by John Fetterman.
- Don Bolduc—defeated in New Hampshire by Sen. Maggie Hassan.
- Leora Levy—defeated in Connecticut by Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
- Gerald Malloy—defeated in Vermont by Peter Welch.
In a tweet congratulating Warnock on his re-election to the Senate, President Joe Biden said: "Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate. Here's to six more years."
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more