Opinion: Debate won't move the needle

My thoughts on Friday's debate

On Friday night, Georgia voters witnessed the first, and probably only face-to-face debate between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker.

The hour-long affair was filled with one-liners, attacks and interruptions from both candidates. It was seen as a make-or-break moment for Walker, a political novice who has never participated in a political debate before.

And depending on who you ask, he didn’t break. Democrats are going to point to the moment when he pulled out an honorary police badge as a moment of weakness. Republicans are glad that he repeatedly tied Warnock to President Joe Biden, who has a 38% approval rating in Georgia.

On the campaign trail, Warnock has tried to avoid directly attacking Walker and has made it a habit of rarely mentioning him by name. He continued this pattern Friday night, choosing instead to contrast himself and his opponent on major issues like abortion and the economy.

His only direct attack on Walker was when he called him out for lying about working with the Cobb County police department and threatening a shootout with police. This is what lead to Walker pulling out his honorary police badge.

Debates like this one are overhyped by those of us who follow politics religiously, but your average voter either doesn’t watch debates or already has their mind made up.

I do not believe that this debate in particular will lead to many voters changing their preference. The only thing it really did was reaffirm voters’ support for their candidate.

I will admit that Walker did a decent job of reassuring skeptical Republican voters that he is up for the job. He had very few gaffes and he attacked Warnock over inflation, which is the top issue for many voters in this election. But I have a hard time seeing Warnock voters moving over to Walker’s camp as a result of last night’s debate.

We live in a highly polarized environment where debates rarely change the minds of voters. Candidates only use debates to create viral one-liners and to splice their opponents’ remarks into negative television ads.

To no one’s surprise, supporters of both candidates have spent the last several hours arguing that their candidate was the winner of Friday night’s debate. But I really don’t think that there was a clear winner.

Democrats entered the debate with the expectation that Walker was going to self-destruct, which did not happen. And Walker did a pretty decent job of meeting the low expectations he set for himself.

So I would advise everyone: don’t read into what the reporters and pundits are saying. This debate will not be the deciding factor of this election and it will almost certainly be old news by next week.