Election 2022: Are Democrats 'rubber stamps" for Biden? Are Republicans 'Trump surrogates'?

What do U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. House candidates Wade Herring and Rep. Buddy Carter have in common? In the pre-midterm debates, they’ve all angled to align their opponent with the leader of their respective parties.

Walker, during his Savannah debate with Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock earlier this month, made reference to Warnock voting with President Joe Biden’s preferred position 96% of the time.

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Kemp, in his offensive against opponent Stacey Abrams, frequently mentions “failed Biden policies” and is quick to follow with tying Abrams to him.

And since the start of his campaign against 1st Congressional District Rep. Buddy Carter, Herring has attempted to tie Carter to the Jan. 6 riots and former President Donald Trump. Throughout both their debates, Carter called Herring, a first time political candidate, a future "rubber stamp for these failed Biden policies" no less than 10 times.

It’s an understandable if not curious political strategy in today’s hyperpartisan political sphere. When a candidate talks about their own support of Biden or Trump, it’s a boon, a way of saying: “I’m with the guy you voted for in 2020.”

Walker did it in the debate shortly after Warnock was asked if he would support Biden in 2024. Walker was asked whether he would support a Trump run in 2024.

“Yes, I would,” Walker said. “He’s my friend. I won’t leave my allies.”

But as an attack, it’s an insult. Despite most members of Congress voting with their party’s de-facto leader on a regular basis, leveraging that against them, attempting to tie them to the opposing party’s arch-nemesis is a popular strategy this election season.

University of Georgia Political Science Professor Charles Bullock III, who has studied Georgia politics for years, says oftentimes the president is the closest thing to name recognition some down-ballot candidates can get - and to get the support of their party

"For some share the electorate, they know who Joe Biden is and they know who Donald Trump is, but they may still have only a hazy notion as to who the state candidates are,  despite the tens of millions of dollars being spent trying to introduce these folks," Bullock said. "Some voters may not have a very good fix on exactly what Warnock, Walker, Abrams, Kemp stand for."

Can ties to Biden hold back a candidate?

At a campaign stop in Savannah in late October, Warnock again fended off the question first posed by the moderators at the debate a few weeks prior: whether he would support Biden running again in 2024.

He didn’t answer at the debate, and when asked if he thought his support of Biden would hurt his chances in the midterms, he again shrugged off the notion, later noting his answer was “not a dodge.”

“Part of the problem with our politics is that we're so focused on the next election, that people aren't thinking enough about the next generation. The problem with the political conversation in America right now, is that the politics has actually become about the politician. Who's up? Who's down? Who's in? Who's out? Who cares?” Warnock said.

In a way, Warnock's "not a dodge" and "not a pundit" answers make sense. In the last two years, Biden has gone from the man who beat Trump in what many called "the most important election of our lives" to a president with a dismal approval rating, blamed by many for the current inflation rate.

For Georgia Democrats, the insinuation is ironic.

In 2020, it was Biden who paved the way to Democratic victory in the state, capturing the center of the political spectrum and pulling just enough of the Republican vote to win. Now Warnock, a Democratic Senate candidate elected in the same year as Biden, is trying to do the same by denying Biden an endorsement.

"[Warnock] is trying to create some distance between himself and and the president.... hoping that that's winning the share of independents, and maybe even a few Republicans who are simultaneously saying, 'Yeah, we think the Biden presidency has been bad. We blame him for inflation. But yeah, given our choices here, we'll still end up voting for for Warnock,'" Bullock said. "He's trying to appeal to a person who's in that frame of mind.

Is the 'Trump effect' still in effect?

In midterm elections, typically the party in power is considered to be at a disadvantage and the opposing party makes the vote a referendum on the job the majority has done so far. In 2022, Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House.

"If you're in office, if things are going bad, you're going to get blamed for it," Bullock said. "Because for voters who aren't spending a whole lot of time thinking about trying to disentangle what the causes are, they cut through all that and says, 'Okay, yeah, inflation is bad. You're being hit by it. There's a Democrat in the White House. Ergo, all Democrats are somewhat responsible for this.'"

Biden's sub-45% approval ratings give GOP candidates a lot of ammo to use against their Democratic opponents as well. It's reminiscent of 2020, when the biggest driver for Democratic voter turnout wasn't abortion rights or inflation, or any specific issue. It was Trump.

And to an extent, Democratic candidates have been trying to make that tie this year as well. In his second debate against Carter, Herring brought up Carter's 90% record of voting with Trump.

But for those on the right, Trump's influence has shaped the GOP since 2016. While most big-race Democrats in Georgia haven't pushed the comparison of their opponents to Trump as hard as GOP candidates have pushed the Biden connection against Democrats, Republicans aligning themselves with Trump is still common.

Walker pledged to support his "friend," Trump, at the debate. Carter called himself a "Trump surrogate" in a campaign email. Kemp is the notable exception, having handily defeated Trump's chosen challenger, David Perdue, in the primary.

Both Carter and Walker proudly tout the endorsement of the former president.

"The same kind of thing would work on the other side. If you don't like Donald Trump, then you shouldn't like people he has endorsed, or maybe even people who are in the same party," Bullock said. "You can't vote against Biden, and you can't vote against Trump this year, but you could vote against their surrogates."

Will Peebles is the City Council and County Commission reporter for Savannah Morning News, covering local Savannah and Chatham County decisions. He can be reached at wpeebles@savannahnow.com or on Twitter @willpeeblesSMN

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: GOP candidates try to tie opponents to failed Biden policies