Hershel Walker hasn’t had a good October. That’s undeniable after The Daily Beast began to slow-walk out reports alleging that the Republican paid for a girlfriend’s abortion 13 years ago.

That was parlayed with already known problems with Walker’s past, including his struggle with mental illness, to paint a narrative that the candidate was dead in the water. If you just paid attention to the news media and the election analyst bros on Twitter, you’d assume Walker would end up around 40 percent in the polls.

Well, that hasn’t happened. A new poll from Emerson College shows the race is still very much a toss-up. Walker trails by just two points and his opponent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, is not breaking 50 percent (a key marker for any incumbent).

GEORGIA POLL with @thehill #GASen@ReverendWarnock 48%@HerschelWalker 46%
4% undecidedhttps://t.co/fwTRiT5uvi pic.twitter.com/aSfF5e19hA

— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) October 11, 2022

If you had told most pundits a week ago, which is when the multiple reports slamming Walker dropped, that this would still be a two-point race, almost all of them would have called you crazy. The assumption was that Walker would be crushed by the scandal and that Warnock would pull away. Right now, the numbers say this is headed to a run-off, which was always a safe assumption (Georgia is a 50+1 state in regards to winning a general election for state office).

That run-off might end up favoring Walker as well. Georgia changed their run-off dates and rules after the 2020 debacle, which saw a two-month gap deliver between the elections. Now, there is only a week of early voting and voters must be registered before the general election to take part in the run-off. That’s going to compress things down a lot while allowing Republicans to hopefully turn their voters out in ways they didn’t do two years prior.

Back to Walker, why isn’t he collapsing? I think there are two reasons. One, Raphael Warnock has the exact same character concerns, with the Democrat being accused of domestic abuse and having been arrested for covering up child abuse at a church camp. Never mind his issues with not paying child support and the corruption surrounding the $7,000+ a month housing allowance his “church” gives him even as a senator.

Two, while one might find Walker’s past objectionable, at the end of the day, this is a binary choice. Those that are pro-life are left to either vote for the guy who will not blow up the filibuster to “codify” abortion until birth at the federal level or to vote for the guy who will. It’s really that simple, and for that reason alone, I expect this race to be incredibly close, no matter what other opposition research is dropped on Walker.

Long story short, it was always way too soon to pronounce Walker dead. We’ll see where things go from here.