This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. Finally, the last round of balloting for this calendar year is about to end. Ultimately, it may tell us more about the Republican Party’s threshold for self-inflicted pain than what Washington may—or may not—accomplish in the next two years. Republican nominee Herschel Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner from his days at the University of Georgia and later an NFL star, is battling incumbent Democratic Sen.