Opinion: What a night.
Walker campaign in turmoil after bombshell report
What a night.
I can’t think of any other way to describe what all went down on Monday evening.
What started off as a fairly quiet day in Georgia politics quickly turned into a tumultuous news cycle.
Late Monday evening, the Daily Beast published a bombshell story about Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, saying that the former UGA football star — who repeatedly touts his anti-abortion views on the campaign trail, paid for his ex-girlfriend’s abortion over a decade ago.
I was at work when the news broke. While I was collecting shopping carts from the parking lot, I noticed that my phone kept buzzing and vibrating, but I didn’t want to check and see what was happening until after I left work for the day.
When I left work and logged onto social media, my timeline was all over the place. But after a few minutes, I finally found out what all of the clamor and commotion was about. When I first saw the headline, I wasn’t exactly surprised. If you ask me, a story like this about Herschel Walker was bound to come out. Top Republicans essentially admitted Monday night that they thought that this was common knowledge.
But the Daily Beast report itself wasn’t the big story. It was a series of angry tweets shared by Walker’s adult son, Christian. Among other things, Christian Walker said that his entire family advised his father against running for U.S. Senate. He also accused his father of threatening to kill him and his mother. “I’m done,” he concluded.
Walker responded to the Daily Beast story by threatening to sue the left-leaning news magazine. “This is a flat-out lie — and I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” the Republican said in a statement. “I’m not taking this anymore. I’m planning to sue the Daily Beast for this defamatory lie.”
He also appeared on Sean Hannity’s show Monday night to address the accusation. “I give money to people all the time because I’m always helping people,” he told Hannity. “God has blessed me and I want to bless others.” And he responded to his son’s tweets by saying that he loves him “no matter what.”
Walker’s opponent, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, told reporters that he had not seen the story yet. But he said that he stands by his support of abortion rights. “I have been consistent in my view that a patient's room is too narrow and cramped for space for a woman and the government. My view on that has not changed,” he said.
National Republicans are standing by Walker and promise to continue supporting his campaign. “Georgians can see through the nonsense from the Democrats and the media and will vote accordingly,” a spokesman for the Senate GOP campaign apparatus told reporters Monday night.
But privately, some Republicans worry that this could be the final nail in the coffin for Walker’s campaign. “This could be it for Walker,” one Republican told me on the condition of anonymity. “This is definitely the kind of stuff that can sink a Senate campaign, and in an already close race, this puts Warnock in the driver's seat.”
Conservative radio personality Erick Erickson agreed that that Christian Walker’s posts on social media seem to be the bigger story among Georgia Republicans than the Daily Beast story itself. “Walker hasn't mounted a good response to any attack, and this is brutal, probably a KO,” he said.
Another source told me that Walker would be wise to back out of next Friday’s debate in Savannah, because the topic is almost certainly going to be mentioned and there is no guarantee that Walker will be able to provide a well-rehearsed response.
Personally? I am not so sure how this new development will impact the race.
But I will say that even before this week, I always believed that Walker’s best path to defeating Sen. Warnock was earning 50% +1 on election night and avoiding a runoff. A candidate as gaffe-prone as Walker would face huge challenges in a runoff election because the eyes of entire country will be on him.
I also believe that Walker should attend next week’s debate. Yes, it’s a risky gamble, but the optics of withdrawing from a debate against the backdrop of this bombshell story wouldn’t look great. Not to mention, Walker was the first candidate to agree to this debate and he all but begged Sen. Warnock to attend. How would it look if he backed out of his own debate?
Is there still a path to victory for Walker? Absolutely. But his campaign would much rather spend the next month tying Warnock to President Joe Biden and hammering him over inflation. Instead, they will have to spend it coming up with a response to this story.
One source said that Walker would be better off spending the next month hiding in his basement and hoping that he gets carried across the finish line by Gov. Brian Kemp’s coattails.
Regardless, this is definitely the October surprise that the Walker campaign wanted to avoid. Now he and his team will have to spend the next month reworking their entire campaign strategy.
But in a swing state like Georgia, the race is not over until all of the votes are counted. Could this be the story that sinks Walker’s campaign, or will it be added to the pile of scandals that have gotten lost in our fast-paced news cycle?
We’ll have to wait and see.
What a night!!!’