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Inside Herschel Walker’s Campaign Collapse

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It was no secret that Herschel Walker had baggage.

Before he even announced his candidacy, Walker’s still-unofficial campaign hired outside consultants to compile a report on Walker’s potential problems. The report weighed in at over 500 pages.

According to two people familiar with the tome of opposition research, which was first reported by NBC News, it didn’t include allegations of secret children, or Walker paying for multiple abortions, or even his obviously false claim to have graduated in the top 1 percent of his class at the University of Georgia, which the campaign was later forced to scrub from his official website bio.

But it did give those first staffers a clue that they were in for a battle with a less-than-forthcoming candidate—a candidate who had zero campaign experience, harbored improbable political fantasies, and was easily distracted.

Just look at election night.

As the votes rolled in last month, Walker was fixated on the results from one precinct: Johnson County, the location of his home town of Wrightsville.

Walker wasn’t surprised he had won Johnson County. He won it, in fact, with slightly under 74 percent of the electorate. Walker was instead surprised—“absolutely shocked,” according to a former staffer—that he didn’t win 100 percent of the county. Not only did Walker fall well short of those absurd expectations, Gov. Brian Kemp outperformed him in Johnson County, another fact that infuriated him, three staffers said.

“I’m gonna call the sheriff and have him find out who didn’t vote for me,” Walker said, according to one aide.

Meanwhile, the staff around him were realizing that Walker wasn’t going to clear the 50 percent threshold, and the race was probably headed to a runoff that he would lose without Kemp voters pushing him over the finish line.

The moment was typical Walker: myopically focused on personal grievances while his campaign crumbled around him.

This account of Walker as a lying, delusional, confused, misled candidate—eager to believe what sounded good and dismiss the bad—is based on interviews with five campaign staffers and people close to the candidate. Staffers painted a picture of a man who was personally charming—a congenial, generous Southerner who would always inquire about his staff’s well-being—but who was often seeking and accepting advice from the least experienced people in the room: namely, his “redpilled” wife Julie Blanchard, as two staffers put it, and his friend and sometime agent Michele Beagle.

“Pardon my french, but fuck Julie and fuck Michele Beagle,” one staffer said, likening Blanchard to “Lady Macbeth” and Beagle’s amoebic role as campaign chair to a “minister without portfolio.”

“The best spouses know how to calm the candidate, but Julie was more like an accelerant for Walker’s worst instincts,” another staffer said.

“We held it together best we could, with fucking duct tape and Band-Aids.”

— Herschel Walker aide

Staff and advisers said Blanchard and Beagle posed a running challenge throughout the campaign: a group of experienced political operatives wrangling an unfocused, unreliable candidate away from distractions and unhelpful influences.

“We held it together best we could, with fucking duct tape and Band-Aids,” one aide reflected.

Those efforts were routinely derailed, staff said. And while most of the fault lay with the candidate himself, they all said, frequently it was Blanchard who jammed the gears.

Asked for comment, acting Walker campaign spokesperson Timmy Teepell dismissed the claims as “cowardly.”

“This coordinated attack by disgruntled campaign staffers is unseemly, dishonest and unethical,” Teepell said. “Julie is a professional, energetic, and unwavering defender of her husband as she should be, and Herschel was a tireless campaigner who outworked everyone. They both care deeply for our country and Georgia and I am honored to have been on their team. He would have been a great Senator.”

Teepell, who said he had been a senior strategist since August and assumed the spokesperson role “when the anonymous assholes started spreading lies,” continued that Michele Beagle is “a loyal friend to Herschel and Julie, and a dedicated volunteer and supporter of the campaign. The cowardly folks engaged in this dishonest whisper campaign should quit politics for the good of the country.”

But according to the staffers, Walker had created something of a mini-campaign within a campaign—a close inner circle of decision-makers, comprising just those three people: him, Blanchard, and Beagle.

None of them, the staffers all noted, had any political experience whatsoever. But they all routinely asserted themselves over decisions as large as messaging, events, and advertisements, and as small as ordering merchandise or selecting a caterer. Frequently, these people said, those decisions were at odds with what the professionals would have done.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Take “coachgate,” for example.

In late November, Raphael Warnock visited Wrightsville, where one of Walker’s former high-school football coaches threw his support behind the Democrat.

“That visit fucked Herschel’s mind up,” one staffer said.

Warnock’s move enraged both Walker and Blanchard, they said, with Blanchard pushing the campaign to pivot its line of attack to the coach, and away from allegations of evictions at a subsidized-housing complex owned by Warnock’s church.

“That was the point we felt we lost him,” said another aide, still mystified at exactly why the moment seemed to hit so close to home. “Two weeks out from the runoff, and we couldn’t get him to understand why this was a bad idea, to go after a high-school football coach when the other message was working.”

When the campaign pushed back, Walker called for a five-day blackout, canceling almost all public activity over the first weekend of early runoff voting. At that point, three staffers said, communication between the candidate and his top aides broke down—and it never recovered.

Blanchard also had other grand plans for the campaign that were never realistic.

“Julie wanted Cardi B on the campaign trail,” one flabbergasted staffer recalled, referring to the outspoken liberal hip-hop star from the Bronx. “The person who sings ‘Wet Ass Pussy,’ and you want to bring her on the campaign trail to appeal to conservatives, just because she tweeted that we’re in a recession?”

But other decisions may have had real consequences. For instance, after conspicuously distancing himself from Walker for months, Kemp reached out in October to invite Walker to a joint rally the night before the general election.

The Walker campaign declined, however, favoring their own pre-planned rally, with staffers citing various reasons, including logistical hurdles and what one staffer characterized as a lingering antipathy towards Kemp among Walker’s inner circle. In hindsight, three staffers said, the last-minute joint appearance could have converted uneasy Kemp voters the next day—or at least stopped some from ticking the box for Warnock, which they did in droves.

“If we had to do that one over again, probably would have made sense to do the Kemp rally,” one of those aides said, noting that a finish ahead of Warnock in the general would have changed the tone of the runoff.

But neither the campaign—nor Walker, in the staffers’ telling—could control the most damaging, widely destructive force of all: his past.

It was late August. After a summer of bruising headlines and a series of personal scandals—any one of which, in one aide’s view, “very likely would have ended it all for a typical candidate”—the Walker campaign was hoping to focus the candidate on his upcoming debate and closing arguments to voters in the critical final weeks before the election.

But part of Walker seemed obsessed with the past. Especially one paragraph in an early July report from The Daily Beast—and he was on the warpath.

The report revealed that the football legend had denied the existence of two children to his own campaign staff, who had been left to their own devices to field new allegations of other secret kids.

Almost all those allegations were readily dismissed, the report said, but one stood out. “Because senior staff no longer trust Walker’s denials, the campaign has quietly investigated the anonymous allegation behind the candidate’s back,” the story reported.

The Daily Beast has since independently confirmed that Walker is not the father of the particular woman alleged to be his child. But for whatever reason, that one sentence—“…the campaign has quietly investigated the anonymous allegation behind the candidate’s back”—was on Walker and Blanchard’s minds for months.

At the time of the report, the campaign was simply doing its best to help Walker navigate the scandals, according to three advisers familiar with the events. But his stinginess with the truth denied them the tools to do their jobs.

“He didn’t give us what we needed to defend him,” one staffer said, noting that aides had long ago stopped asking Walker whether allegations were true.

“The frustration for us is that, if he had been honest with us, we could have been better equipped to protect him,” another staffer explained. “But he felt like we didn’t deserve the truth.”

This staffer noted that Walker appeared “naturally mistrustful” and at times even “paranoid” on the campaign trail, particularly when under the influence of his spouse.

The aide pointed out that Walker had always been a star—a gifted athlete and household name in Georgia by the age of 16—and he appeared to have developed this general, abiding distrust of others over decades of navigating a world where “everyone wanted a piece of him.”

“It shows how naive he was about his relationship with the media,” the person said, adding that Walker—accustomed to ESPN and Sports Illustrated—“misunderstood how tough political media” could be on politicians, especially those with a past as incendiary and abnormal as his.

“He assumed that with anything that came up, he would just be able to charm his way out of it, and it did come as a surprise to him,” the staffer continued, referencing the parade of explosive reporting on Walker’s past that began weeks before he announced his bid. “That could be naivete, overconfidence, or a mix of both, but it also created a barrier where we were simply unable to get through to him.”

And so, The Daily Beast—along with a handful of other outlets—also looked into this allegation of a fifth child. While the claim couldn’t be discarded out of hand, it also proved difficult to verify, and in late July, we tabled our investigation.

But one month later, while the campaign was trying to pave a winning path to the election, the candidate and his inner circle were consumed with the story.

On Aug. 31, that alleged fifth child’s mother—who in early July had denied Walker was the father—called this reporter out of the blue. She had just received a call from Walker himself, she said, and he had personally advised her to sue for defamation. (The Daily Beast had not printed any details about the woman or her daughter beyond the fact that the campaign took the tip seriously, but a lawyer soon followed up with a cease-and-desist letter from an attorney for Walker.)

Upon receiving the threat, The Daily Beast notified the campaign that Walker had apparently advised this woman to sue a reporter for a claim that had never been printed. A staff member confirmed that Walker’s inner circle, including Blanchard, had been discussing the issue that morning.

“That nonsense is bubbling up again,” the person said at the time.

Days later, Walker’s sister, Veronica, reached out to the alleged secret daughter, someone she had never contacted before, asking her to turn over her text messages with The Daily Beast from early July, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

When the daughter refused to do so, the two people said, Veronica Walker sent her a money order for $200, along with a handwritten letter indicating that the money was to help with her kids. She signed the note, “Auntie Veronica.” (The Daily Beast has obtained copies of the money order and letter.)

The Daily Beast reached out to Veronica Walker for comment. A read receipt indicated she saw the text message, but she did not reply. Herschel Walker also did not respond to requests for comment.

When The Daily Beast informed staffers this week that Walker’s sister reached out to the woman who was thought to be another Walker child and had sent her money, they were stunned.

“His sister did what?” one person asked.

It’s unclear why this July story exercised such a strong grip on Walker, especially after we iced the investigation. But it wasn’t the only time Blanchard went rogue.

The day before the mother’s legal threat, Blanchard was in contact with a different mother. This one—actually the mother of one of Walker’s confirmed secret children, first revealed in a June report—got texts from Blanchard asking about this reporter.

“Can you please call regarding Roger Sollenberber [sic]?” Blanchard wrote in a text message. (Blanchard had sent another text five days earlier asking the woman if they could “connect.”) The mother replied she would call later that evening, but has since confirmed they never spoke.

The Walker campaign apparently only learned about Blanchard’s texts with this woman a month later, when The Daily Beast reported on Oct. 3 that this same woman had come forward to claim that Walker urged her to abort their first pregnancy, in 2009, and later paid her for it. She provided a “get well” card, a clinic receipt, and a check from Walker—along with that Aug. 30 text exchange with Blanchard, also referenced in the report.

One adviser said that Blanchard’s high-risk secret outreach to the woman appeared to have blindsided senior staff, who by that point had battled both Blanchard and Walker for months over strategy, messaging, and what staffers described as a crippling lack of transparency.

Blanchard, along with Walker and campaign chair Beagle—“no one really knows where she came from,” one staffer said—had created their own bubble within the campaign. They developed a bus tour, inspired, according to two staffers, by former President Donald Trump’s bus tour ahead of the 2020 election, but which a Walker aide dismissed as “small-minded and expensive.”

Another staffer observed that the bus came at a greater cost: Access to Walker.

“The bus was such a toxic environment because it was a way to isolate him, get him away from his campaign people and with people who, quote, ‘knew him the best,’” this staffer said.

While those people were outwardly concerned with managing Walker’s “mood,” the staffer said, the bus was ground zero for “feeding Herschel paranoia,” a word that everyone interviewed for this article ascribed to Blanchard.

Blanchard had a seemingly endless supply of bad ideas, according to three staffers. For instance, they said, she believed Walker could take 50 percent of the Black vote, an outrageous proposition given Georgia’s recent political history. Walker, for his part, thought he could get 20 percent, one staffer said, observing that wasn’t much more realistic. (NBC exit polls showed Walker claiming half that number in the general election.)

Another staffer described “a lot of big-picture meddling,” with Blanchard and Beagle “getting involved with things they didn’t need to worry about,” including event logistics, meaningless errands, and “gatekeeping” for access to the candidate.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Beagle’s most publicly impactful decision, however, may have come in the debate. She was the person who advised Walker to flash his honorary deputy badge on the stage, according to two staffers with knowledge of the decision. Another staffer said “completely unclear where the badge idea came from,” and that Beagle was not a prime suspect.

While that moment offered fodder for headline writers, comedians, and Warnock himself, it also temporarily dislodged the most potentially damaging news cycle yet—the abortion allegation.

“It seemed like people didn’t care”

All five advisers said it was not fully clear why Walker hadn’t come clean to them about the abortions, while simultaneously plunging headlong into his absolutist, no-exceptions anti-abortion platform—a position that every other GOP Senate battleground contender tried to soften in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Curiously—unlike the candidate’s hyperconservative son—none of Walker’s staff engaged directly with the question of the conservative hypocrisy more broadly, with the exception of one person, who called it the “first time during a campaign I’ve ever felt dirty.”

In hindsight, they all said, they would have urged Walker to take the road of redemption and forgiveness, rather than denial. One person said the campaign had cut the ad they deployed in response to the report, in which Walker appeals to religious redemption, weeks in advance, anticipating exactly such a story would drop.

According to an October Politico report, the campaign had a heads-up about the allegation. But staffers disputed that report vehemently to The Daily Beast, saying the team had no actionable knowledge.

Walker’s adult son, conservative influencer Christian Walker, told The Daily Beast that while he had raised the possibility to the campaign in early 2022 of past abortions coming out, he “had no idea” about the two women who later came forward.

“I told them that it was possible that there were abortions out there, but I was not referencing any of the ones that came out. I had no idea about those,” Christian Walker said in an email.

Blanchard also wanted to bring North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson to the table, another staffer said. Robinson, another Black Republican politician in a southern state, had admitted to paying for an abortion. He joined Walker on the trail in the final weeks of the runoff.

But the external forces against Walker by that point were already well documented. They’d taken the form of a drumroll of dramatic headlines about Walker’s shady personal life, domestic violence allegations, and serial lies about his businesses and his past, as well as his penchant for incoherence that made the celebrity athlete a fixture of late-night comedy shows. Two staffers speculated that, in the case of the abortion allegation, those stories ultimately may have worked in Walker’s favor, softening the blow of what the campaign anticipated would be the most damaging account of all.

“We didn’t feel like it got the reaction we were expecting,” one of those staffers said. “It seemed like people didn’t care, and we immediately felt like our bigger job was going to be cleanup from the article but not doing something stupid in response to it.”

While polls showed Walker took a hit, the staffer observed that the story “didn’t necessarily stick” among a critical section of voters, reasoning that, despite Walker’s anomalous hardline anti-abortion platform, “the perception that this is a shady, hypocritical guy was already baked in.”

Even before all the campaign offices were emptied, and the staff embarked on long-awaited vacations and family time, the autopsies had begun.

“The whole thing is sad,” one staffer reflected. “I don’t think that him running was a good idea.”

Christian Walker shared that perspective, and had choice words for the Republicans he sees as selfishly and callously complicit in the personal and political disaster that unfolded over the last year.

“I think most people who pushed him to run were doing so for their own personal interests. They thought they could take credit for his win and/or utilize his win for their own personal gain, if he wound up winning,” Christian Walker said. “I don’t believe it was in the interest of the party or anyone but themselves.”

Staff agreed generally that Walker could have used more outside support from influential GOP officials down the stretch, but were grateful for the handful of surrogates who pitched in. As for the role of outside groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Senate Leadership Fund—who have been pitted against each other in recent reports—the verdicts were split, with three staffers saying the NRSC was getting a bad rap in the press.

One staffer noted that Warnock didn’t get enough credit, observing that the reverend had on-camera appeal and built out an impressive political machine. And for all the complaints about imbalanced spending, the person added, Walker had the strongest fundraising performance of any GOP midterm candidate nationwide.

“Anybody who suggests it would be easy for anyone else to have won is wrong,” the person said.

Top Walker surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)—whom staff said the campaign had paired with Walker in TV appearances to lend the unpolished candidate a more “senatorial” air—took a similar view.

Asked whether he had regrets about his role pushing Walker to run, Graham told The Daily Beast he had “none.”

“We’ve lost three runoffs in a row in Georgia—Perdue, Loeffler, and Walker… so no, the answer is no,” he said.

That lack of regret was one thing Graham had in common with the women who felt a responsibility to come forward during the campaign and tell voters about the Herschel Walker they knew.

“Finally, this violent liar, cheater, adulterer, abuser and deranged, manipulative idiot has been defeated,” one Walker ex-girlfriend told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “As a victim of this disgusting liar, I finally feel relieved, vindicated, and not alone.”

Sam Brodey contributed to this report.



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Herschel Walker’s loss in Senate race spurs new GOP calls for shift in strategy

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Herschel Walker’s loss in a pivotal Georgia Senate race Tuesday has renewed Republican calls to break with former president Donald Trump and rethink the party’s strategy ahead of 2024, as lawmakers and operatives reckoned with the final blow in a profoundly disappointing midterm cycle.

The recriminations were swift as Republicans began the autopsy of Walker’s race on Wednesday, sparring over who and what cost them the seat. Many blamed Trump for urging Walker, a former football star with no political experience and a slew of allegations about his personal life, to run for the Senate against Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, betting on his celebrity in a high-stakes midterm election in which Republicans needed to net just one seat to take the majority.

Republican operatives raised concerns about spending deficits, on-the-ground strategy and the party’s ability to appeal beyond its base. But the hand-wringing repeatedly came back to their candidate, one of many inexperienced and polarizing nominees who lost battleground races this year.

Brian Robinson, a GOP operative in Georgia, said that despite all the hurdles, Walker “almost pulled this off,” noting that he still captured more than 48 percent of the vote. But to earn those extra few percentage points to win in Georgia, Republicans need candidates who can persuade whom he called “comparison shoppers,” not “tribal voters.” Other Republicans who won across the state on Nov. 8 ran as “steadyhanded, levelheaded, competent, no-fireworks leaders,” he said.

Walker’s campaign staff grew gloomy in the final stretch, according to a staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations. The candidate’s five-day absence from the campaign trail around Thanksgiving — for personal events and rest, the person said — didn’t help.

“It felt like we had, you know, we had no air in our tires anymore after that,” the staffer said. “Morale was rock bottom.”

Walker’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

“We put out one heck of a fight,” Walker said in his Tuesday night concession speech. He came in 2.8 percentage points behind Warnock, struggling in urban areas and suburbs and performing worse than he did in November, when neither candidate got the 50 percent required in Georgia to avert a runoff.

Walker was the only statewide Republican candidate who lost this year in Georgia. The GOP had hoped that Democrats’ success in the Peach State in 2020 marked a bad year rather than a new norm — and many operatives of both parties still call Georgia a red-leaning state.

The GOP did not immediately unify behind Walker, even after he easily won the nomination this spring. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) campaigned apart from him for most of the general election cycle, and some Republicans were openly critical of Walker’s qualifications and doubted his electability. And even as Kemp became Walker’s most valuable surrogate during the runoff, GOP divisions hung over the race.

Walker’s campaign openly criticized some Republican fundraising appeals for the candidate that routed most of the money to other Republicans. Meanwhile, allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who unsuccessfully challenged McConnell last month to lead the GOP caucus, sparred publicly during the runoff, highlighting the tensions between different factions of the party.

The McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund — the GOP’s biggest spender in the midterms — and its affiliated groups invested $18 million during the runoff, on top of the $39 million the SLF spent leading up to the Nov. 8 election, according to the organization. But outside spending was not enough for Walker to catch up to Warnock, who broke fundraising records this cycle. Democrats widened their spending advantage during the runoff, shelling out twice as much as Republicans on ads alone.

SLF President Steven Law “was dealt a bad hand with Trump, a weak NRSC and a lack of enthusiasm for subpar candidates” this election cycle, said GOP strategist Scott Reed.

A spokesman for the SLF declined to comment, while a spokesman for the NRSC did not respond to an inquiry Wednesday. The NRSC spent more than half a million dollars in the runoff, according to AdImpact, and has defended its overall midterm strategy.

“While Herschel came up short last night, I know he will continue to be a leader in our party for years to come,” Scott, who campaigned in Georgia with the candidate during the general election and the runoff, said in a statement Wednesday.

Walker’s campaign was dogged by repeated accusations of past misconduct: Former partners of Walker’s accused him of domestic violence and said that he was a largely absent father and that he paid for their abortions despite embracing strict bans on the procedure as a candidate. Walker denied many of the claims while saying he did not remember certain incidents.

Democrats also worked to highlight Walker’s gaffes on the trail, cutting ads that consisted of voters reacting to sound bites with laughter and disbelief. The Warnock campaign has been credited with building a coalition that encouraged the Democrats’ liberal base but also appealed to moderates and independents.

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) — whose retirement this year opened up a seat in a key battleground that Democrats flipped — argued that the problem is not the Republican brand, but Trump’s. In an interview, he echoed other Republicans who noted that candidates closely aligned with Trump underperformed in the midterms while “more conventional Republicans” — including those who clashed with Trump — did well.

“We had a flawed candidate — that’s to put it mildly — and [that’s ] completely the creation of Donald Trump. And we see how that ended,” Toomey said.

In an interview Wednesday, the Walker campaign staffer said Trump’s decision to announce a third White House bid during the runoff period — against many Republicans’ urgings — complicated the campaign’s final stretch and took some of the focus away from Georgia.

“The need to answer for everything that Trump did or said was frustrating,” the staffer said, pointing to Trump’s widely condemned dinner with the rapper Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who have both made blatantly antisemitic comments. Walker’s campaign did not comment on a show of support from Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, earlier in the fall. Trump and Walker’s team’s ultimately settled on a tele-rally ahead of the runoff, which Walker did not advertise on his social media.

The Walker staffer also lamented what they called a constant battle for Walker’s ear between experienced campaign operatives and those close to Walker who had no political experience.

GOP donors have expressed dismay at the midterms’ results and called for a shift in strategy. Some frustrated donors are talking about setting up their own super PACs, according to a person familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Even before Walker’s loss, some Republicans were lamenting that their party had developed an early-voting problem — with many GOP voters holding on to their ballots until the last day, when weather and other unforeseen factors could affect turnout, while Democrats went all-out to get ballots in early.

Seth Weathers, a Georgia state director for Trump’s 2016 campaign — who was openly critical of Walker and said better candidates would have won outright in November — argued that Republicans have lots of work ahead to match Democrats’ formidable on-the-ground turnout infrastructure.

“We’ve got to start building and facilitating the ground game for 2024 … to a much greater degree than we are,” he said last week.

Adding to that challenge, Republicans said, are the extra resources required to mobilize voters in the rural areas that came out for Walker. “The Warnock campaign can just focus on metro Atlanta just about and get it done,” lamented Fulton County Republican Party Chairman Trey Kelly. “Our people have to go around the whole state to get people out.”

The Republican National Committee said it had 400 staffers and more than 85,000 volunteers on the ground in Georgia working on turnout; the SLF also invested about $2 million to repurpose Kemp’s get-out-the-vote operation.

Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters dismissed accusations that Trump was responsible for Republican losses. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) responded to a tweet by former national security adviser John Bolton calling Trump “a huge liability and the Democrat’sbest asset.”

“This has to be the dumbest assessment of our Senate loss, His campaign told Trump to stay out, so don’t blame Trump. Blame the one who was hand holding him all over the state, among many other reasons,” Greene said. It’s unclear whether she was referring to one person or the GOP party establishment.

Others in the GOP suggested Georgia would accelerate the party’s shift away from the former president. Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) won reelection this fall after easily defeating Trump-backed challengers in the primary. Republicans pointed to Kemp in particular, who defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams by more than 7 percentage points, as evidence that voters outside their base are still receptive to Republican policies and messaging but have soured on Trump as the standard-bearer.

Scott Jennings, a longtime Republican operative associated with McConnell, summed it up in a tweet Wednesday morning: “Georgia may be remembered as the state that broke Trump once and for all.”

Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.

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Herschel Walker’s Son Christian Bashes Father Following Election Loss – Rolling Stone

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Christian Walker, son of Senate candidate Herschel Walker, tweeted a blistering criticism of his father following his loss Tuesday to Democrat Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s runoff election. 

“Don’t beat women, hold guns to peoples heads, fund abortions then pretend your pro-life, stalk cheerleaders, leave your multiple minor children alone to chase more fame, lie, lie, lie, say stupid crap, and make a fool of your family,” Christian wrote. “Then maybe you can win a senate seat.” 

Christian alleged that former President Donald Trump “called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run,” and that the candidate ultimately ran despite pleas from family and friends and warnings that his “insane past” would be a liability. 

“A boring old Republican could have won,” Walker wrote. “Republicans […]  ran this man mainly because he was the same skin color as his opponent with no background other than football.” 

In October, following reporting from the Daily Beast indicating that the elder Walker had paid for his then-girlfriend to obtain an abortion in 2009, and Walker’s subsequent denial of the matter, the 23-year-old social media influencer publicly skewered his dad’s campaign. “Everything has been a lie,” Christian wrote at the time. Speaking to those who supported his father on grounds of “​​family values,” Christian reminded them that “he has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values?”

Christian also alleged that his father had abused him and his mother, Walker’s first wife Cindy DeAngelis Grossman. He “threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from [his] violence,” Walker wrote. Herschell Walker has been accused by multiple women of violent behavior. In 2008, Grossman recounted that Walker had held a gun to her head and “said he was gonna blow my brains out.”

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In his late-night reaction to his father’s loss, Walker heaped praise on Grossman. “My amazing mom … had her name and image dragged through the media unwillingly … I blew up after she was lied on multiple times.” 

“Shoutout to every strong mother whose story goes untold,” he added. “We love you.”



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Raphael Warnock projected as winner over Herschel Walker

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CBS News projects that incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock wins the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia, defeating Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

This will be Warnock’s first full six-year term. 

In the general election, Warnock topped Walker by over 37,000 votes, but with 49.4% of the vote, Warnock failed to cross the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff. 

A record-breaking number of early voters turned out in the runoff, smashing all previous records. According to Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling, over 1.8 million people voted early. Friday, the last day of early voting, was the single biggest early voting day ever, with more than 353,000 Georgians casting their ballots, according to the state’s top elections official, Gabriel Sterling.

Early voting for the runoff has been highest in several Democratic leaning counties around Atlanta, such as Fulton, Gwinnett and DeKalb County. Some GOP leaders are looking ahead to coming elections with the understanding that they must increase their own early voting numbers to be competitive.

“What we do need is, our voters need to vote early,” RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said on Fox News earlier Tuesday. “I have said this over and over again. There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early,’ and we have to stop that.”

A record-breaking number of early voters turned out in the runoff, smashing all previous records. According to Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling, over 1.8 million people voted early. Friday, the last day of early voting, was the single biggest early voting day ever, with more than 353,000 Georgians casting their ballots, according to Sterling. 

Since Democrats flipped the seat in Pennsylvania and successfully defended the other seats in play in the November midterm elections, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, regardless of the outcome on Tuesday. But they will have more power if they control the chamber 51-49 since they will not have to work out a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. This will be the last election of the 2022 midterm cycle. 

Walker picked up a last-minute endorsement from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former President Donald Trump held a telerally for Walker over the weekend. Walker told CBS News’ Nikole Killion on Tuesday morning that he believed they would win by 100,000 votes. 

Warnock spent Tuesday with canvassers in get out the vote efforts. He told CBS News’ Nikole Killion that he felt the early turnout was good for his campaign and “now we’re going to win this election.”

According to exit polls on Election Day, voters in Georgia were split in their views of the most important qualities in a candidate: 36% said it was most important that the candidate shared their values, while 32% said a candidate’s honesty and integrity were most important to them.

Ahead of the general election, Walker’s campaign was rocked in October by allegations that he paid for at least one woman to have an abortion. He has denied the allegations, and national Republicans stuck by him. 

Georgia played a key role in the 2020 elections, when the races for both Senate seats went into special runoff elections in January 2021, ultimately flipping both seats from Republican to Democratic. Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue led Jon Ossoff after Election Night with 49.7% of the vote, but he ended up falling short in the runoff on Jan. 5, 2021. In the race for the other seat, Warnock led incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a 21-person race on Election Day, and he prevailed in the special election to fill the vacancy left when Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down.

Elizabeth Campbell and Aaron Navarro contributed to this report. 



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Desperate GOP Finds Solution for Dopey ‘Herschel Walker’ – Rolling Stone

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Saturday Night Live‘s last episode before the Georgia Senate runoff began with concerned Republicans in Congress figuring out what to do with candidate Herschel Walker in order to boost their chances of capturing the Democratic-held seat.

The trio of James Austin Johnson as Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Mikey Day as Sen. John Cornyn and Cecily Strong as Sen. Marsha Blackburn met for a discussion with Walker, played by Kenan Thompson, who promptly addressed the Kentucky senator as “Mitch McDonalds.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Thompson began. “I was having too much fun in that free merry go round y’all got out front.”

“That’s a revolving door, Herschel. Have a seat,” Johnson replied.

When Strong stressed the importance of the runoff race against Sen. Raphael Warnock, Thompson appeared confident.

“Well, I’m good at those. My ex-wife said all I do is run off,” he said, alluding to the multiple reports of Walker’s less than stellar relationship history.

“The election is this Tuesday,” Johnson reminded him. “They’ve already started counting votes by mail.”

“Right,” Thompson responded. “But you got to remember: they still got to count votes by female.”

After Thompson made other gaffe-like comments reminiscent of actual quotations from Walker, like about the differences between vampires and werewolves, the three senators held a private meeting by tossing a blanket over Walker’s head so he could fall asleep “like a parakeet.”

“So just to be clear, our last hope to win this year is Herschel Walker?” Day asked incredulously.

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The group’s “Plan B,” it turns out, was Johnson luring Thompson into what was once his panic room, shutting the door behind him — “just ’til Election Day.”

“Why am I already in there?” Thompson asked, unaware that he was looking at a mirror.



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‘Saturday Night Live’ Cold Open Stings Herschel Walker With His Own Words As He Faces Georgia Senate Runoff – Deadline

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The Saturday Night Live cold open used Herschel Walker’s own slip ups and bizarre words against him to skewer his Senate bid, as the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia faces off against Democrat Raphael Warnock.

In real life, Walker’s post-Election Day runoff has been marked by his comments about vampires and werewolves, as well as a slip-up that was a bit Freudian given the allegations and revelations that have emerged since the football star entered the political arena.

In the skit, Walker (Kenan Thompson) is visiting the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (James Austin Johnson), as he and other colleagues are anxious for any kind of win after Republican hopes of retaking the majority were dashed in the most recent midterms. But the seasoned politicians have to contend with a candidate, Walker, who seems to be testing how much voters will accept when it comes to lack of qualifications. In the skit, Walker first refers to McConnell as “Mitch McDonalds.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Cecily Strong) tells Walker, “The priority now is to get out the vote because you have got this big runoff coming up.”

Walker responds, “Oh, well, I am good at those. My ex wife said all I do is run off.”

At one point, Walker tells McConnell & co., “I’m feeling very confident about this erection.”

“You mean, election?” McConnell asks him.

“I do not,” Walker responds.

Walker really did have such a slip up on the campaign trail. And later in the skit, the SNL writers took aim at Walker’s reference to vampires and werewolves in a campaign speech, something that Warnock’s campaign has used in campaign ads.

“Maybe in the final push, let’s lay low and focus on the message,” Blackburn tells Walker.

“Exactly. Just like Kanye,” Walker responds.

“No. No. The issues people care about — inflation, crime,” Blackburn says.

“Vampires, werewolves. They’re scared of the Geico gecko. We’re going to be looking at all of that,” Walker tells her.

As Walker goes on, McConnell eventually comes up with his Hail Mary pass — a “Plan B.” That is to get Walker into his “panic room.” “It’s all yours, just until Election Day. … Got everything you need in there.”

“It’s only for a few days,” McConnell tells him, before the skit ended, rather abruptly.

Thompson appeared as Walker and Johnson as McConnell earlier this season during a Weekend Update segment. This time, in using some of Walker’s own words, the skit had some shades to the pre-2008 SNL election skit featuring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. That skit using some of Palin’s real comments from a disastrous CBS News interview with Katie Couric, reinforcing concerns that the GOP vice presidential nominee was not qualified for the job.

Watch the skit above.



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Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker described himself as living in Texas during 2022 campaign speech

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CNN
 — 

Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, facing renewed and growing questions about his residency in the final week of the runoff campaign, described himself during a campaign speech in January as living in Texas and said he decided to run for Georgia’s Senate seat while at his Texas “home,” according to a CNN KFile review of his campaign speeches.

Georgia Democrats have called for an investigation by state officials into Walker’s residency after CNN’s KFile reported last week that Walker was getting a tax break in Texas intended for a primary residence, possibly running afoul of Texas tax law and some rules for establishing Georgia residency for voting and running for office.

“I live in Texas,” Walker said in January of this year, when speaking to University of Georgia College Republicans. Walker was criticizing Democrats for not visiting the border when he made the comments. “I went down to the border off and on sometimes,” he said.

Earlier in the speech, Walker said he decided to run for Georgia’s Senate seat while at his Texas home after seeing the country divided.

“Everyone asks me, why did I decide to run for a Senate seat? Because to be honest with you, this is never something I ever, ever, ever thought in my life I’d ever do,” said Walker. “And that’s the honest truth. As I was sitting in my home in Texas, I was sitting in my home in Texas, and I was seeing what was going on in this country. I was seeing what was going on in this country with how they were trying to divide people.”

The Georgia Republican is heading into a runoff election against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock on December 6. Walker and his campaign have so far not commented to CNN or others on the reporting of the tax break or questions about his residency.

On Monday, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported that Georgia authorities have been urged in a complaint to investigate Walker’s residency. Georgia Democrats in a statement called for an immediate investigation of Walker’s residency, and Congresswoman Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, also asked authorities to see if Walker lied about living in Georgia.

“The Georgia Bureau of Investigations and the Georgia Attorney General’s office must immediately investigate whether Herschel Walker lied about being a Georgia resident,” Williams said.

A CNN KFile review of some of Walker’s media appearances and events from 2021 and 2022 finds Walker appeared on Fox News and other conservative media from his Texas home at least four times after announcing his candidacy for Georgia’s Senate seat.

The interviews at his Texas home took place twice in September 2021 and in February and March of 2022.

Before announcing, all of Walker’s media appearances on Fox News and on other conservative media, around 20 in total, took place in Texas.

Georgia Gov. Kemp asked if Herschel Walker shares his values. Hear his reply

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Early voting begins in some Georgia counties as Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker sprint to December 6 runoff

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CNN
 — 

A week-long early voting period begins Saturday in some Georgia counties as Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker enter a week-and-a-half, post-Thanksgiving sprint to their December 6 runoff election.

Unlike the 2021 runoffs, control of the Senate is not on the line, with Democrats having won 50 seats already and Vice President Kamala Harris giving the party a tie-breaking vote.

However, the stakes remain high: A Warnock victory would give Democrats the majority outright, rather than requiring the power-sharing agreement that is now in place. Democrats would have the majority on committees, allowing them to advance President Joe Biden’s nominees more easily.

Georgia’s Supreme Court delivered Warnock a victory Wednesday, allowing counties to offer early voting on Saturday. Democrats said they expected as many as 22 counties to do so – some in heavily populated areas around Atlanta, including DeKalb and Fulton, as well as Chatham County, home of Savannah.

That ruling followed a legal battle triggered by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s interpretation of the state’s 2021 voting law. He said the new law restricted weekend voting immediately after holidays.

That 2021 law cut in half the timeline for runoff elections, to four weeks, and limited the early voting window to a minimum of five days rather than the minimum of 16 days that had been in place when Democrats won two Senate runoffs in the state in January 2021.

As many as 22 of the state’s 159 counties let voters cast their ballots Saturday.

At a polling site in Atlanta, Boston College student Emma Demilio said she probably wouldn’t have been able to vote in person if the early voting sites hadn’t opened.

“This is kind of the only time that I’m in Georgia and able to vote. I leave tomorrow, so I was really happy I was able to get it in,” she said, adding that she may have tried to scramble for an absentee ballot.

Warnock continues to outraise Walker as they enter the final stretch.

Warnock raised nearly $52.2 million from October 20 through November 16, a period covering the end of the general election and roughly the first week of the runoff. Walker collected $20.9 million in that time, according to his campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. Warnock ended the period with more than $29.7 million remaining in the bank, more than three times the $9.8 million left in the coffers of his rival.

Warnock is set to bring in a top Democratic surrogate: Former President Barack Obama is slated to travel to Atlanta on Thursday for a rally ahead of the final day of early voting.

So far, Obama is the only president past or present slated to visit Georgia ahead of the runoff.

Neither President Joe Biden, to whom Walker’s campaign has tried to latch Warnock, nor former President Donald Trump, who was in office when Republicans lost two Senate runoffs two years ago, have scheduled trips to the state. On Saturday, Warnock appeared with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) at a rally in Sandy Springs, just outside of Atlanta.

Trump allies, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been out in force for Walker, the former president himself has not campaigned with the candidate he recruited.

Other Republicans, meanwhile, are rallying around Walker, with the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, pumping more than $10 million into the race since the general election.

In addition to the new influx of outside spending, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who cruised to re-election earlier this month, made his first appearance with Walker on the trail after stiff-arming the former football great throughout the fall.

Kemp defeated a primary challenger backed by Trump in May and then outpaced Walker by more than 200,000 votes in the general election – a sign both of his crossover appeal to moderate Democrats and Walker’s difficulties consolidating Republicans.

Still, Democrats said they doubted Kemp could rescue Walker in a runoff election in which Walker is the only Republican on the ballot.

“There’s tons of folks that voted for Raphael Warnock and Brian Kemp,” said Jason Carter, the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor and grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

He called Warnock a “unique figure,” noting that he “got more votes than Herschel Walker and he got more votes than any other Democrat.”

“People appreciate him. And they think of him as Raphael Warnock first, and as his political party and all that other stuff second,” Carter said.

A new potential flashpoint in the runoff election emerged Wednesday. The Georgia Supreme Court, in a separate legal battle, also reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban.

It was a policy victory for the Republicans who had enacted that ban and defended it in court, but one that could come at a political cost, reviving the backlash over the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade that energized Democrats and swung moderate voters in their favor on the party’s way to a surprisingly strong showing in this year’s midterm elections.

In the midterms, according to CNN exit polls, 28% of Georgia voters said abortion was the most important issue to their vote – second only to inflation at 37%.

Of those who identified abortion as the most important issue, 77% backed Warnock, compared to 21% who voted for Walker – a reversal of inflation, an issue that favored Walker by a 45 percentage point margin.

Fifty-three percent of Georgia voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and among those voters, 75% backed Warnock. Of the 43% who said it should be illegal in all or most cases, 87% backed Walker.

Already, both parties have pumped more than $40 million into television advertising in the runoff. Democratic groups have spent nearly $25 million, while GOP groups have spent nearly $16 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.

In an effort to unite Republican factions, a Walker super PAC is sending out mailers touting Kemp’s support and trying to tie Warnock to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. “You stopped Stacey. Now reject Warnock,” they read.

“Who do you want to fight for you in the United States Senate? Do you want a guy that represents our values like Herschel Walker, or do you want a guy who’s stood with Joe Biden 96% of the time?,” said Kemp, borrowing a familiar attack from Walker, at a rally last weekend in Cobb County.

Kemp also echoes that line of attack in a new television ad launched by SLF. The governor and McConnell’s group have are also linking up for get out the vote efforts. SLF is boosting Kemp’s state operation, which has been pivoted to help Walker, with a $2 million cash injection.

Warnock’s campaign, too, is trying to win over Republicans who effectively chose Kemp over Trump.

A new ad from the Warnock campaign features a woman who says she voted for Kemp this year and describes herself as a lifelong Republican, but goes on to say she won’t support Walker in the runoff because of his “lack of character.”

Warnock has also campaigned on what should be some of Walker’s safest territory: his hometown. At an event in Wrightsville, where Walker played his high school football, Warnock asked voters to separate the sports hero from the political candidate.

“I saw what your favorite son did on the football field. I don’t mind giving credit where credit is due. That brother could razzle dazzle you on that football field. He created a lot of excitement and did a lot for the great University of Georgia. And he deserves credit for that,” Warnock said. “But tonight, we’re on a different field.”

At the same time, the Republican has faced some backlash over an ad of his own – alongside University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has appeared with Walker before and competed with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who became a focus of debate surrounding trans women’s participation in sports and has frequently been attacked in conservative media.

“For more than a decade, I worked so hard. Four a.m. practices to be the best. But my senior year, I was forced to compete against a biological male,” Gaines says in the ad.

The spot was released in the days after a gunman allegedly targeted the LGBTQ community at a gay club in Colorado. One of the five people killed was a trans man.

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Herschel Walker denies 2nd woman’s claim that he paid for her abortion: ‘Lie’

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Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Wednesday denied an unnamed woman’s new claim that in Dallas 1993 he paid for and strongly encouraged her to have an abortion that she did not want.

The woman, only identified as Jane Doe, made her accusation at a video news conference hosted from Los Angeles by her attorney, Gloria Allred. The woman was not shown on camera and said that she feared reprisal if she revealed her true name or her face.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, Walker said, “I’m done with this foolishness. This is all a lie, and I will not entertain any of it.”

“I also did not kill JFK. This is pitiful,” he added. “The media should not be so foolish as to think I will spend any time talking about these lies.”

That statement echoed one he gave earlier Wednesday, shortly before the woman’s news conference. A reporter asked him then if he wanted to “unequivocally deny” paying any women for abortions, but he did not answer.

Walker previously denied an ex-girlfriend’s claim to various news outlets that he paid for her to have an abortion in 2009. That woman told The Daily Beast that she had documents supporting her allegation: a receipt from an abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt with an image of a $700 check that she said was signed by Walker sent within a week of the abortion and also a “get well” card that she said was signed by Walker.

ABC News has not independently confirmed either woman’s claim.

Georgia Republican Senatorial candidate Herschel Walker speaks at a campaign event in Carrollton, Ga., Oct. 11, 2022.

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Walker is running against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock as staunchly anti-abortion rights.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been campaigning with Walker, also issued a statement on Wednesday supporting him and labeling Allred, the woman’s attorney, an “activist” and a Democrat.

Graham and Walker suggested the new allegation was a coordinated political attack to upend a race that has also focused on public safety and the economy as well as abortion rights.

Leading Republicans including former President Donald Trump have rallied around Walker, citing his denials.

“Democrats will say and do anything to hang on to power. Well, I’m Herschel Walker, and they picked the wrong Georgian to mess with. I’m not backing down the stakes are too high,” Walker said in his statement.

The new woman’s allegations

The unnamed woman who spoke at the video news conference with Allred said that in April 1993, she became pregnant after having been intimate with Walker.

“After discussing the pregnancy with Herschel several times, he encouraged me to have an abortion and gave me the money to do so,” the woman claimed.

An insect flies over the head of U.S. Senate candidate and former football player Herschel Walker as he speaks at a campaign rally in Columbus, Ga., Oct. 21, 2022.

Cheney Orr/Reuters

She said she then went for the procedure in Dallas but did not go through with it. She said Walker allegedly pressured her, though, and ultimately drove her back to the abortion clinic the next day and waited outside until it was done, then drove her to a pharmacy for medication.

The woman did not provide any documentation in support of her alleged abortion.

Warnock’s response to Walker abortion claim

In a statement on Wednesday, Warnock’s deputy campaign manager, Rachel Petri, said that “we know Herschel Walker has a problem with the truth, a problem answering questions, and a problem taking responsibility for his actions.”

“Today’s new report is just the latest example of a troubling pattern we have seen play out again and again and again. Herschel Walker shouldn’t be representing Georgians in the U.S. Senate,” Petri said.

Earlier this month, Warnock commented on the first woman’s abortion claim against Walker.

He said then, at a campaign event, that “what we’re hearing about my opponent is disturbing. I think the people of Georgia have a real choice about who they think is ready to represent them in the United States Senate.”

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A GOP operative said Trump campaigning in Georgia would be the ‘worst thing that can happen’ for Republicans like Herschel Walker, report says

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Former President Donald Trump listens as Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks during his Save America rally in Perry, Ga., on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021.Ben Gray/Associated Press

  • Former President Donald Trump has recently held rallies to boost GOP candidates in several states.

  • Trump has not recently been to Georgia, despite his endorsed candidate Herschel Walker’s tight race.

  • A GOP operative told The Washington Post that Trump could distract from GOP messaging.

As many Republican candidates relish the support they receive from former President Donald Trump, some in the party are seeking to keep their distance, afraid he could derail messaging aimed at the Democrats.

One unnamed GOP operative in Georgia told The Washington Post some Republicans in the state think it would be bad for their candidates if the former president came through.

“Trump coming down to Georgia is the worst thing that can happen for Republican candidates down here,” the operative told the Post. “It immediately turns the focus from inflation and immigration to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump lost the last election here.”

The operative also noted the competitiveness of the Senate race, in which Trump-endorsed Republican Herschel Walker is looking to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a closely watched race that could impact which party ends up with a majority in the chamber.

“We have a pretty tight window to get Hershel across the finish line on election night, and Trump would undermine that,” the operative told the Post.

Previous reports have said some Republicans want the focus of the midterms to remain on the Democrats and President Joe Biden, rather than Trump or the 2020 election, with some even worrying about what could happen if Trump announced a 2024 campaign before election day.

The Georgia race, considered one of the tightest in the country, has been called a toss-up by some experts, while poll averaging site FiveThirtyEight gives Warnock a slight edge.

But Trump, who has long bragged about the value of his endorsement and appearances on the campaign trail, has not returned to Georgia in more than six months — despite a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in September that said he was considering returning after the Walker-Warnock debate.

Meanwhile, he has continued to hold rallies alongside Republican candidates vying for a win in November in other states.

The former president was in Arizona earlier this month campaigning alongside Kari Lake, who is in a tight contest for Arizona governor, and Senate candidate Blake Masters, whose crucial race is also considered a toss-up by experts. Trump also appeared this month at a rally in Nevada, which also has an important Senate race, and just this weekend he was in Texas, which does not have a competitive Senate race on the ballot.

Still, Trump hasn’t been to Georgia since March, even as Walker has struggled to deal with an abortion scandal. Three sources close to the situation told the Post that Walker’s campaign talked to Trump’s team about the former president potentially coming, but the suggested rally never happened.

Sources told the Post Trump may do several additional rallies before election day, including in Georgia, but only where he is wanted.

“We aren’t going anywhere we are told they don’t want us,” an unnamed Trump adviser told the outlet. “If you’re trying to drive out independents and suburban moderate women, he’s probably not your best option.”

Trump’s office did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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