The Personal and Political Saga of Herschel Walker (Published 2022) (2024)

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From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Much of the focus of Georgia’s flip from red to blue in 2020 was on its role in delivering the White House to Democrats.

But equally important was what happened a few months later when Georgia voters handed Democrats control of the Senate now.

Georgia may be the state to determine whether Democrats keep control of the Senate, because of a closely fought race that has become increasingly focused on the personal life and alleged hypocrisy of the Republican nominee, Herschel Walker.

Today, my colleague Maya King on the story of Walker’s candidacy.

It’s Monday, October 17th.

Maya, after 2020, Republicans had a very big decision to make given how bad things went for them in Georgia, which was who to nominate for the US Senate in 2022. So how do they end up picking Herschel Walker? What’s that story?

So after the 2020 presidential election and the 2021 Senate runoffs, Republicans had to do some soul searching, some recalibrating. Because one of the reasons that they lost those two Senate seats was low voter turnout in the runoffs.

Many Republicans in Georgia decided to stay home, because they didn’t trust the elections. Donald Trump was saying again and again that the election had been stolen from him, that it was unfair, that the results couldn’t fully be trusted.

So once we get to the 2022 midterms and the Senate primary, Republicans were very focused on finding a candidate who would bring people back out to vote and someone who could bring a little bit of star power or at least some name recognition to match that of the Reverend and now Senator, Raphael Warnock and someone who was able to raise the money and essentially do the work to put back together this Republican coalition in Georgia.

And that’s why it was such a huge deal when in August of 2021 —

— Herschel Walker officially announced that he would be running for the United States Senate.

And tell me about Walker.

It’s hard to overstate just who Herschel Walker is to football fans —

— and to Southerners but particularly, to Georgians.

He played for the University of Georgia in the 1980s.

And actually won the Heisman Trophy.

Which even I know is the most prestigious award in college football.

Yes. He is a demigod in Georgia sports and in Georgia culture. And so when we’re talking about star power and someone who can clear a field and someone who can raise the money, it was all but certain that while Walker was completely untested, that his past was not fully vetted, he would still be the kind of candidate that many in the Republican Party in Georgia were looking to reignite some of that energy that had really been lacking among the Republican electorate in Georgia, heading into a very competitive, very high stakes run for the United States Senate.

You said that Walker really hadn’t been vetted. So explain why that becomes important.

There were aspects of Walker’s past that had not fully been reviewed. There is this incident between his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman and Mr Walker that Ms Grossman describes in great detail and interviews, where Walker in a fit of rage puts a gun to her temple and threatens to pull the trigger, threatens to kill her.

Wow. That’s pretty extraordinary.

It is, and it’s something that might otherwise disqualify a candidate with far less star power and far less influence than Herschel Walker. However, Herschel Walker has written a book about his struggles with mental illness and mentions this incident, saying that this was an unfortunate consequence of his struggles with mental health. And these concerns were tested a little bit during the primary.

How so?

So Gary Black, one of Herschel Walker’s more formidable opponents in the primary, essentially sounded the alarm about Walker in his campaign.

Black warned voters that if they chose Herschel Walker, that these kinds of allegations would be the type of thing that could cause him to lose a general election. I interviewed Gary Black during the primary a few weeks before the election, and he told me if Herschel Walker is the nominee for the Republican Party in Georgia, the race will be about Herschel Walker.

If I’m the nominee, the race will be about Raphael Warnock. Republicans knew going into this race that this would be part of Walker’s oppo file.

So how is it that Walker — because we know he does win the primary — ends up overcoming this pretty potent line of attack from Gary Black?

Well, one of the big things that happens, of course, is that he enters the race with the endorsem*nt.

Our former president, Donald Trump.

This is a close personal friend also of Walker.

And on top of that, again, Walker’s celebrity and star power here is something that really excites Republican voters in Georgia. They like the fact that they have one of the biggest names in the state’s history carrying their party’s banner for the United States Senate.

And he wins the Republican nomination for the Senate by a landslide and defeats Gary Black by more than 50 points by the end of the night.

Wow. So when Walker wins, I’m quite curious what political professionals in the state and reporters like you Maya started to make of his chances in the general election given everything you’ve just laid out, these liabilities, and given who Walker was about to face, this celebrity in his own right, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.

I think there were still some misgivings there, but Walker also had tried to get ahead of some of these domestic violence allegations, saying that this was something that really did happen and that he has since apologized and made amends. He entered this race already as if he had dealt with those things. And it felt like he was still very much a strong contender against Raphael Warnock.

So how do the two of them campaign against each other once we enter the general election?

Very quickly —

Herschel Walker makes his campaign all about Raphael Warnock and Democratic leadership in Washington.

His argument from day one has been that a vote for Raphael Warnock is very likely to maintain Democratic control of the Senate.

And he essentially tried to equate Raphael Warnock with Joe Biden.

Interesting.

And what about Warnock, what is his message?

Warnock campaigns largely on his record in the Senate.

And goes to not just Democratic strongholds talking to his base but these more deep red counties in central and southern Georgia.

And one thing that he’s really talked about quite a bit on the stump is his work with Republican senators.

He talks quite a bit about the Cruz Warnock Amendment, this funding that he was able to secure in partnership with Senator Ted Cruz from Texas.

To expand a portion of a highway connecting Georgia and Texas.

All of these arguments that Raphael Warnock is making, one, are his way of talking to those Conservative or independent moderate voters who have some misgivings about Democratic leadership saying that I work with Republicans, and I can continue to do that. And also, I think it’s his way of trying to say, look, I’ve already been in the United States Senate. I know how this thing works. So send me back for a full term.

Right. What I’m not hearing you say, Maya, is that Warnock addresses Herschel Walker’s personal life, these extraordinary, in some cases, violent stories that are right there for the taking.

He doesn’t. He really goes out of his way to not say anything about them.

Why?

I think it’s a few things. One, Raphael Warnock is a Senator. He’s also a pastor. He has a brand of not going so low. The other thing is this question of whether Raphael Warnock, should he wade into more conversation and talk more about Walker’s past and these allegations if that would give Republicans license to also unearth dirt or controversy that they can find around Raphael Warnock’s personal life.

And is there something there for them to find?

In 2020, he and his wife had an argument outside of her home, where she claimed that he ran over her foot. Police, when they were called to the scene, and paramedics found no physical damage to her. And Raphael Warnock was not charged. But the optics of that incident were not great.

Got it. So for Warnock, there’s very little upside in speaking about Herschel Walker’s history with his wife.

No. And Senator Warnock and his wife are now divorced. And so the details of those proceedings too, I believe, are things that Democrats and Warnock would rather steer totally clear of and not want to give Republicans any sort of opening to look a little bit further at.

So at this point, as the general election has gotten underway, we’re talking about the spring, that warning from Walker’s primary opponent, Gary Black, his warning that nominating Herschel Walker would make the race all about Walker and not about the Democrats for all the reasons that you have just laid out, that hasn’t happened, has it?

No. And the race remains within the margin of error, an extremely tight virtual tie. But the race is very quickly going to become entirely about Walker as a number of shoes start to drop around him and his personal life.

We’ll be right back.

So Maya, tell us about these shoes that start to drop around Herschel Walker.

Well, we start to see stories about aspects of Herschel Walker’s personal life that contradict a lot of what he said in interviews and on the stump.

The first story to come out is from “The Daily Beast.”

Where they report that Herschel Walker has a son who he does not see and is not involved in his life.

And how does that contradict how he’s campaigning?

Well, in interviews with a number of conservative personalities and at times, during campaign events —

Herschel Walker has repeatedly said that a big issue in African-American communities is this problem of absentee fathers. And he says —

— that he wants to apologize to the black community for the ways that black men have not been as active.

Fascinating. And suddenly, he is that very absentee father himself it’s revealed.

Right. Two days later —

— another story comes out about two additional children that Herschel Walker has who he also does not see.

And so he essentially contradicts himself in a major message that he’s tried to deliver here against absentee fathers, particularly in black households. And then comes another big bombshell.

And that comes in the form of a major story about a woman who alleged that Herschel Walker paid for her to have an abortion.

This woman claimed that while she was living in Atlanta, she and Herschel Walker had a relationship, conceived a child. And Herschel Walker told her that the time, 13 years ago when they did conceive the child, was not right for him to have a baby and asked her to have the procedure.

So I have to imagine this is a very complicated revelation for a Republican candidate for US Senate.

Especially a Republican candidate like Herschel Walker who has really been an outlier on the right in his staunch opposition to abortion. He has said repeatedly on the campaign trail that he is against abortion with no exceptions.

So suddenly, Herschel Walker who has contradicted his policy positions on being a father who takes care of his children is now accused of contradicting his position when it comes to abortion by saying no exceptions for an abortion except for the exception of me.

Right. And I spoke to the woman who said that Herschel Walker paid for her to have an abortion but also asked her to have a second abortion when she became pregnant a second time with the child that is now theirs, one of the children who has been reported to be one of Herschel Walker children that he does not spend time with.

So Maya, I’m really curious. Once this cascade of revelations becomes public, I mean, it’s really bombshell things to emerge in the heat of a general election campaign, what is the reaction from Republican voters in Georgia?

The most immediate reaction from the Republican Party is to rally around Walker to wrap their arms around him even tighter. One of the first events that Walker had right after this story was first published a few weeks ago, he went to a Baptist megachurch in Metro Atlanta and was surrounded by around 100 to 150 conservative activists, Walker supporters, largely white but a fair amount also of Black evangelicals who were there to support him.

And so press were not allowed inside this actual event, which was billed as a prayer luncheon for Herschel Walker. But according to some readouts that we got from people who actually attended, Mr Walker was met with a hero’s welcome as soon as he walked in to this luncheon.

He got a standing ovation. People told him that they had his back, that they were on his side. And at the end of this luncheon, circled around him in prayer, laid hands on him, and prayed for the success of his campaign and for his strength in the face of what they saw was an outright attack on someone who they believe is a good man, who was being unfairly targeted for aspects of his personal life.

And these are religious people, who presumably would be the hardest on Herschel Walker for violating their moral code on something like abortion. You’re saying they are doubling down on their support of him when they learn that he has done this.

Yes. And I think it’s important to remember here that while Mr Walker is behavior might run counter to what their beliefs are religiously, there’s also the political argument to be made that at this moment has proven to be even stronger that while Herschel Walker has possibly financed these abortions or not been active in the lives of his children, there are many who believe that those stories are wrong, that this is part of a larger agenda that the media might have against Herschel Walker.

And then there are also those religious conservative voters who still believe that even if Mr Walker is a flawed candidate, if he is elected to the United States Senate, he will uphold conservative Christian principles.

Right. And this is a compromise we saw many religious conservatives make when it came to Donald Trump in 2016. They understood that his personal life did not conform to his Conservative political views. They didn’t care, because they believed he would do their bidding in Washington.

And he did over and over and over again. It seems the same compromise is being articulated here when it comes to social and religious conservatives and Herschel Walker.

Right. And so I was curious about how some of these voters, the types who might not necessarily come to a church and pray over Herschel Walker but were still deciding whether to support him, might feel at this stage of the campaign.

So I and our colleague Robert Jimison went to a farmer’s market in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta about 30 miles north of the city.

And we talked to a number of different kinds of voters.

For those who were conservative some of them weren’t sure if they wanted to support Herschel Walker.

Some people felt like they were going to leave the Senate portion of the ballot completely blank.

And then there were others who said —

I am a Republican, and I want to see Republican control of the Senate.

And they understood that while Herschel Walker might have a lot of personal baggage, he would still be a reliable Republican vote in the chamber at the end of the day.

So there are a variety of outcomes that could take place here. But it’s important to remember also that for all of these voters who are saying that they’re not sure, these voters who are weighing leaving the Senate portion blank or voting for the third party candidate, these are the voters that Walker is really going to have to work to win over.

And we’re still talking about a swing state where elections could be decided by fewer than 20,000 votes. And so it’s not a great sign for the Walker campaign that the kinds of voters who would normally be all in for a Republican ticket that there is a critical mass of those voters who are saying that they’re just not quite sure if they can cast a ballot for Herschel Walker yet.

Right. If they’re telling you they might leave their ballot blank, that’s a problem for Walker.

Yes.

So I want to return to the very beginning of our conversation, because it was about a tough decision that Republicans had to make in a swing state. Gary Black said, if you pick Herschel Walker, this race will become all about Walker. That has very much happened.

And it seems it has happened to the detriment of Republicans. And it has made this more of an uphill battle than perhaps it needed to be.

Every moment that voters spend thinking about Herschel Walker’s past and background is a moment that Republicans wish they would spend thinking about Joe Biden and the economy instead.

These are the backroom conversations that conservative strategists are having when they express their concerns about just how well Walker might perform in November. And so it’s clear that Walker’s damaging reports, his performance over the last several months is bringing back some pretty painful memories for Republicans in Georgia, who fear that they may have sabotaged themselves, that they may have traded in political viability for celebrity.

Well, Maya, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

The Times reports that since Herschel Walker’s ex-girlfriend accused him of paying for an abortion, four different polls have found that he’s fallen behind Raphael Warnock by an average of 2.5 percentage points, suggesting that the scandal has hurt Walker’s standing with Georgia voters.

During their first and only debate on Friday night, Warnock made a rare and pointed reference to Walker’s personal life saying, quote, “My children know that I am with them and for them and that I support them in every single way that a father does.”

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. Britain’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who has already been forced to abandon her flagship domestic policy of cutting taxes and to fire her top economic advisor suffered a new humiliation over the weekend when she was publicly repudiated by the man she has appointed to stabilize her government.

In a series of interviews, that man, Jeremy Hunt said that Truss’ economic policy had been a mistake.

Because Truss had no plan to pay for her plan tax cuts, the proposal spooked Britain’s financial markets, sent the value of the country’s currency plunging, raised borrowing costs for the government, and has left many wondering if Truss may soon be ousted as prime minister.

Today’s episode was produced by Rachel Quester, Sydney Harper, and Nina Feldman with help from Robert Jimison. It was edited by Patricia Willens and Mark George contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. And yes. I have a cold. I’ll see you tomorrow.