Georgia Senate race: Trump endorses Herschel Walker

“Herschel Walker will hardly ever enable you down,” Trump claimed in a assertion. Walker in transform thanked the previous President in a tweet, writing: “Alongside one another, we will acquire back the U.S. Senate for Ga!!”

Although Walker is the favourite to safe the GOP nomination, some Republicans have expressed concern about the political newcomer’s ability to conquer Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022. A few Republican candidates — Georgia agriculture commissioner Gary Black, design company operator Kelvin King and banking government and Navy veteran Latham Saddler — have previously announced their strategies.
The endorsement from Trump underscores the former President’s motivation to be a important player in upcoming year’s Republican primaries — a move that operates counter to Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell’s outspoken stance that the celebration desires to again candidates with the most effective possibility of profitable standard elections as the GOP appears to be like to retake the Senate.

But Trump’s backing of the onetime football star will come as no surprise.

Walker has experienced a long relationship with the previous President dating to 1984, when Trump — the then-owner of the United States Football League’s New Jersey Generals — gave Walker a deal extension.

They stayed in contact and Walker would check out the Trumps at their residence in Greenwich, Connecticut. He afterwards appeared on NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” with Trump and inspired his 2016 and 2020 presidential bids.

In December, Walker tweeted a video supporting Trump’s work to overturn his loss to then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump responded, “Herschel is talking the truth!”

Looming in excess of Walker’s nascent marketing campaign are reviews that he has threatened violence from multiple girls.

CNN Investigates described previously Thursday that a Texas girl explained to police in 2002 that Walker had threatened and stalked her, in accordance to a police report. Over the decades, two other women — Walker’s ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend — have also accused him of making threats, telling authorities Walker claimed he would shoot them in the head.
As Herschel Walker eyes Georgia US Senate seat, a newly revealed stalking claim brings his troubled history under scrutiny

Walker’s marketing campaign declined to react to the woman’s allegations or focus on the 2002 law enforcement report. In response to queries about the incident, Mallory Blount, a campaign spokesperson, cited Walker’s past struggles with mental overall health issues, which he’s spoken about publicly.

“It is sad that many in politics and the media who praised Herschel for his transparency more than a decade back are now earning false statements, stereotyping, attacking, and trying to sensationalize his earlier just for the reason that he is a Republican Senate applicant,” she mentioned in a statement.

The race in opposition to Warnock, who’s operating for a total 6-12 months term just after winning a distinctive election runoff earlier this calendar year, could decide command of the Senate. Democrats in the higher chamber have the slimmest of majorities — 50-50 — held only by Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Warnock beat previous Ga Sen. Kelly Loeffler by two points.

Democratic Occasion of Georgia spokesman Dan Gottlieb stated in a statement Thursday that Trump’s endorsement of Walker “cements the nightmare scenario that Republican leaders in Georgia and Washington have wished to stay away from. This is likely to be a extended, divisive, and high-priced intra-celebration combat concentrated on political loyalty assessments — not the concerns that subject most to Georgians.”

The former President has now publicly weighed into a handful of important Senate races — which includes backing Military veteran Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania, Rep. Ted Budd in North Carolina, Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama and Kelly Tshibaka, a previous Alaska Office of Administration commissioner who is getting on Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.