Nathan News

National Republicans quickly began to close ranks on Tuesday behind Herschel Walker, the party’s beleaguered Senate candidate in Georgia, a day after a report that Mr. Walker, a staunch supporter of an abortion ban without exceptions, paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.

Mr Walker, a former football star, denied the report, which was published in The Daily Beast on Monday, calling it a “brainless lie”. The site did not identify the woman, but said she had produced documents about Mr Walker’s role, including a 2009 receipt from the abortion clinic and a deposit receipt with an image of a check for $700 said to have been from Mr. Walker, dated a few days later, which she said had covered the cost of the procedure. He also released a ‘healing’ card which the woman said had been signed by Mr Walker.

The Georgian contest is a vital part of the Republican Party’s chances of taking control of the Senate in 2022, and national party leaders signaled on Tuesday that they plan to stay with Mr Walker. Meanwhile, his son, Christian Walker, who has cultivated a large following on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, posted videos accusing his father of a liar who committed “atrocities” against him and his mother.

“Full speed ahead in Georgia,” said Steven Law, chairman of the Senate Leadership Fund, which booked more than $34 million in television ads in the state between Labor Day and Election Day.

Privately, some Republican strategists in Georgia have said they fear the abortion report, which The New York Times has not independently confirmed, and new public attacks by Christian Walker would make it harder for him to win. Mr. Walker in November, one sharing an animated film. Titanic GIFs.

Mr Walker has already been found to have embellished or distorted key parts of his life story, including claiming he worked in law enforcement (he did not). For years, her food distribution business said she would donate some of her earnings to charity, but there is little evidence she ever did.

Democrats have also run killer ads which feature images of Mr Walker’s ex-wife and Christian Walker’s mother, Cindy Grossman, describing how he once pointed a gun to her head and threatened to press on the trigger. Mr Walker did not deny the charge and said he had previously struggled with mental illness.

National Republicans remained focused on the impact of the Georgia race in the broader race for control of the Senate. “This election is about the future of the country,” Law said. “Herschel Walker will make it better, Raphael Warnock makes it worse. Everything else is a distraction.

Mr Warnock, who won the seat in a runoff election in January 2021, is seeking a full six-year term and is seen as one of the country’s most vulnerable Democrats, running in a state with a long Republican line but that the Democrats carried in 2020.

Since Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, many Christian conservatives have chosen to ignore a politician’s personal failures in an effort to achieve larger political goals.

Ralph Reed, the prominent social-conservative leader based in the state, dismissed the latest report, saying he had a ‘100 per cent’ expectation that evangelical Christians would stick with Mr Walker.

He compared the timing of the report to that of the “Access Hollywood” taping that threatened Mr. Trump’s candidacy in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. “We’ve seen that movie before,” Mr. Reed said. “They’re trying to take down a good man.”

Statements of support from other Republicans came quickly on Tuesday.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida, chairman of the Republican National Senate Committee, said Tuesday, “Herschel has denied these allegations and the NRSC and Republicans support him.

Chris Hartline, the group’s communications director, accused “Democrats and the media” of trying “to stir up nonsense about what did or did not happen in Herschel Walker’s past.”

In a statement, Mr. Trump defended Mr. Walker, saying he was “slandered and maligned by the fake news media and, of course, by the Democrats.”

“They’re trying to destroy a man who has real greatness in his future, just like he had athletic greatness in his past,” Trump continued. “With everything Herschel has accomplished, when you come from Georgia and see the name Herschel Walker in the vote, it will be very hard to resist. Don’t!”

Mr Walker quickly denied the abortion report on Monday, calling it “disgusting gutter politics”. This followed earlier reports of Mr Walker’s tumultuous personal life, which included the existence of three children he fathered but did not mention publicly or to his campaign aides.

The publicly known son, Christian Walker, did not support his father’s campaign. He said on Twitter on Monday that “all members” of the family had urged him not to show up. In a follow-up video on Tuesday, he accused his father of being a liar and said conservatives who continued to support his campaign were hypocrites.

“Family values, people?” said Christian Walker. “He has four kids, four different wives, he wasn’t home raising one. He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values? I kept silent, lie after lie after lie.

He added: “We were told at the beginning of it, he was going to move on from his past, hold himself accountable, all these different things, and that would have been fine – go for it. He did none of that. »

The Elder Mr. Walker wrote on Twitter late Monday, “I LOVE my son no matter what.”

Mr Walker appeared Tuesday morning at an event hosted by the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, billed as a “worship and lunch” for the candidate. Journalists were barred from the lunch and were asked to leave the parking lot outside as dozens of supporters entered.

Mr. Walker, who has spoken at length about his religious faith, counts on the support of evangelical Christians in Georgia. Mr Reed argued that the latest report could increase the turnout of social conservatives, saying voters would rally to defend Mr Walker.

On Tuesday, the super PAC aligned itself with anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which said it has visited more than 310,000 Georgian homes this campaign season, also said it supports Mr Walker . “Herschel Walker has denied these allegations in the strongest possible terms, and we stand firmly with her,” said Mallory Carroll, spokesperson for the group, called Women Speak Out PAC. “And we will continue until election day.”

Abortion has become a touchstone issue in races across America in the months since Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court and the opening of the door to banning abortion at the state level.

Mr Walker appeared on Fox News on Monday hours after the allegations broke, denying the Daily Beast report and explaining the $700 payment, saying: ‘I send money to a lot of people.’

“I have never asked anyone to have an abortion, I have never paid for an abortion,” Mr Walker said. “Right now, they energized me even more.”

The report was released Monday evening as Mr. Warnock addressed a group of Jewish women in Dunwoody, a northern Atlanta suburb, in a speech in which he drew the loudest applause when he pointed out his support for the right to abortion.

Speaking briefly to reporters after the event, Mr Warnock acknowledged the allegations but quickly pivoted to contrast his position on abortion with that of Mr Walker.

“I’ll let the experts decide how they think this will impact the race,” Mr Warnock said. “But I’ve always been of the view that a patient’s room is too cramped a space for a patient, their doctor, and the government.”

He added, “I support reproductive health care as part of health care. My opponent, on the other hand, speaks of a national prohibition, without exception, which would include rape, incest, the life of the mother.

Jim Tankerley contributed reporting from Dunwoody, Ga.