- MAGA world will excuse Walker's abortion scandal rather than vote for a democrat: GOP operative.
- Conservatives are already saying paying for one abortion is preferable to funding all abortions.
Republicans would rather rationalize away Herschel Walker's alleged abortion scandal than ever admit they backed the wrong candidate, a GOP strategist said of the Georgian's too-late-to-bail-out predicament.
"Conservatives will look at it as he's still the lesser evil on policy," the GOP fundraiser, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the fast-approaching midterm elections, told Insider of race between the embattled Trump-backed candidate and incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
The GOP fundraiser rightly predicted that MAGA supporters would rally around Walker by arguing that if he gave an ex-girlfriend money in 2009 to cover a single abortion that's still better than allowing Warnock to divert taxpayer dollars to funding all abortions.
"They'll say that Warnock wants to take YOUR money to pay for abortions … which makes him a bad person and unfit for the Senate," the GOP fundraiser said, adding that the political shamelessness is "just a continuation of Trump."
Less than two hours later conservative commentator Dana Loesch advanced that very narrative.
—Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 4, 2022
"IF true, Walker paid for one broad's abortion compared to Warnock who wants your tax dollars to pay for EVERY broad's abortion-as-birth control with no limitations," the former NRA spokeswoman wrote online, adding, "This isn't a difficult choice and conservatives shouldn't look to the left to validate their vote."
Other Walker supporters skirted the abortion issue altogether, casting blame anywhere else.
"Herschel Walker has denied these allegations in the strongest possible terms and we stand firmly alongside him," Mallory Carroll, a spokeswoman for Women Speak Out PAC, a super PAC associated with anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement. Carroll added that her organization would continue campaigning against the "extremism of Sen. Warnock and Stacey Abrams," the latter being the Democratic gubernatorial nominee challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp this fall.
The Georgia Republican Party billed the allegations against Walker as political theater.
"Democrats will do anything to distract from their own abysmal record of rising inflation, an open border and a decimated middle class," Georgia GOP spokeswoman Danielle Repass told Insider.
'Walker can't say anything about abortion now'
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, said the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade this summer opened up new lines of attack for Georgia candidates.
Gillespie said Walker's campaign had leaned into painting Warnock as a hypocrite for using his position as a minister to preach abortion rights from the pulpit. But she suspects that strategy is done for.
"Walker can't say anything about abortion now," Gillespie told Insider, adding that she fully expects to see Christian Walker's scathing social media posts denouncing his father dominating the airwaves through election day.
"I'm almost certain if there will be some type of digital ads that will include Christian Walker's Twitter rants," Gillespie said.
The Senate race stands out not only because of Walker's sky-high name recognition as a former University of Georgia football standout who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982, but also due to the implications of a GOP win in the state — which in recent cycles has been more receptive to backing statewide Democratic candidates.
Walker's opponent, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, is running for his first full term in office after winning a Senate runoff election last year to fill the remaining term of GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson, who stepped down in 2019.
In capturing the Senate seat last year, Warnock defeated then-GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who had been appointed by Kemp and was seen as candidate who could appeal to both Republican women in the Atlanta suburbs and conservatives in the more rural parts of the state.
But Democrats had compelling candidates in Warnock — the senior pastor of Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church — and former investigative journalist and 2018 House candidate Jon Ossoff.
Buoyed by President Joe Biden's victory in the state over Trump in 2020 — the party continued to use their robust turnout operation in the 2021 runoffs, allowing Warnock to unseat Loeffler and fueling Ossoff's win over then-GOP Sen. David Perdue.
Republicans, stung by the losses, are eager to regain their dominance in the state, and a Georgia Senate win represents one of their best ways to get there.