- Georgia professor says Herschel Walker's personal problems may alienate key undecided voters.
- Those likely to balk at abortion issues include independents and Trump fans who bailed out in 2020.
Allegations that Trump-backed Senate hopeful Herschel Walker paid for a girlfriend's 2009 abortion probably won't cause MAGAworld to desert him, but a Georgia political scientist suspects it may prompt some already uneasy voters to skip over his race on election day.
While she doesn't expect the latest news about Walker's swirling paternity issues and blistering social media attack from his estranged son, Christian Walker, will push any Republican hardliners into Democratic rival Sen. Raphael Warnock's camp, Emory University associate professor of political science Andra Gillespie said the staggering headlines could give pause to voters who are sick of hyperpartisanship.
"Their concerns about Walker may be so strong that they choose to skip the Senate race and move on and vote for the other down-ballot races like governor, lieutenant governor, and secretary of state," Gillespie told Insider of the potential fallout from Herschel Walker's abortion row.
Under that scenario, voters not quite sure what to make of Herschel Walker's myriad personal problems would simply leave that column blank but could still lend their support to Trump punching bags incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor hopeful and 2020 election denier Burt Jones.
The "small sliver of voters" Gillespie said are most likely to be influenced by Herschel Walker's anti-abortion campaigning coming back to bite him include independent voters, suburban white women, and regretful Republicans who supported Donald Trump in 2016 "but couldn't really do it again in 2020."
In a race that's stayed within a six-point margin since March according to political pollsters at FiveThirtyEight, sewing up any undecideds is mission critical to both parties.
Georgia candidates must get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off under existing election rules, a high bar that contributed to the January 2021 elections that swept Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff into office and handed control of the 50-50 Senate to Democrats.
Sen. Rick Scott, who is running Senate Republicans' reelection arm this cycle, dismissed the latest news about Walker as a desperation move by worried Democrats. "They know they are on the verge of losing the Senate, and they know Herschel Walker is winning, so they have cranked up the smear machine," Scott said in a statement re-upping his support for Trump's preferred candidate.
Even with the revelations about the three children Herschel Walker secretly fathered outside of his marriages, Gillespie said he's likely to get plenty of support from hardcore Republicans.
"We're in a polarized moment where he's still wearing the red jersey. And it's more important for some voters to beat the Democrats than it is to punish the party for having nominated a weak candidate," Gillespie said, adding that she fully expects Walker will wind up with "45% of the vote."