- Herschel Walker, the GOP US Senate candidate in Georgia, lost to his Democratic rival on Tuesday.
- Walker's son said his father ran after Trump spent months calling and "demanding" that he do so.
Herschel Walker's son said his father ran in Georgia's US Senate race after former President Donald Trump spent months demanding that he do so, even as others begged Walker not to enter the race over his "insane past."
The Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Walker in the Senate runoff election on Tuesday. Walker's campaign had been marked by allegations including that he paid for women to have abortions despite taking a strict stance against abortion access.
His son, Christian Walker, tweeted on Tuesday that his father had rejected calls not to run after Trump repeatedly told him to enter the race.
"The Truth: Trump called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run," Christian Walker said. "Everyone with a brain begged him: 'PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. This is too dirty, you have an insane past… PLEASE DONT DO THIS.' We got the middle finger. He ran."
He also accused the Republican Party of running his father in the election because of his skin color.
"Republicans, we say we don't play 'identity politics' and then you ran this man mainly because he was the same skin color as his opponent with no background other than football," he tweeted. "A boring old Republican could have won."
Christian Walker, who is estranged from his father, publicly criticized Herschel Walker during the campaign. In October, after a report detailed allegations that Herschel Walker had urged and paid for a woman he was dating in 2009 to get an abortion, Christian Walker accused his father of lying and of abusive behavior.
"You're not a 'family man' when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence," he tweeted.
Christian Walker was otherwise generally quiet through much of the campaign but said on Tuesday on Twitter Spaces that he could speak freely now that the election was over and he didn't risk driving voters to the Democratic candidate, The New York Times reported.
The Times described Christian Walker as a right-wing influencer who has supported Trump.
During the Senate campaign, Herschel Walker was accused of hiding "secret" children and of pressuring two women to have abortions, which he has denied.
An ex-girlfriend also accused him of attacking her after she caught him with another woman. Herschel Walker has not commented publicly on the allegation.
Walker's defeat on Tuesday means the Democratic Party has gained an outright majority in the Senate, with 51 seats compared with 49 for the Republican Party.