Voices: Herschel Walker addressed his scandals with a bizarre political ad

There seems to be no sign that the Herschel Walker allegations are going away any time soon.

On Wednesday evening, The Daily Beast published another story claiming that the woman whom the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia allegedly paid to have an abortion was also the mother of one of his children. The woman also delivered a devastating quote to reporter Roger Sollenberger when she said, “Sure, I was stunned, but I guess it also doesn’t shock me,” before adding, “But then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something, too.”

Walker has not issued a response to the new claims but denies paying for his ex-girlfriend’s abortion. He told Fox News on Tuesday the story was a “flat-out lie”.

That same day, InsiderAdvantage released a poll showing that Walker’s polling fortunes have changed. Back in September, he led incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock 47 per cent to 44 per cent. That number has now reversed, with Warnock leading Walker 47 to 44 per cent. And clearly the problems had been building even before the abortion scandal. InsiderAdvantage said it was already conducting a poll that showed Warnock leading Walker prior to the story breaking.

On top of that, Walker raised only $12m in the most recent fundraising quarter. While Axios reported that was his best quarter yet, it is less than half the $26.3m that Warnock, a prolific fundraiser, raked into his war chest.

Republicans are already trying to mount a counter-offensive. On Wednesday, Walker released an ad criticising Warnock’s campaign for highlighting his past and the allegations that he abused women. While it didn’t directly address the abortion story or the allegations made by his son, Christian Walker, that he and his mother had experienced domestic abuse at the hands of Herschel, it did talk about the importance of “redemption”. (For what it’s worth, after the latest revelation was published, the younger Walker tweeted four words: “Wear a condom, Damn.”) In the ad, Walker focuses mostly on the fact that he had a “real battle with mental health” and wrote a book about it before saying “and by the grace of God, I’ve overcome it”. He then claims that Warnock — the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King once preached — ”doesn’t believe in redemption.”

The ad shows the difficult spot in which Walker finds himself. He isn’t able to directly address the problem without bringing it up. But even most Republicans are struggling to get ahead of it. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offered a series of excuses for him on Sean Hannity’s show on Tuesday evening.

“He’s been through a long, tough period, he had a lot of concussions coming out of football, he suffered PTSD,” Gingrich said (it should be noted that Gingrich, as House Speaker, voraciously pursued Bill Clinton’s impeachment for lying under oath about his inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky). It’s not an ideal excuse.

But it looks like things could get worse soon. On Wednesday evening, Republican flack Liz Mair tweeted something that probably made every Republican twitch: “I have a sneaking suspicion that the rumors I heard about Walker having procured an abortion what seems like ages ago may have been about a different incident.”

The Independent has approached Walker’s campaign for comment.