Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor refuses to endorse Herschel Walker while GOP doubles down
Former football star Herschel Walker, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, is hardly the first anti-abortion GOP social conservative to be caught up in a sex scandal. Back in the late 1980s, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker — two of the era’s most prominent far-right evangelical preachers — were exposed as adulterers. And the word “serial adulterer” has often been applied to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was having one of his extramarital affairs while railing against President Bill Clinton for cheating on his wife, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, with intern Monica Lewinsky.
But the Republican sex scandals of the past occurred at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to overturn Roe v. Wade and abortion was still a national right. Walker, post-Roe, has been campaigning on making abortion illegal nationwide, even in cases of rape or incest. But according to reporting in the Daily Beast, Walker impregnated a woman in 2009 and paid for her abortion — an allegation that Walker has vehemently denied.
Many prominent Republicans have been quick to rally to Walker’s defense, including Gingrich, Ralph Reed (founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and former executive director of the Christian Coalition), Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott. But one GOP conservative who is refusing to give Walker his unconditional support is Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan. During an interview with Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan was critical of Walker and indicated that he may vote for a third-party candidate.
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The 47-year-old Duncan told AJC, “I’m not voting for Sen. Warnock, and like a lot of other Georgians, Herschel Walker has not yet earned my vote. He’s got four weeks left to change our minds.”
If Gov. Brian Kemp is reelected — which is a strong possibility given his leads over Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams in numerous polls — Duncan won’t be at his side in 2023. Duncan decided against seeking reelection, and Georgia’s Republican 2022 nominee for lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, is quite a contrast to Duncan, Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Unlike Duncan, Kemp and Raffensperger — all of whom have pushed back against the Big Lie and acknowledged that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly — the ultra-MAGA Jones has been a “Stop the Steal” Republican and promoted Trump’s false voter fraud claims.
Duncan obviously isn’t worried about offending Walker’s supporters, as he’s a lame duck. Meanwhile, Abrams has been lambasting Walker as a hypocrite who opposes abortion for others but not for himself. Abrams, interviewed by the AJC, said of Walker, “He is always taking positions that are designed to undermine personal freedoms. And you cannot say that you believe that Herschel Walker is entitled to his personal choices, but no one else in Georgia is.”
But that, in essence, is what Walker’s defenders are saying, including Scott.
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Scott is stridently anti-abortion, but the Beast’s reporting isn’t stopping him from campaigning for Walker. The Florida senator told the Washington Post, “The Democrats want to destroy this country, and they will destroy anyone who gets in their way. Today, it’s Herschel Walker, but tomorrow, it’s the American people. I’m on Herschel’s team — they picked the wrong Georgian to mess with. I’m proud to stand with Herschel Walker and make sure Georgians know that he will always fight to protect them from the forces trying to destroy Georgia values.”
Warnock and Walker are scheduled to hold their first televised debate this Friday, October 14.
