Herschel Walker is approaching a possible Senate bid seriously and taking a stronger look at mounting a 2022 campaign than Republican insiders in Georgia have been led to believe, people close to the protégé of former President Donald Trump are telling the Washington Examiner.
Walker, a Texas resident, has been fastidiously tight-lipped about his plans and established no political foothold in the Peach State since Trump declared the former University of Georgia football star his preferred candidate to challenge Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. But Walker, a political neophyte, is quietly talking to top advisers and attorneys in Georgia about the proper way to go about entering a contest expected to attract hundreds of millions of dollars from both parties.
Even after Walker issued a statement Tuesday announcing he was “looking at the race closely,” many Republican insiders remained dubious of his interest precisely because it has appeared to them that he has not been taking any steps to launch a campaign.
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“It’s been frustrating,” a senior Georgia Republican who is friendly with Walker said Wednesday. The air of mystery around Walker’s midterm-election plans has been by design, sources tell the Washington Examiner, to hold off the inevitable Democratic attacks for as long as possible.
That strategic ambiguity was undermined Tuesday after Trump revealed in an interview that Walker, 59, has decided to run for Senate. Granted, the former president’s remarks came on the heels of a video Walker tweeted suggesting he intends to jump in the race. But to avoid triggering the federal law requiring disclosures with the Federal Election Commission, the wealthy businessman and former professional football player released a statement clarifying his position.
“We will make a final decision sometime soon,” Walker said in a statement, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I’m not a politician — I’m working on my timetable, not anyone else’s.”
Trump first floated Walker for the Senate race against Warnock earlier this year. The move essentially froze the GOP primary field, with most prominent Republicans declining to get into a nominating contest in which the former president, still popular with grassroots conservatives, would surely endorse against them if Walker decided to run. But for months, Walker has said almost nothing publicly, or privately for that matter, that suggested he was serious about running for Senate.
He has given no indication that he is preparing to move back to Georgia from Texas, where he has lived for years. He has been a no-show at major political events, such as the recent Georgia Republican Party convention. He has not returned phone calls from Republican consultants interested in working for his prospective campaign. He has not reached out to activists, party officials, or operatives to sound them out for feedback on a bid.
Republicans in Georgia are getting antsy because they want to put pressure on Warnock, a capable and charismatic Democrat who defeated appointed GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a Jan. 5 runoff held to fill the final years of the term vacated by Johnny Isakson, who resigned at the end of 2019 for health reasons. “I would hope to see some activity from Herschel Walker in July,” said Chip Lake, a Republican strategist in Georgia.
“Raphael Warnock’s out there benefiting from incumbency and raising money, and if we’re going to defeat him at [the] ballot box in 2022, we need to know who our candidates are,” Lake added. Senate Democrats are clinging to a 50-seat majority made possible by Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
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Between that and President Joe Biden becoming the first Democrat to win Georgia’s Electoral College votes since the early 1990s, Warnock’s reelection bid is expected to be one of the most heavily targeted races of the election cycle. Meanwhile, Republicans are not sure what to make of Walker.
He delivered an effective speech on Trump’s behalf during the 2020 Republican convention and is something of a folk hero in Georgia who has spent decades in the limelight. But some Republicans worry he is not prepared for the rigors of a political campaign. Walker has been candid about his personal battles with mental illness, and some Republicans worry the Democrats will use that against him.
