A new poll shows that Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-Georgia) lead over his 2022 midterm challenger, former football player and Trump-endorsed Republican Herschel Walker, has widened by a double-digit margin. Notably, the vast majority of the poll’s respondents were surveyed before a report shedding light on Walker’s hypocrisy on abortion was published earlier this week.
According to a SurveyUSA pollSurvey results from September 30 through October 4. 50 percent of Georgia voters want Warnock’s seat in the Senate to be retained, while only 38% want Walker to win.
This is a considerable split compared to other polls — per an aggregate of surveys collected by RealClearPolitics, Warnock only leads Walker by about 3.8 points on average.
It’s unclear if this new poll is an outlier or demonstrative of how the race is now trending. It’s also unclear if the numbers remain accurate, as 95 percent of respondents in the SurveyUSA poll were surveyed before news broke on Monday that Walker allegedly paid for a former girlfriend’s abortion 13 years ago.
The Daily Beast reported on Monday that Walker had paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. The report included proof in the form of the woman’s receipt for the procedure, along with a get-well card and a copy of the checkWalker.
Abortion — a safe and routine medical procedure and a globally recognized human right — should not be considered scandulous in of itself. Walker is ardently anti-abortion, has called for a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the pregnant person — situations that he has derogatorily described as “excuses” people use to justify undergoing the procedure. Abortion is currently banned in Georgia after six weeks of pregnancyAlthough the state allowed abortions in most cases prior to the Supreme Court’s overturn,Roe v. WadeThis year, earlier.
Walker has denied the reporting, calling it a “Democrat attack” against him. He promised to file a lawsuit against defamation the day after the report was published. But it appears that no such lawsuit has ever been filed.
Walker’s son, a conservative influencer, has condemned his father’s hypocrisy on social media, telling his followers that he and his family were physically abused by the ex-NFL player back when he was a child.
“I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability,” Christian Walker wrote on Twitter. “But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you.”
The scandal has already had a significant impact on Walker’s campaign. Former President Donald Trump who endorsed Walker in the primaries, has decided to withdraw from the campaign with the candidate in these final weeks of the election campaign.
According to a CNN reportAccording to sources close to Trump’s, Walker is reluctant to campaign because he fears that more allegations against him will soon emerge. Trump is said to be waiting for the news stories to drop before deciding whether to appear with Walker again in advance of the November 8th election.
