Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for a Georgia US Senate seat, has maintained he does not know the identity of a woman who claims that in 2009 she terminated a pregnancy that was the result of her and Walker’s relationship.
But on Friday, the woman at the center of a political storm that threatens to undo the former Dallas Cowboys running back’s campaign told the New York Times that Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later and that their relationship ended when she declined.
The woman, a former girlfriend whom Walker has referred to as “some alleged woman”, said the Senate hopeful backed by former president Donald Trump had scarcely been involved in their son’s life other than child support and gifts.
But she offered a perspective on a candidate who has appealed to the state’s social conservatives as an opponent of abortion – even in cases of rape and incest.
“As a father, he’s done nothing,” she told the Times, insisting on anonymity to protect her son. “He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it.
“He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”
She provided the paper with a $575 receipt from an Atlanta women’s clinic where the 2009 procedure was performed, as well as a check deposit slip showing a copy of a $700 check she claims Walker gave her as reimbursement.
“The first I knew about any of this was when some reporter asked me about an abortion. And I’m like, ‘No, that’s a lie.’ And then I was asked if I paid for an abortion, and I said no. I did not pay for an abortion,” Walker told NBC News on Friday. “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.”
Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, disclosed to the Daily Beast on Friday that she had been in touch with the woman who had told her it was “cruel” that Walker “continues to claim he doesn’t know me or the abortion he paid for”.
“He brought all of this on himself when he decided to get on a platform and denounce abortion and make a mockery of his children who have done NOTHING to deserve this,” the anonymous woman reportedly also said.
Blanchard said that “this makes me incredibly sad”, adding that she “witnessed everyday Herschel pray for you and [your son] & everyone in our family”.
She told the outlet that Walker calls and texts the 10-year-old child “regularly” and feels “sadness” when he gets no response – to which the woman replied, “Are you kidding me?”
The woman has said that Walker has never missed any of his $3,500 monthly child-support payments, but the complex drama has nonetheless focused attention on the Republican candidate that his campaign did not want.
Besides his opposition to abortion, he has four children with four different women after openly criticizing absentee dads in the Black community.
Walker has disputed that he does not acknowledge his children. “I just chose not to use them as props to win a political campaign,” he said in June. “What parent would want their child involved in garbage, gutter politics like this?”
But some criticism has come from close to home. “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,” Walker’s adult son and conservative social-media influencer Christian Walker said on Twitter.
Herschel Walker responded with his own tweet: “I LOVE my son no matter what.”
But the revelations have challenged Walker’s conservative political positions as he faces off with Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock for the US Senate seat that could determine control of the evenly divided legislative body.
A Fox News poll conducted after reports emerged last week that Walker had paid for the former girlfriend to have an abortion showed Warnock at 47% and Walker at 44%.
Warnock’s campaign recently reported having $13.7m in cash on hand.
Walker’s campaign said it has more than $7m. Walker’s campaign manager, Scott Paradise, said the candidate had his best fundraising days immediately after the abortion revelation, contained in a Daily Beast article on 3 October.
Nonetheless, there has apparently been an atmosphere of chaos in the Walker campaign since the bombshell Daily Beast report. Two days after the report, the campaign cut ties with its political director, Taylor Crowe, CNN reported, citing multiple sources.
