Here’s the latest news out of Georgia:
Herschel Walker, the former football star leading the race for the Republican nomination for a Georgia Senate seat, said that a ban on abortion should have no exceptions — presumably even for rape, incest or the health of the mother.
Asked Wednesday if he wanted a more total ban on abortion than the six-week prohibition passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, Mr. Walker was unequivocal.
“There’s no exception in my mind,” he told reporters after a campaign speech in Macon, Ga., at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. “Like I say, I believe in life. I believe in life.” He did not single out exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother specifically, but he said repeatedly that he wanted no exceptions.
Mr. Walker, a political newcomer who returned to the state where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 to run at the encouragement of former President Donald J. Trump, called for more money to promote adoption and to support single fathers and single mothers.
“You never know what a child is going to become,” Mr. Walker said. “And I’ve seen some people, they’ve had some tough times, but I always said, ‘No matter what, tough times make tough people.’”
Here’s something else you should know about Walker:
Republican US Senate hopeful Herschel Walker neglected to report nearly $3.2 million in earnings in a federal financial disclosure, waiting five months to amend the sum.
Walker's original candidate report, filed in December 2021, listed him and his spouse cumulatively earning $927,886 from late 2020 to the end of 2021 through various corporations, including a $100,000 salary from "Renaissance Man Food Services, LLC."
Five months later, Walker amended his candidate report to show that he brought in an additional $3.2 million from an "H. Walker Enterprises." He amended his overall income in the disclosure to $4.1 million, more than four times higher than the original candidate report, according to Insider's review of the documents.
According to H. Walker Enterprises' website, the company's stated mission is to "establish a business structure capable of servicing food service, corporate and retail customers with a variety of products on a national level." It's unclear what role Walker currently plays in the company, his campaign report simply notes it as "partnership distributions."
As Mr. Walker nears his coronation on Tuesday as the Republican nominee for one of Georgia’s Senate seats, it is clear that racial issues will be a major factor this fall, when he is all but certain to face Senator Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democrat.
The contest between Mr. Warnock, a longtime civil rights champion, and Mr. Walker, whose ambivalence on the issue has long dogged him, is expected to be tight. Either way, Georgia will still have a Black senator. But just because both men are Black doesn’t mean race will be nullified as a factor.
“If anything, it could be put on steroids,” said Kevin Harris, an African American Democratic strategist active in Southern campaigns.
Mr. Walker is clearly sensitive about the subject. Asked how he would distinguish himself from Mr. Warnock, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, Mr. Walker snapped: “Don’t say that. He’s running on separation.” He has struck similar themes in the past, arguing that civil rights leaders want the races divided.
White Republicans here welcomed Mr. Walker’s assurances that accusations of racism and injustice are all about division, when the nation needs unity.
George Jackson, who grew up in Mr. Walker’s hometown, Wrightsville, Ga., and went to high school with the candidate’s older brother, reassured his friends after the speech, “Herschel is not racist”— a signal that for some voters, racism by Black Americans, not by white ones, is the problem.
“Christ doesn’t look at race,” Kathy Peterson, 60, of Perry, Ga., who is white, said approvingly after the speech. “We’re all the same. We’ve been divided by the leadership we have now for too long.”
The few Black members of the audience, however, saw Mr. Walker’s longtime ties to Donald J. Trump — and the former president’s endorsement of him — as a red flag, and an indication that Mr. Walker was merely a vessel for the G.O.P. and Mr. Trump’s ambitions.
“I can’t get a brother from Wrightsville, Ga., jumping on the Trump campaign, you know?” Roderick McGee, 54, said at the Hall of Fame. “I can’t wrap my mind around that.”
He added, “He’s a puppet on a string, and somebody’s pulling those strings really good.”
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