Herschel Walker, the former football star who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, launched a campaign Tuesday for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. Walker will be the most well-known Republican running against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in next year’s contest.
Walker filed paperwork Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission establishing his candidacy and recently registered to vote in Georgia, but he is yet to make a formal announcement or get his campaign website up and running.
Trump has publicly encouraged Walker to run for the Senate and predicted that he would enter politics.
“I had dinner with him a week ago. He’s a great guy. He’s a patriot. He’s a very loyal person,” Trump added.
Walker returned the admiration to Trump when he spoke about his three-decade-long friendship with the former president during the 2020 Republican National Convention.
“It hurt my soul to hear the terrible names that people called Donald. The worst one is racist. Growing up in the Deep South, I’ve seen racism up close. I know what it is, and it isn’t Donald Trump. Just because someone loves and respects to fly our national anthem in our country, doesn’t mean they don’t care about social justice,” said Walker.
Walker praised Trump’s efforts to improve the economic situation for black Americans.
Georgia’s Senate race is expected to be among the most competitive of the 2022 midterm cycle.
Democrat Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff narrowly won a pair of runoff elections in January against their Republican counterparts.
But Georgia has been right-leaning and Republicans are eager to take back at least one of the state’s two Senate seats.
President Joe Biden took Georgia by a fraction of 1 percent in the 2020 presidential election, and in the previous five elections Georgians have voted for Republican presidents.
