Trump-backed former NFL player enters Ga. Senate race
Former football running back Herschel Walker has filed paperwork to run for a Georgia Senate seat, challenging freshman Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, with the backing of former President Donald Trump.
While a formal announcement is still expected to come, filings with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday confirm rumblings that Walker, a football hero at the University of Georgia before his National Football League career bookended with stints with the Dallas Cowboys, plans to run after changing his voter registration from Texas to Georgia last week.
The 59-year-old celebrity candidate is the fifth Republican to enter the growing field to unseat
Warnock, who narrowly defeated former senator Kelly Loe±er in a January runoff. If he wins the primary, Walker would go up against Warnock with national name recognition and the full-throated endorsement of Trump.
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?” Trump said in a March statement. “He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!”
Walker did not immediately respond to a call from the
Washington Post, and a representative for his campaign declined to comment.
The website affiliated with Walker’s campaign, which has not yet launched, was registered in early August, according to domain records.
Walker, a Wrightsville, Ga., native, left Georgia for a long professional career that ended in Texas. He won the 1982 Heisman Trophy and at one point competed in Trump’s reality show The Celebrity Apprentice.
After former Georgia Sen. David Perdue, a Republican, said he would not run again, Walker would be the most recognized candidate in the Republican field, which includes state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, former banking executive and Navy veteran Latham Saddler and Trump campaign surrogate Kelvin King.