GOP leaders rally behind Walker. But in Georgia, Republicans are worried.

The emerging dynamic five weeks before Walker faces Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) underscores the predicament Republicans face. Many see Georgia as one of the best opportunities to swing a Senate seat and feel compelled to continue supporting their candidate, who polls say is competitive. Yet in elevating an untested political newcomer who has faced accusations of stalking, threats of violence and hypocrisy in his personal life, as well as criticism of false claims, they are setting themselves up for a potentially difficult finale.

“I don’t think anybody got on the Internet last night or got on Twitter last night and said this is going to be good for Herschel Walker,” said Lane Flynn, former chairman of the DeKalb County Republican Party. “The question going forward is how active the average voter will be — not necessarily the hardcore super Republicans.” But the suburban mom or… the people who missed the last election might have voted blue. Can they be returned?’

Republicans can’t replace Walker on the ballot this late in the campaign, and several suggested doing so wouldn’t be the right move even if they could. Instead, many said they hoped Walker could weather that storm, as Trump has been able to win over voters by taking a defiant stance amid revelations about his past, seen by many as disqualifying him as a candidate for public office.

On Monday, the Daily Beast published a detailed account from an unnamed friend who said the former football star encouraged her to have an abortion after she became pregnant while they were dating, wrote her a $700 check to pay for the procedure and then sent her a get well card.

Walker, who campaigned as an opponent of abortion rights with no exceptions for rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life and has voiced support for a national ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, immediately denied the report, saying in a televised interview on Fox News Channel that the story published in the Daily Beast is an “outright lie.” The Washington Post has not independently verified the Daily Beast information.

Walker’s campaign has not clarified whether he knew the woman mentioned in the story. He told Fox News that he often writes large checks to people he knows, but the Walker campaign did not respond to a request for a list of other examples.

On Tuesday, Trump defended Walker in a statement he posted on Truth Social, his social media network. “They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past,” Trump wrote.

Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a statement about Walker on Tuesday, saying, “The NRSC and the Republicans are with him.” Mallory Carroll, spokeswoman for Women Speak Out PAC, a partner of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, struck a similar note: “Herschel Walker has denied these allegations in the strongest terms possible, and we stand firmly by him. “

On Tuesday morning, Walker arrived in a black SUV to a pre-scheduled private event at the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, a sprawling compound in a suburb north of the city. The event was advertised on Facebook as an opportunity to “worship and have lunch with Herschel Walker.”

Church officials barred reporters from entering the property during the event. Afterward, several attendees said the format was a conversation between Walker and Anthony George, the church’s pastor. According to several attendees, Walker described his life and his reasons for running for the Senate.

Walker’s reported behavior in the Daily Beast story did not appear, one man said as he got into his SUV in the parking lot.

Shortly before the event, Ralph Reed, a Walker supporter and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, walked to a coastal wooded area just off the church property to give a brief statement to reporters.

“This latest personal attack on Herschel Walker is unlikely to resonate with Georgia voters,” he said. Reid then tried to frame the election as between Walker, a politician who would vote to limit abortion rights, versus Warnock, an abortion rights advocate.

Walker’s campaign raised more than $180,000 in less than 24 hours after the report about his background, a large increase in funding, Walker spokesman Will Kiley said.

But elsewhere in Georgia, Republicans expressed dismay at the latest round of stories — or kept their distance from Walker.

The campaign of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is up for re-election in November, has been cautious about the events surrounding Walker, with a representative not mentioning the Senate candidate by name.

“As he has said repeatedly throughout this campaign,” Camp campaign spokesman Cody Hall said in a statement, “the governor is focused on sharing his results and vision for his second term with hard-working Georgians and raising the resources necessary to fund the campaign , the ground game and turnout operation needed to secure Republican victories up and down the Nov. 8 ballot.

Seth Weathers, a longtime Republican strategist in Georgia and Trump’s 2016 campaign state director, bemoaned the situation. “We could have had Gary Black,” he said, referring to one of Walker’s opponents in the GOP primary.

“I warned everyone I knew that this was a stupid idea,” Weathers added, though he said he plans to vote for Walker in November.

A Georgia GOP representative from suburban Atlanta, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be more candid, said Monday’s revelations had heightened fears among her friends that Walker’s ascension to the Senate would mean a half-dozen years of drama. which will affect badly and even disturb the condition.

“For a lot of my friends, it’s, ‘I don’t want to be embarrassed.’ I want a good temperament. Is this someone I want to go to the game with? Someone I want around my child?’ said the employee.

“I think they’re saying, ‘I’m not happy with the Biden administration. I don’t like the way things are going. But you know, Warnock, he doesn’t bother me. He seems close to me.”

Some Republicans have pointed to Walker’s grown son, a young conservative who has become an outspoken critic of his father amid the allegations, as a deepening problem.

Warnock’s campaign said little Tuesday and did not respond to an email inquiry about the abortion claim involving Walker. Privately, Democrats noted that the statement and his son’s response fit into the argument Democrats have been making: Once voters get to know the real Walker, they won’t like him.

Warnock and the groups supporting his campaign have run ads about claims that Walker physically threatened women with whom he was romantically involved.

They include one from Walker’s ex-wife Cindy Grossman, who has detailed threats of abuse she said she faced from Walker. Speaking to ABC News in 2008, Grossman said Walker “had a gun and put it to my temple.” In an interview with CNN that year, she said, “He put the gun to my temple and said he was going to blow my brains out.”

The interviews were part of a media tour held ahead of the January 2009 release of Walker’s book about his struggles with mental illness, Release: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Warnock’s campaign and two different outside groups supporting his candidacy have used some of those clips in attack ads. The organizations are Georgia Honor, a Democratic-backed organization, and the Republican Accountability Group, a Republican-backed organization.

Walker wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in August blasting the GOP-backed ad, saying it unfairly used his efforts to destigmatize mental health as an attack on his candidacy.

“My ex-wife Cindy and I gave a television interview in 2008 to share our story — not about the glory days of football, but about the pain of my mental health issues and their effect on our marriage,” Walker wrote in the Journal. “Now I’m running for office and my fight has become the subject of a dishonest attack ad.”

Two other women reported Walker’s behavior to police, according to media accounts that The Washington Post has not independently verified. In 2012, Myka Dean asked police and told them Walker was threatening violence, according to a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She said the two had an on-again, off-again relationship for 20 years. She died in 2019. Walker denied the account and was not charged with a crime.

Police were also called in 2002 when another woman said he was “lurking” outside her home, according to an Associated Press story. No charges were filed against Walker.

In large part, Walker and his defenders offered his 2008 book about his struggles with dissociative identity disorder as a counterpoint and redemption story to those claims.

Grossman’s son with Walker, Christian Walker, claimed on Twitter Monday night that his father “threatened to kill us” and caused him and his mother to move six times in six months “running away from your abuse.”

On Tuesday, Christian Walker posted two short videos online: “In the beginning, we were told that he was going to get over his past, he was going to be responsible and all these different things. And that would be fine. He did none of that.

Christian Walker also addressed his three half-siblings, about whom his father had not spoken publicly before the campaign. Walker’s campaign initially acknowledged that the football star had one child out of wedlock and subsequently acknowledged two others.

“He has four kids, four different women, he wasn’t in the house raising any of them,” Christian Walker said in a video, accusing his father of hypocrisy for presenting himself as pro-family when he abandoned his own. Christian Walker has not responded to numerous attempts to contact him.

Reached for comment Monday about Christian Walker’s posts, Herschel Walker’s campaign pointed to a tweet from the candidate. “I LOVE my son no matter what,” Herschel Walker tweeted shortly after his son’s messages were released.

Many of Georgia’s political class followed Twitter in real time Monday night, messaging each other about the Daily Beast story, Christian Walker’s tweetstorm and the implications of both for Walker’s senatorial chances, said one Republican strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely about the situation.

Some openly wondered if it would be a decisive blow to the campaign, while others questioned the legal process and electoral implications of trying to replace Walker on the ballot, according to the strategist. Some worried that Monday’s report would not be Walker’s last before the election.

Other Republicans have said they believe concerns about inflation and other issues will spur voters to choose GOP candidates like Walker over Democrats, the party in power at the federal level.

No matter how they felt about him, Republicans agreed to have Walker be the GOP representative on the ballot, and nothing was going to change that.

“We’re kind of stuck,” Flynn said.

Watson reported from Washington. Hannah Knowles contributed to this report.