Herschel Walker’s Press Strategy: Keep Reporters an Arm’s Length Away

Herschel Walker has more questions surrounding him than any other GOP Senate nominee in recent memory. More than one woman has alleged that Walker, who is staunchly anti-abortion, urged and paid for the termination of a pregnancy (Walker has denied paying for any abortions in the past). He faces residency questions as well as allegations of physical violence and abuse. His campaign has been dogged by Walker making a series of false and misleading claims and a series of bombshell reports, about everything from multiple children Walker hadn’t publicly acknowledged to his shoddy business record. And yet the former football star is attempting to win the Senate runoff in Georgia against the Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock by largely dodging press scrutiny. Walker has spent the final weeks of his race without holding a press conference and seemingly avoiding taking questions from mainstream outlets, as various outlets have noted. Reporting on news that Walker was taking a primary residence tax break on his home in Texas, despite his bid in Georgia, the New York Times noted that Walker “has not answered questions about the matter; he has largely stopped talking to reporters.” Also last week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Walker “hasn’t taken a question since early October from the reporters covering his campaign in Georgia,” and Axios reporter Emma Hurt tweeted a photo of gates that Walker’s campaign had erected, apparently to prevent reporters from getting “within 20 feet of him” after his events. 

The interviews Walker has done have often been with help of other conservatives, and have tended to be with sympathetic outlets like Fox News—though even Rupert Murdoch‘s network has noted his attempts to keep reporters at bay. A GOP senator accompanied Walker on Fox News at least four times since October, HuffPost reports. Sen. Lindsey Graham “routinely plays the role of Walker’s chaperone,” MSNBC noted. The South Carolina senator flanked Walker three of the four times mentioned by HuffPost, while Sen. Tim Scott joined Graham for a town hall hosted by Sean Hannity, and Sen. Ted Cruz joined Graham for an appearance on Hannity’s program late last month. The joint appearances are seemingly designed to limit Walker’s talking time. Walker, a former college football and NFL star who was backed early on by former President Donald Trump, has no prior political experience, and has a penchant for making bizarre comments—some of which Warnock and other Democrats have capitalized on in their final pitch to voters. Graham appeared to confirm as much: asked by HuffPost about his joint Hannity appearances with Walker, Graham said, “We’re trying to help him. Other people have come in to help Warnock. It’s a team sport, right?”

Over the weekend, amid lingering frustrations about his press strategy and less than four days before the Senate runoff, Walker gave a brief interview to Politico on his campaign bus, where he insisted his team had not kept him from the press or voters. “Nope, they haven’t,” Walker said, per Politico, claiming “I’ve never been hiding” and “I’ve been talking to as many [voters] as I can.” During the short conversation, Walker mischaracterized the state of the House next year as evenly split between both parties—Republicans were projected to win a narrow majority last month—and blamed Warnock’s fundraising advantage as the reason he was in a runoff.

Walker isn’t the only Republican this cycle who has tested how far a candidate can bypass the press—a looming question for 2024—as far-right GOP nominee Doug Mastriano did in his unsuccessful gubernatorial run. Mastriano, an election-denying state senator who was at the Capitol on January 6, found success in icing out local and national media during the Republican primary, turning instead to right-wing platforms and social-media livestreams to push his message. The strategy failed come November, however, when Mastriano lost by 14 points.