Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker has faced a string of controversies this week — including that he has two sons and a daughter with different women whom he had not spoken about publicly — that threaten to puncture his image as a larger-than-life football star among the state’s voters.
Walker, a Republican endorsed by former president Donald Trump, is running to unseat incumbent Democrat Rev. Raphael G. Warnock in one of the country’s most consequential races that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. Georgia, which President Biden won by less than half a percentage point, still leans Republican and could be an easy pickup for the party in a difficult year for Democrats.
But Walker, an unpolished politician with an unvetted background, could struggle in vote-rich areas like the Atlanta suburbs if enough swing voters are turned off by the inconsistencies in his professional and personal past, some experts say. Others say his massive celebrity in the state — he was an all-American running back and a Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Georgia — gives him greater latitude to make mistakes.
Walker won the Republican nomination last month with more than 68 percent of the vote.
“The people who voted for him because he was famous are not going to be swayed or deterred by this. I think people will rationalize their tribalism,” said Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory University. “It does raise a question of whether more moderate, suburban voters are...
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