Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Herschel Walker fired the director of his political campaign, CNN first reported on Friday.
The discharge comes days after allegations of Walker paying a former girlfriend to have an abortion spread across mainstream media outlets. The firing also comes less than two weeks prior to the start of early voting in Georgia, and about a month prior to Election Day in November.
The former director, Taylor Crowe, joined Walker’s campaign in June after operating as political director for David Perdue’s campaign for governor of Georgia earlier this year. Perdue, a Georgia businessman and one-term senator, ran against Sen. Jon Ossoff as an incumbent in Georgia’s dual Senate elections in 2020, but came up short for votes in the January 2021 runoff election.
News of the scandal creates controversy, as Walker runs a campaign that heavily criticizes public access to abortion. In another update from the Daily Beast, the same news publication that released the initial allegation of Walker’s abortion payment, Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, reportedly made contact with Walker’s ex-girlfriend over text, despite Walker claiming he wasn’t aware of the woman’s identity.
Regardless, the football star-turned-politician has managed to garner the support of key Republican public figures and leaders, as the party seeks to elect enough conservatives to once again gain control of the U.S. Senate.
The Republican challenger has traveled around the state over the past several months, hosting rallies and campaign events to earn the public’s vote in November. Walker is still scheduled to face his opponent, the incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, in the pair’s first political debate on October 14 in Savannah.
Walker’s campaign has yet to release a public statement addressing the situation.