Herschel Walker raised a record daily sum for his Georgia Senate campaign yesterday — $450,000 — according to the Republican’s campaign, which also shared results of a just-completed poll showing he’s essentially tied with Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.
Walker’s campaign says that $300,000 of the one-day fundraising haul came in just 21 minutes on Monday evening as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia appeared on Fox’s “Hannity” defending allegations that Walker paid for a former girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, a claim the candidate denies. The woman making the allegation later had one of his four children.
According to the campaign’s internal polling conducted by Republican Erik Iverson, Walker is essentially tied with Warnock 46-44 percent overall, which is within the 800-sample survey’s 3-point margin of error. The poll is a slight outlier compared to a spate of independent public recent polls that show Warnock with more of an advantage, nursing single-digit inside-the-error margin leads.
The Walker camp poll shows Warnock is getting more support from Democrats (92 percent for Warnock and 4 percent for Walker) than Walker is from Republicans (87 percent for Walker compared to 3 percent for Warnock. Warnock is also winning independents 42-36 percent.
An X-factor in the poll hurting Walker more than Warnock: libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, who’s drawing 2 percent of the Democratic vote, but 5 percent of the Republican vote and 8 percent from independents.
Under Georgia law, the race could go to a Dec. 6 runoff if no candidate receives more than half the vote Nov. 8.