Voters watching Saturday’s SEC title game will get a dose of politics with their football.
A group backing U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock plans a new attack ad targeting Republican Herschel Walker that reminds viewers of his legendary playing career with the University of Georgia – and then invokes his history of violence against women.
“A Georgia football legend,” the narrator as footage of a touchdown run plays. “Then, the lights went out on Herschel Walker.”
The ad by the Senate Majority PAC’s Georgia Honor group is scheduled to air during Saturday’s Georgia-LSU SEC championship game, which will be watched by millions of fans just days before the Tuesday runoff against Warnock.
It’s part of the group’s plan to spend $23.5 million during the four-week runoff on digital and TV advertising. Democrats are spending more than twice as much as Republicans in this phase of the race, which will decide the 51st seat in the U.S. Senate.
It continues a strategy from Warnock’s allies to invoke Walker’s violent behavior against his ex-wife, who has described the Republican in a 2008 interview physically assaulting her and holding a gun to her head.
Walker has rarely addressed the violence against his ex-wife on the campaign trail, instead alluding to his struggle with mental illness. He has denied accusations that he threatened another woman featured in the ad who claims he pressured her into having an abortion.
More than 1.8 million Georgians have already cast ballots in the runoff, which was required by law when neither candidate won a majority of the vote in the November midterm.
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