Walker Talks About Mental Health Struggle in New Campaign Ad Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks to the media at a campaign event in Gwinnett, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
By Nicole Wells | Wednesday, 05 October 2022 07:12 PM EDT
Herschel Walker, who is running as the GOP Senate nominee in Georgia, talks about his mental health struggles in a new ad released Wednesday.
"As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health," Walker says in the ad. "I even wrote a book about it. And by the grace of God, I've overcome it."
The Trump-endorsed Senate hopeful goes on to say that his opponent, Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock, is running "a nasty, dishonest campaign" that doesn't tell his "full story."
"Warnock's a preacher who doesn't tell the truth," Walker says. "He doesn't even believe in redemption."
Walker's 2008 memoir "Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder" discusses his challenges with mental health.
According to his campaign website, the former NFL star was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder due to "trauma he experienced in childhood."
Released Wednesday, the ad is Walker's first since reports surfaced earlier in the week that he urged a former girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009 and reimbursed her for the cost.
Walker, a staunch anti-abortion advocate who has backed a national abortion ban, took to Twitter Monday to push back against the allegations.
"This is a flat-out lie — and I deny this in the strongest possible terms," the 1982 Georgia Bulldog Heisman Trophy winner said.
The New York Post reports that the woman making the claims produced a $575 receipt from an abortion clinic, as well as a $700 signed personal check and a "get well" card allegedly from the former Dallas Cowboys star player.
The Post was not able to independently verify the allegations.
Warnock regained a 3-point lead over Walker in an InsiderAdvantage-Fox 5 poll conducted the day after the allegations were published, fueling Republican anxiety over the already close Senate race.
Walker is running on a "conservative family values" platform that is "pro-life and pro-family."
Former President Donald Trump said in a statement Tuesday that Walker "is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats."
"Interestingly, I've heard many horrible things about his opponent, Raphael Warnock, things that nobody should be talking about, so we don't," Trump continued. "Herschel has properly denied the charges against him, and I have no doubt he is correct. They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past."