John Cornyn supports embattled Georgia Republican Herschel Walker

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WASHINGTON — Texas’ senior U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has put collectively a $20 million fundraising operation to assist the GOP take again the Senate in November, whereas doubling down on his help for the embattled Republican Herschel Walker of Georgia, who’s accused of paying for a former girlfriend’s abortion.

Cornyn instructed The Texas Tribune he nonetheless supports Walker, who’s working in Georgia towards incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a key race to the Republican plan to wrest management of the chamber. Democrats and Republicans every maintain 50 seats within the Senate, however Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris serves because the tie-breaker.

“I do support Herschel because he may well be the 51st Republican elected this cycle,” Cornyn mentioned in an interview Thursday. “I don’t think we can afford to pass on any one of these races.”

Walker has been on the heart of a political firestorm in current weeks over an allegation that the anti-abortion candidate paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, a declare The Daily Beast supported with a receipt from the abortion clinic, a $700 verify and a get-well-soon card signed by Walker. Walker denied paying for the abortion. Walker’s son has additionally publicly feuded with him, recently denouncing his campaign and arguing that the previous professional soccer star was not in his childrens’ lives, although he’s working on a marketing campaign backing conventional household values.

Cornyn has helped elevate practically $50,000 for Walker as a part of a fundraising effort, making Walker one of many challengers for whom Cornyn has raised probably the most cash to this point.

Cornyn, who spent 4 years because the chair of the Senate Republicans’ fundraising arm from 2009-13, mentioned he was not stunned by the allegations which have surfaced within the Georgia marketing campaign.

“They’re the product of opposition research. … That race is on a knife’s edge,” Cornyn mentioned. “People who have never run for office, their first-time experience is an eye opener. … It’s not all fun.”

Cornyn, who can also be anti-abortion, emphasised that he has no “personal knowledge” of the Walker abortion allegations however mentioned “there are a lot of things, both real and imagined, in peoples’ pasts that become campaign fodder.”

But it’s not simply Walker whom Cornyn has thrown his appreciable help behind. Through his Joint Fundraising Committee, the senator has raised $11 million, transferring funds to Senate incumbents and challengers in essential races across the nation.

This consists of $67,000 for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; $51,000 for Republican challenger Adam Laxalt of Nevada; $35,000 for candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio; and $32,000 every for Blake Masters of Arizona, Ted Budd of North Carolina and Dr. Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania during the last three months. He has additionally raised $7.9 million straight for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

This week Cornyn is sending over $125,000 to state GOP events with notably shut Senate races to assist with get-out-the-vote efforts, in line with an individual conversant in his political operation.

Cornyn mentioned he was “pretty optimistic” the GOP would win a majority within the Senate. He argued that Democrats have made a nasty calculation in hoping the abortion challenge would assist carry them by November, and mentioned excessive inflation, border safety and the motion to take funding away from police departments “have come home to roost.”

While the forecast for Republicans within the House has been rosy, the occasion’s prospect of capturing the Senate has been up within the air. Polling in key races suggests Democrats might have an opportunity to maintain their majority. The gloom has been aided by issues over the perceived weak point of some GOP candidates in high-stakes elections, together with Walker and Oz, who has been questioned over his residency in Pennsylvania, confronted allegations of killing dogs and other animals as a part of medical experiments at Columbia University, and are available below fireplace for promoting questionable medical products on his hit TV present.

But Cornyn’s intervention with fundraising is in pursuit of what he thinks is an pressing objective — reaching a divided authorities for the rest of President Joe Biden’s first time period.

“As Sen. [Mitch] McConnell [of Kentucky] likes to say, the best time to do hard things is with divided government,” Cornyn mentioned. “Where nobody can blame everything on other people and everyone sort of accepts responsibility for working together and trying to solve hard problems.”