Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Herschel Walker hasn’t lived in Georgia for decades. He’s never held public office, doesn’t attend the sort of Republican events that are mainstays on the political calendar and has bypassed the backslapping fundraising circuit that helps decide winners and losers in the state’s premier races. And yet Walker is viewed by many Republicans as the front-runner in next year’s GOP primary to challenge U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, even though he hasn’t yet entered the race that other contenders joined weeks ago. Walker’s sudden rise in Georgia politics from his estate in Texas has alternately energized, mystified and frustrated state conservatives who see the football great’s potential candidacy as a chain reaction of events that could only play out in the Donald Trump era. It was Trump who publicly urged Walker to run shortly after his own election defeat, saying his old friend would be ‘unstoppable.’ And it was Trump last week who said on a conservative radio show that Walker was readying to run.”

“Walker’s potential candidacy triggers more questions than a conventional candidate would face, some more freighted than others. His history of mental illness, including violent episodes he’s publicly addressed, will be invoked by rivals from both sides of the party divide. And he must move to Georgia from Texas, where he’s lived most of his adult life, to woo a conservative base that knows him for his athletic legend – and not for his ability to connect with voters, his grasp of policy ideals or his prowess on the campaign trail. ‘Herschel Walker will need to come back to Georgia and campaign. He will need to show that he is a conservative,’ Doug Collins, a former Republican congressman and 2020 Senate candidate, said on his radio show. ‘I have never heard Herschel Walker’s position on pro-life. I haven’t,’ Collins said. ‘I’ve never heard his position on gun control. I’ve never heard his position on a lot of these issues that are conservative issues.'”