Walker cites mental health battle in new ad amid fallout from allegations

Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker discusses his past battle with mental health in an ad released Wednesday amid fallout over allegations that the GOP candidate paid for a former girlfriend’s abortion.

“As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health. I even wrote a book about it. And by the grace of God, I’ve overcome it,” Walker says in the ad, referencing his 2008 memoir “Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder.” 

The former football star was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder “as a result of trauma he experienced in childhood,” according to his campaign site.

The ad released Wednesday is Walker’s first since The Daily Beast reported earlier this week that Walker, who has campaigned as an opponent of abortion, encouraged a then-girlfriend to get an abortion in 2009 and reimbursed her.

The Hill has not independently verified the report, and the Senate candidate has vehemently denied the allegations.

In the new ad, called “Grace,” Walker knocks his Democratic opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, accusing him of “running a nasty, dishonest campaign” and asserting that the Democrat “doesn’t even believe in redemption.” Walker concludes by saying he has been “saved by grace.”

Walker, who is running on a “conservative family values” platform that is “pro-life and pro-family,” dropped behind Warnock in an InsiderAdvantage-Fox 5 poll conducted a day after the allegations were published, stoking Republicans’ concerns about the already tight Georgia race.

The Republican Party has closed rank to defend Walker after the report, while accusing the media of stirring the pot five weeks out from the election.

Former President Trump issued a statement Tuesday saying Walker “is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats.”