Trump won't campaign with Herschel Walker in Georgia before the Senate runoff: NYT

• Trump won't appear with Herschel Walker in Georgia in advance of the Senate runoff, per the NYT.

• Trump will hold a call with GOP supporters and continue his fundraising appeals, per the report.

• The ex-president, a longtime friend of Walker, encouraged the ex-NFL player to enter the contest.

Former President Donald Trump won't travel to Georgia to stump for Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker, according to The New York Times.

Per Republican campaign officials who spoke with The Times, the Trump and Walker camps decided that an in-person visit from the former president might be too politically-risky.

While Trump won't visit the Peach State in the remaining days of the runoff to support Walker, whom he encouraged to enter the Senate race last year, the former president will still chime in on the contest.

Trump has planned a call with supporters in Georgia to continue boosting Walker in the race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the former president will continue to issue fundraising appeals to Republicans for the contest, according to two individuals with knowledge of the situation who spoke with the newspaper.

Over the past two years, there are fewer states other than Georgia where Trump has had such an oversized impact in state politics.

After winning Georgia in 2016, Trump narrowly lost the state to now-President Joe Biden in 2020, a defeat that he has continued to dispute, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

Trump sought to overturn Biden's statewide win after the November 2020 contest, pressuring Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to aid him in his plan, but both men rejected his demands.

Many Republicans continue to blame Trump for his involvement in the dual Senate runoff elections last year, when then-Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost to Democrats Jon Ossoff and Warnock, respectively, after the president questioned the integrity of the state's elections. The results of the January 2021 runoffs revealed sky-high enthusiasm from Democrats, while GOP turnout didn't match the levels needed to overcome the overwhelming vote totals that both Ossoff and Warnock received in the state's population centers, notably in metropolitan Atlanta.

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