Trump booster Herschel Walker skipped voting in 2016 when future president was on the ballot, records show

Herschel Walker did not cast a presidential vote in 2016 despite talking up the eventual winner, Donald Trump. And with the exception of 2020, Walker has not pulled the lever in any election since at least 2003, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

Trump, who left office in January after one term, is pushing Walker to challenge Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia in 2022. A football star at the University of Georgia in the early 1980s, and later professionally, Walker could be formidable. But other than voting last November in Tarrant County, Texas, where the Republican has lived for several years, voting records there and in Dallas County, Texas, where Walker resided previously, show no evidence of participation in any election over nearly two decades.

Indeed, records show Walker was not registered to vote in Tarrant County, where he has lived since 2011, until Aug. 26, two days after he delivered a well-received speech on Trump’s behalf at the 2020 Republican convention that renominated the 45th president. Records show Walker had last registered to vote in Dallas County in 2003 but do not show evidence that he ever participated in an election during his time living there.

Meanwhile, Walker has publicly criticized people who do not vote but complain about the government. “I’m tired of listening to people saying, ‘Well, I didn’t vote’ — well, if you didn’t vote, how can you have an opinion?” Walker said in a 2017 interview in which he praised the United States military, answered questions about Trump, and urged voters to “get rid of people in Congress.”

Neither Walker nor his representatives could be reached for comment Wednesday. But former Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican supportive of Trump and Walker, suggested the former star athlete’s thin voting history might work in his favor. “This underscores his outsider credentials,” Kingston said.

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“Herschel’s not a political activist,” the former congressman added. “But he is someone who loves Georgia and the United States of America and feels compelled to run because of the horrible policies the Biden administration is pushing.”

With Trump’s encouragement, Walker, 59, a successful businessman since his playing days ended and personally charismatic, is mulling a bid for Senate but keeping his deliberations private.

If the Republican decides to run, he must move his full-time residence to Georgia to be an eligible Senate candidate and submit his extensive business holdings to public scrutiny via federally mandated financial disclosures. Because Walker has the strong support of the former president, other high-profile Republicans who might run are in a wait-and-see mode, uninterested in running against a Trump-endorsed candidate in the GOP primary.

Should Walker pull the trigger, a Republican competitor might attack him from the right by raising his sparse voting history or pointing out that he said nice things about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on the eve of the 2016 election. In an interview with TMZ just before Election Day that year, Walker made his pitch to elect Trump and urged nonwhite voters to support the future president, saying he would “fight for this country.”

But toward the end of the interview, Walker added: “I think Hillary Clinton will fight as well. I’m not here to come down on her. She’s got a lot of experience — she has a lot of experience, she’s a good woman, I know the family. But I’m just here to say, we’ve been asking for a change, and this is our opportunity to get that change.”

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Tags: News, Campaigns, 2022 Elections, Georgia Senate, Herschel Walker, Donald Trump, Georgia

Original Author: David M. Drucker

Original Location: Trump booster Herschel Walker skipped voting in 2016 when future president was on the ballot, records show