Former President Donald Trump may "live to regret" some of his endorsements in the 2022 midterm elections after potentially damaging reports about two Republican Senate candidates endorsed by Trump surfaced recently.
Political experts who spoke to Newsweek on Tuesday said difficulties facing Pennsylvania candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and Georgia candidate Herschel Walker could potentially cost the GOP control of the chamber.
Walker has strongly denied a report by The Daily Beast that claimed he had paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend in 2009. The former football star has been outspoken in his criticism of abortion and said in a statement on Monday that the story was false and that he would sue.
Walker's son, Christian Walker, also criticized his father following The Daily Beast's report, claiming the Republican had "threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence."
It remains to be seen how the recent claims may affect the Georgia Senate race where Walker is in a close contest with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.
Separately, a report from Jezebel published on Monday reviewed 75 studies that had been published in academic journals and found that experiments that had been overseen by Oz had caused the deaths of at least 329 dogs as well as other animals.
Oz is running against Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman for an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, with a slew of recent polls showing him behind.
'I Told You So'
Critics who warned that some of the candidates backed by Trump could be a hard sell to voters may be proven correct, according to Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had previously called into question the "quality" of some GOP candidates but has reportedly been working hard to get Republican nominees elected.
"With the midterms just a month away, a number of Trump-backed candidates seem to be hobbling toward the finish line," Gift told Newsweek. "Whether their flagging poll numbers are a function of poor campaigning, allegations of misconduct, or a broader electoral tide favoring Democrats, it's possible Trump may live to regret some of his most prominent endorsements."
Gift noted that during the primaries "many GOP leaders weren't thrilled when Trump decided to throw his backing behind candidates like Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker. They may now be in a position to say, 'I told you so.'"
Kissing the Ring
The former president's endorsements may be more about showing loyalty than the quality of the candidates, according to Mark Shanahan, an associate professor at the University of Surrey in the U.K. and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage.
"Trump has endorsed around 200 GOP candidates active in the midterms all across the country," Shanahan told Newsweek.
"But his endorsements are all about those candidates kissing the ring and professing fealty to the Trump lie," he said, referring to unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
"There is little apparent research from the former president into their ability, character or likely effectiveness in office," he added.
"Unsurprisingly, this is already revealing worrying aspects of some of these candidates, although the success rate of making it through primaries and being ready to face the wider electorate is very high for the club-Trump candidates," Shanahan said.
Shanahan also acknowledged that many Trump-backed candidates in deep red states would win and that would give the former president "more chance to brag and defend his bogus claim to the White House."
"The Trump base remains strong - but the Trump brand is weakened by every tabloid scandal his candidates are ensnared in, and even more so, by the creeping process of law," Shanahan said.
Democrats' Chances
Issues around candidate quality could be a major factor in helping Democrats retain control of the Senate after November.
"It's not that surprising, all things considered, that a number of Trumpian candidates are proving less than impressive," Robert Singh, a professor at the Department of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London, told Newsweek.
Singh said that candidate quality matters "especially in state-wide races such as the U.S. Senate or state governorships."
"Many of the Trump-backed candidates lack this. In some cases, such as Oz and Walker, they also bring to the table the double-sided nature of celebrity, much like Trump himself," Singh said.
"On the one hand, it provides name recognition, since being on the TV or in sports is watched by millions. On the other, it also brings notoriety, to the extent that some - by no means all - celebrities tend to have colorful lives," he added.
Singh said that how far this fame was likely to "endear them to voters is less than obvious."
"For some, the notoriety is already priced in," he said. "But in some cases, the activities are either just weird -Oz and dogs - or they suggest hypocrisy - Walker, in a party supposedly prizing traditional values, paying for an abortion after a Republican-appointed majority on the Court has overturned Roe v Wade."
"It suggests that the Democrats have a very good chance of keeping the Senate, at minimum," Singh said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
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