Six days before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff, Republican candidate Herschel Walker is facing mounting questions about his residency. 


What You Need To Know

  • Six days before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff, Republican candidate Herschel Walker is facing mounting questions about his residency

  • He has claimed he's maintained a residence in Atlanta, but a financial disclosure form Walker filed shows the home generated between $15,001 and $50,000 in rental income in 2021

  • Last week, CNN first reported that Walker is still receiving a homestead exemption on his Texas home, a tax break intended for primary residences

  • And then on Wednesday, CNN unearthed a January speech at the University of Georgia in which Walker said he lives in Texas and that he’s given at least four media interviews from his Texas home since announcing his Senate candidacy

What's clear is Walker lived in Westlake, Texas — a Dallas suburb — before running for Senate in his native state of Georgia. The former NFL star, however, has claimed he’s maintained a residence in Atlanta for at least 17 years.

He listed the Atlanta home as the address for his Senate campaign in his initial filing in August 2021 with the Federal Election Commission. But according to multiple reports, Walker reported on a financial disclosure form required for Senate candidates that the home generated between $15,001 and $50,000 in rental income in 2021. 

Fulton County tax and property records show the home is solely owned by Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, who previously shared the house with her ex-husband and has kept it in her name since their divorce.

The revelations were first reported by The Daily Beast

Last week, CNN first reported that Walker is still receiving a homestead exemption on his Texas home, a tax break intended for primary residences. 

And then on Wednesday, CNN unearthed a January speech at the University of Georgia in which Walker, former President Donald Trump's hand-picked candidate in the Georgia Senate race, said he lives in Texas and that he’s given at least four media interviews from his Texas home since announcing his Senate candidacy.

“I live in Texas,” Walker, who played for the Dallas Cowboys, said in the January speech. “I went down to the border off and on sometimes.”

Earlier in the speech, he said he was motivated to run for the Senate while “I was sitting in my home in Texas and I was seeing what was going on in this country.”

The U.S. Constitution only requires that senators live in the state they represent at the time of their election. Georgia law has more than a dozen stipulations when it comes to candidate residency, including where they take their homestead exemption, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Georgia resident Ann Gregory Robert filed a complaint this past weekend asking the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open an inquiry into whether Walker committed a felony by voting in Georgia while claiming a homestead exemption in Texas. Some Democrats also have called on the GBI to investigate whether Walked voted illegally in the state or falsely attested that he was resident there. 

Even if Walker is legally in the clear, questions about his residency could undermine his assertions about his strong ties to Georgia. He has said one reason he is running for office is because he’s “Georgia born, Georgia bred, and when I die, I’ll be Georgia dead.”

Walker’s campaign did not respond to an email from Spectrum News seeking comment Wednesday on questions about his residency.

His opponent in next week’s election, Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, said in a tweet last week, “How can Herschel Walker represent Georgians when he doesn't even claim our great state as his primary residence?”

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