‘A Bunch of Vultures and Hyenas’ Have Hamstrung the Herschel Walker Campaign

Isaac SchorrDec 5th, 2022, 1:42 pm
 
Herschel Walker

Megan Varner/Getty Images

Republican politicians, operatives, and laymen alike are praying that the Georgia Senate runoff between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker won’t yield more disappointment after a lackluster midterm performance from their party. But the Walker campaign is concerned that certain party actors ostensibly committed to securing the former Heisman winner a spot in the upper chamber of Congress have hamstrung him, placing their own self-interest above the party’s success.

The debate over who to blame for the party’s failure to live up to red-wave expectations has been contentious. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) — “the only national organization solely devoted to strengthening the Republican Senate Majority and electing Republicans to the United States Senate” –unsuccessfully challenged Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the title of minority leader, in part because he was “deeply disappointed” with the results of the midterm elections.

On November 15, the same day that Scott announced his challenge, Steven Law, the CEO of the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a McConnell-aligned political action committee, criticized the NRSC for sending fundraising emails stressing the importance of Walker’s race, while pocketing 99 percent of the resulting donations and forwarding a paltry 1 percent on to the Walker campaign. According to Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times, this breakdown was acknowledged only in the fine print of the appeal.

“Good committees raise enough so that they don’t have to steal from their candidates,” Law said.

“The NRSC is coordinating closely with Herschel’s campaign on digital fundraising. We’re raising money directly into his campaign and into the building to spend in GA (we’ve been on the air since last week),” fired back NRSC communications director Chris Hartline, who previously served as Scott’s communications director before joining him at the NRSC. “SLF still isn’t up on the air. We look forward to you guys joining us.”

The email flagged by the Times wasn’t a one-off: On November 21, the NRSC sent another email imploring recipients to “make an emergency donation AS SOON AS POSSIBLE” to assist Walker. But the default split for donations again seemed to betray an ulterior motive: 98 percent of the funds raised were to be allocated to the NRSC, the Daily Beast first reported. One percent apiece was reserved for both Walker and Scott.

In response to a National Review blog post by this writer about the seemingly deceptive fundraising tactics, an operative who said she was “from the Walker campaign” provided a statement pushing back on the Daily Beast’s framing, though she didn’t deny the specifics of the fundraising split.

“The NRSC and Sen. Scott have been great partners and committed tens of millions in resources and staff to helping us win,” she said, adding that the NRSC and Walker campaign were working “hand in hand,” echoing language used by NRSC staff to defend the splits. It also bore similarities to what NBC’s Marc Caputo had been told by a “Walker campaign source,” after the controversy over the November 15 email. Nevertheless, despite its insistence that all was on the level, the NRSC reduced its cut of the 98-1-1 split shortly after it was reported on.

But new evidence indicates that the tail may be wagging the dog. Despite what both Caputo and I had been told, the Walker campaign is in fact frustrated by the behavior of the NRSC and others in the consultant class, who it sees as being interested in, but not prioritizing Walker’s success.

A source familiar with the Walker campaign’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity likened those raising money off Walker’s campaign to “a bunch of vultures and hyenas.” (The NRSC isn’t the only entity guilty of using Walker to raise funds for itself: Former President Donald Trump and Senators-elect J.D Vance and Ted Budd have sent out similarly deceptive solicitations touting the urgency of supporting Walker during his runoff.)

“It’s unimaginable that the campaign would be essentially negotiating against people on their own team,” the source said.

The operative who contacted me about the blog post — an outside consultant and business associate of the Republican consulting firm OnMessage Inc. — misrepresented herself, the source with knowledge of the Walker campaign’s operations said. The campaign did not direct her to issue any statement to National Review endorsing the NRSC’s fundraising approach, (that decision was her own) and it does not represent the campaign’s view.

OnMessage received more than $74 million from Rick Scott during his 2018 campaign. This year, the NRSC, under Scott’s leadership, was the firm’s biggest federal client, per OpenSecrets. Scott’s campaign — he’s up for re-election in 2024 — was their fourth-biggest. Members of the firm, as well as of the NRSC, celebrated the statement on Twitter, characterizing the post at National Review and underlying Daily Beast story as “stupid” and “phony.”

Curt Anderson, a founding partner at OnMessage, mused that critics of the splits were “morons” with “no idea.”

The operative responded angrily to multiple requests for comment on whether she was performing contract work for OnMessage as part of its work for the NRSC, accusing my former employer of trying to re-elect Raphael Warnock, and neither confirming nor denying that she was working for OnMessage. The firm itself did not respond to a request for comment.

A vendor of the NRSC — or close associate of a vendor of the NRSC – it seems, had unilaterally issued a statement on behalf of the campaign, without approval, expressing its support for plainly unfavorable splits raised in its name.

The Walker campaign is not alone in their belief that the donation splits used by the NRSC are not in its best interest.

Bill Crane, a longtime GOP consultant in Georgia turned political commentator, noted during an interview that Warnock has been “dominant on the airwaves” and said that he believes the incumbent is on his way to a “pretty healthy win.”

Crane, who ran communications for two U.S. Senators and a governor, expressed disgust with the practice of “misstating what you’re fundraising for.”

“That’s wrong and should probably be criminal,” he argued.

Terry Sullivan, Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) campaign manager during his 2016 presidential bid, called disproportionate fundraising splits “insane” in comments to NBC News.

“Politics has always been full of grifters, and not to say these people are personally trying to profiteer, but what is the motivation if they’re doing a 90:10 split and using Herschel Walker’s name and they’re not telling him?” asked Sullivan.

The NRSC may have notified Walker’s team of the split, but that doesn’t mean that it was to their liking.

As a rule, campaigns generally prefer to have more money on hand to spend as they see fit, and Walker’s is no exception. While the NRSC can spend the money it collects through its emails on Walker, it is not obligated to do so, and has incentives not to. Per a mid-October FEC filing, the committee is in 20 million dollars of debt. “My understanding is they’re broke as shit,” deadpanned the campaign-connected source.

As of last week, the NRSC had spent a little more than $500,000 on television and radio advertising since the runoff began, according to AdImpact, and almost $700,000 in total advertising (including television and radio), according to Newsweek’s Nick Reynolds. Those numbers can be contrasted with the over $11 million spent on television advertising alone by SLF in the runoff period to that point.

The Walker campaign, the source said, believes that SLF’s spending, the largest of any outside group supporting Walker during the runoff, is “the only reason Herschel Walker is still alive.”

Even if the NRSC was spending everything it raised in Georgia on Walker’s race, though, the money would be better off in the campaign’s pocket since campaign-finance law dictates that campaigns themselves receive more favorable rates than PACs when purchasing television and radio air-time.

The fundraising splits are of course not just disadvantageous to Walker. They also take advantage of donors who believe their contributions are being put toward a pressing political race, when they may actually be put toward distant campaigns for different candidates or, alternatively, paying off the NRSC’s debts.

Hartline responded to a request for comment by pointing out that “the NRSC has spent $17.5 million (and counting) on TV, polling, Hispanic outreach and GOTV in Georgia” and “raised over $750k from our digital fundraising efforts to Herschel’s campaign.” Those numbers represent money spent throughout the entire campaign, not the runoff alone.

“Senator Scott has given $500k from his LPAC to the Super PAC supporting Herschel and maxed out to Herschel’s campaign from both his LPAC and Campaign. Senator Scott also maxed out to the GA Republican Party from his LPAC and just last week, gave six figures to the JFC [joint fundraising committee] supporting Herschel during the runoff from his LPAC,” he added.

There’s little doubt that both Scott and the NRSC have worked hard to elect Herschel Walker to the United States Senate. They spent millions on him during the first phase of the general election, and to this day, the NRSC has valuable staff members on the ground contributing in Georgia.

And yet, those efforts don’t explain the large discrepancy in the NRSC’s favor in some of the fundraising splits being used by the organization since the runoff began. Hartline declined to answer specific questions about the NRSC’s spending during the runoff period, the organization’s debt, and ethical concerns concerning the splits, instead noting that “there’s a variety of different splits on emails, depending on sender and content. Some have no split, some are 50-50, etc.”

“We’re working closely with Herschel’s campaign on all aspects of fundraising,” he repeated.

Although splits between campaigns and the NRSC are common, the ones being employed during the runoff period are notable for more than just the tiny fraction of money being sent directly to the Walker campaign. During the normal general election season, the NRSC has a number of different races to spread resources between, whereas right now, Walker’s race is the only outstanding contest.

Hartline professed not to see this distinction, asking instead whether it was difficult for me to understand “that the NRSC raising money and spending money in Georgia helps Herschel win.”

But others see the distinction quite clearly. Representative Austin Scott (R-GA) told Fox News Digital earlier this month that “other organizations are using this race to capture data and donors for themselves, while Democrats are sending hundreds of millions to Warnock.” Scott urged “people who want Herschel to win” to “give directly to Team Herschel.”

The Warnock campaign boasts a significant spending advantage that evidences Crane’s impression of the lay of the advertising land. Reservations show Warnock with a spending lead of somewhere around a $17 million from the start of the runoff through the December 6 election, according to AdImpact.

That gap could ultimately prove decisive, and to one extent or another, will be a consequence of involved GOP operatives whose primary objective at this point, despite their pleas otherwise, is not to send Herschel Walker to Washington.

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