How Herschel Walker’s Wife Tried—and Failed—to Profit Off His Campaign

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As college football legend Herschel Walker prepared to step into the Georgia Senate race in 2021, people close to him tried to talk him out of it—including his own wife.

It was risky, many people advised. They knew that the secrets lurking in Walker’s past could damage his very profitable brand. And there was no telling if he’d win or lose.

But according to five former campaign officials and advisers, Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, quickly became his Senate bid’s most vocal champion, only changing her tune after she saw an opportunity to turn a tidy personal profit from official campaign business.

Blanchard’s plan, according to these campaign sources, was to collect a commission from the campaign’s media buys. Essentially, these sources said, Blanchard believed she could strike an agreement with a media company that employed a friend of hers—and then collect a percentage of the profit through a private agreement.

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“It was clear from that point that Julie was going to be in charge,” one former adviser told The Daily Beast, echoing staff observations in numerous news reports. “The dangerous thing is she had no idea about what the fuck she was doing. She’s also got the worst political instincts of anyone I’ve ever met, and that’s a dangerous combination. It was clear she was just motivated by, ‘How can I control it? What are the ways I can make money?’”

But Blanchard’s gambit never came to fruition, these sources said, largely because the campaign shot down her attempts to carry out the scheme, but also because she never struck an agreement with the media company.

Blanchard—who dated Walker for more than a decade before marrying him in March 2021, about five months before he announced his candidacy—was a powerful and ubiquitous campaign figure from the start. But her inexperienced advice more often than not made things more difficult for the campaign.

Blanchard, believing Walker could take 50 percent of the Black vote, wanted the campaign to sink money into urban radio, three sources told The Daily Beast. Experienced GOP operatives pointed out that poll after poll showed there was little hope of making inroads with Black voters, and that the money was better spent wooing other demographics.

“Julie wanted Cardi B on the campaign trail,” another staffer previously told The Daily Beast, referring to the liberal hip-hop star from the Bronx. “The person who sings ‘Wet Ass Pussy,’ and you want to bring her on the campaign trail to appeal to conservatives, just because she tweeted that we’re in a recession?”

(Walker ultimately claimed 8 percent of the Black vote, according to CNN exit polls.)

But it was only after Blanchard’s concerns that a Senate campaign would damage Walker’s earning potential were allayed that she appeared to morph from a cautionary voice of reason into a fierce advocate for his Senate run, according to two people with direct knowledge of those early discussions.

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Both Walker and Blanchard were concerned that the demands and legal restrictions that come with running a campaign for federal office would tighten their cash flow, according to the five campaign sources. All five sources have knowledge of internal campaign discussions but would only speak to The Daily Beast under the condition that their names not be printed.

One of the chief concerns, all of these sources said, was the inevitable hit to Walker’s public speaking engagements and endorsement deals. Those gigs had provided the couple with a steady stream of income for years, and neither of them wanted to see it dry up—during the campaign, or potentially after.

And Walker officials and outside advisers were warning Walker from the start about potential conflicts.

“He gets paid to talk about himself and be a brand ambassador, but he wouldn’t have that opportunity as a candidate for office,” a former adviser told The Daily Beast. “If you win, you won’t have it as a senator, and if you lose, you won’t have it because you’ll be tarnished.”

“There were a few concerns about that,” another official said, referencing the speeches. “First, the campaign had no ability to control what he said and there was a chance his remarks would be recorded. Second, there were scheduling challenges with a Senate campaign. Finally, it couldn’t be risked that he appear to use paid speeches to advance a campaign.”

The couple, however, mostly disregarded this advice. Three campaign sources said that Walker and Blanchard—who had long acted as Walker’s business manager—just grew increasingly furtive about his public appearances.

Walker’s financial disclosures showed that his speaking gigs continued through summer 2022, though the regularity waned a bit. In the months before announcing his candidacy in Aug. 2021, Walker reported nine payments for paid speaking appearances, totaling $236,000. In the same approximate time frame for 2022, he reported seven gigs, for $221,000.

Blanchard additionally had more general fears about Walker jumping into the race, four of the people said, most specifically that certain skeletons in Walker’s closet would come out.

“She was absolutely adamant that he not run in the first place,” a former Walker adviser told The Daily Beast. “Adamant.”

But according to two sources with direct knowledge of discussions in the campaign’s formative days, once Blanchard understood the amount of money the campaign would raise, she changed her mind.

“In a meeting one day, she suddenly made clear to us that she thought she would be able to get points off of the media buys,” one source said, claiming that Blanchard had planned to funnel kickbacks to one of her companies. “If this was going to be a $100 million operation, then in her mind she deserved to get some of that money.”

Four of the sources said Blanchard made repeated attempts to direct campaign contracts to ICON International, who employed a friend she knew from her days selling billboard ads at CBS Outdoor more than a decade ago. But while that friend—Andy Campbell—had media experience, neither he nor his company had experience in the political sphere, according to the four people.

“We kept telling her that it just didn’t make any sense to hire them for this,” a former top adviser told The Daily Beast.

The campaign never contracted with Campbell or ICON, opting instead for trusted political firms, as reflected in the campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. However, on Dec. 18, 2022—12 days after Walker conceded his run-off defeat to Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock—Campbell received a $5,500 payment for “advertising” during the run-off.

Walker and Blanchard didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

Reached for comment, Campbell told The Daily Beast that he was “totally unaware” of Blanchard’s alleged plan. He added that it seemed “implausible” that Blanchard, with her own media background, would think she could take a commission from an international company like ICON. He also emphasized that ICON never conducted any business with the campaign.

But Campbell did acknowledge performing an independent review of campaign media strategy on Blanchard’s behalf. That review, he said, took place in the weeks before November’s general election—not, as the campaign’s expense report says, during the run-off.

“We have been best of friends for years. Julie asked me to check their buys to see my opinion on the quality of their work as a media professional,” Campbell told The Daily Beast. “They were using outdated Nielsen books, and I told Julie they should use accurate ratings books.”

Campbell continued that he made some station recommendations “for her media company to change based on updated information.”

“I never bought any media for their campaign or ever planned to,” he wrote in one text message. “It was just a suggestions/changes for her media firm to make.”

Campaign finance expert Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of watchdog group Documented, told The Daily Beast that kickbacks to a candidate’s spouse could violate the ban on personal use of campaign funds, and might also constitute a reporting violation.

“Campaign funds cannot be used for anybody’s personal benefit,” Fischer said. “Candidates must tread cautiously when hiring family members or friends. Any payments to family members must be for fair market value.”

Fischer added that violations would depend on the facts of each case, such as whether the vendor typically pays referral fees, and if the commission tracks with similar referrals.

“But if the vendor doesn’t typically offer referral fees, then paying a kickback to the candidate’s spouse would likely violate the ban on personal use of campaign funds,” Fischer said.

Either way, despite Blanchard’s wishes, the plan didn’t work, and therefore, there never was any kickback.

The campaign’s final FEC reports show a $158,000 debt to Texas-based media contractor Scott Howell, as well as around $74,000 to a company called Battleground Connect, for text messaging services. Battleground Connect is owned by Walker’s campaign manager, Scott Paradise, and is among a handful of vendors the campaign hired for the service.

Campbell’s independent audit reflects some of the paranoia that Blanchard and Walker both exhibited about the campaign’s contracting decisions, as described by all five sources. They appeared to endorse and even intensify that paranoia in each other.

“They would just fuel their own worst instincts,” a former adviser told The Daily Beast, an observation the other sources echoed in interviews. “It was just the worst possible scenario.”