Herschel Walker, a football legend in the state of Georgia, is running for the U.S. Senate against Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who currently holds the seat after winning it in 2020.

Walker is beloved throughout the state for his time as a running back for the University of Georgia, where he won a Heisman in 1982. He has statewide name recognition, is running as a Republican, and he has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

But, lurking in the shadows are very serious allegations of domestic violence, as well as his own admissions in his autobiography.

Those allegations are part of an ad dropped against Walker by Gary Black’s campaign. Black, currently the Commissioner of Agriculture in Georgia, is looking to knock Walker out of the top spot ahead of the primaries in Georgia and be the Republican nominee going up against Warnock. Right now, the most recent poll has Walker up 58 points over Black (66-8), and that gap has been fairly consistent, but Black is hoping to make a pretty significant dent with attack ads.

The ad in question brings up police reports and media coverage of Walker’s most disturbing incidents.

You may find the ad brutal, dark, or even distasteful, but the fact of the matter is that Walker will be facing a lot more of it going forward.

Walker is probably not the perfect candidate, and Black’s ad points that out. It’s presented as a “What happens if Herschel Walker wins the Republican nomination?” ad, then shows what Democrats will be saying. Which is 100 percent true, by the way, but it’s a little too clever. We know it’s not just Democrats, but Black (and other Republicans) who want to drop this bit of oppo against Walker.

For Black, it’s an opportunity to try to knock Walker out of first place, but it’s going to take a lot to do that – Walker’s consistently polling upwards of 55 points over every other Republican candidate.

For Walker, this ad is an opportunity his campaign needs to take advantage of. You know full-well this is going to be the line of attack going forward and, frankly, it’s the best one they have against Walker. It can be seriously effective, but seeing these attacks now will better help the campaign (and the candidate) come up with a way to navigate through the attacks and Walker can potentially come out better for it.

That is, assuming, the Walker campaign is being competently run. That’s still somewhat of a mystery, and this ad will serve as a test of that, too.

Black’s ad is not out of bounds, though I’m not really that much of a fan of these kinds of attacks. But it does raise real questions that need to be addressed. And, they need to be addressed sooner rather than later.