When he launched his marketing campaign for U.S. Senate in Georgia, Herschel Walker claimed his deep roots within the state didn’t finish together with his days as a soccer legend on the College of Georgia.

It was extensively identified on the time that the Republican hopeful had been dwelling in Texas for many years, although he has claimed to keep up a residence in Atlanta for “17 years.” Much less extensively identified, nonetheless, was that Walker’s spouse collected tens of hundreds of {dollars} in rental earnings for that residence, in keeping with his 2021 monetary disclosure types.

The home doubled because the Walker marketing campaign’s first official deal with when he launched his bid in August 2021. Fulton County tax and property data present the house is solely owned by Walker’s spouse, Julie Blanchard, who additionally collected rental earnings from 2020 and 2021 starting from $15,000 to $50,000, in keeping with the disclosure—defining the asset as “Georgia residence.”

Blanchard’s firm additionally obtained a beforehand unreported $49,997 in COVID aid loans over that very same interval, at Walker’s Texas deal with, in keeping with federal information. On one since-revised monetary disclosure, Walker claimed the corporate had generated rental earnings for Blanchard, suggesting the corporate had an operational stake within the Atlanta property.

A Walker spokesperson didn’t reply to The Day by day Beast’s request for remark.

The rental earnings, which was earned between 2020 and 2021, suggests the Walkers had not solely not been dwelling in Georgia earlier than his marketing campaign, however hadn’t used the house for something however a passive money stream. That additional complicates the variegated story that Walker—a Georgia native and former Dallas Cowboy who has lived in Texas since stepping away from the NFL within the Nineteen Nineties—has informed about his relationship to the state he’s now vying to symbolize in Washington.

Residency points shadowed Walker’s marketing campaign even earlier than he declared his candidacy. He was firmly rooted in Texas when Donald Trump courted him to run in opposition to Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in 2022, and solely registered to vote in Georgia days forward of his official marketing campaign announcement. Since then, nonetheless, Walker has performed up his upbringing within the small central Georgia city of Wrightsville, alongside together with his soccer days at UGA.

However because the marketing campaign barrels in the direction of a Dec. 6 runoff battle, questions on Walker’s residency have intensified. Final week, CNN revealed that Walker had filed for a homestead exemption on his Dallas, Texas, residence in each 2021 and 2022, catching him in a tough place between tax regulation in Texas and election regulation in Georgia. (Native Atlanta station 11Alive Information beforehand reported he additionally obtained the exemption in 2020.)

The exemption netted Walker a $1,500 tax break, however required him to declare his suburban Dallas residence as his “principal residence.”

In a September interview from his Atlanta home, nonetheless, Walker informed the Black-owned outlet Rolling Out that he and his spouse had that property for “about 17 years.”

“It’s bizarre. We’ve had this residence right here for about 17 years. We’ve had this residence right here in Atlanta about 17 years,” he mentioned.

Walker’s identify doesn’t seem within the property data for the Atlanta residence. And people filings present that his spouse has really owned the house for for much longer than 17 years, along with her identify first showing in 1998, when her then-husband added her to the deed. She saved the home in her identify after their divorce.

In that interview, Walker went on to say he would “rarely” keep at that home when he was visiting the state, claiming he didn’t wish to “repair it up” each time he got here to city.

“What was unusual is, I sit on the board of resorts. And so after I’d come again to Atlanta, I rarely got here again to this home as a result of I’d keep on the lodge as a result of—not that I’m lazy—I didn’t wish to clear up,” Walker defined. “You realize, you open up a home, it’s important to repair it up and do all this, and so it’s simpler to remain at a lodge and never come to the home. So I mentioned that’s a little bit higher.”

An ex-girlfriend who lived in Atlanta and dated Walker between 2008 and 2011 informed The Day by day Beast that at any time when he got here to city, they might both meet at her place or a close-by Marriott lodge. In October, that very same ex-girlfriend got here ahead to say that Walker, an anti-abortion absolutist, had reimbursed her when she aborted their first being pregnant in 2009. He then urged her to have one other abortion in 2011, however she selected to have the kid.

Federal regulation doesn’t require Senate candidates to reside within the state they plan to symbolize till they’re elected. However below Georgia regulation, aspiring candidates should meet sure residency necessities earlier than they will run for workplace; these situations embrace the situation of any homestead tax exemption.

Whereas the main points surrounding Walker’s official standing with the state are nonetheless cloudy, voters should still choose the Republican extra harshly for it. For months, Democrats have made the residency challenge a focus of their bigger case that the Republican is unfit to symbolize the state within the Senate.

Sean Rayford/Getty Photographs

Nonetheless, Walker has managed to stiff-arm the carpetbagger prices, largely due to his soccer heroics at UGA within the early Eighties, which afforded him nearly unparalleled identify recognition in Georgia. And in a marketing campaign that has been extensively criticized for being gentle on coverage and heavy on scandal, Walker has relied on his fame of yesteryear as a central attraction to voters. He parlayed that superstar right into a slender loss within the common election in opposition to the Democratic incumbent, Warnock, performing properly sufficient to ship the competition to a runoff election.

It’s unclear when, or if, Walker met Georgia’s residency necessities for candidates, however his residency in Texas is well-documented.

Walker seems in Tarrant County property data way back to 1994, which additionally present his identify alongside Blanchard’s on a deed from 2011. That very same yr—when Walker urged one other girlfriend to have an abortion—Playboy reported that he and Blanchard have been engaged, although they didn’t get married till March 2021. And once they did get married, state data present, they did it in Texas.

Blanchard has additionally used their Texas deal with on federal types, itemizing it on marketing campaign donations she made by way of June 2021—after which she switched to Atlanta, in keeping with Federal Election Fee filings. She used the Texas deal with once more in a contribution from June 1 of this yr. (Walker’s private Fb web page nonetheless says he at the moment lives in Irving, Texas, one other Dallas suburb.)

That very same deal with additionally seems in federal COVID mortgage information, linked to about $50,000 in forgivable loans to a Delaware firm known as Consolidated Dealer Administration. In response to Walker’s monetary disclosures, Blanchard collects self-employment earnings from that firm, and he or she identifies herself as CBM’s “president” on her marketing campaign contributions.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Photographs

CBM collected two COVID loans by way of the Paycheck Safety Program, in keeping with federal information—one permitted in Might 2020 for $20,832, and one other the next March for $29,165 (as a “meals service contractor”). Each loans went to maintain one job, in keeping with data, they usually have each been forgiven in full. The corporate additionally obtained a $1,000 federal catastrophe help grant in April 2020.

In Walker’s first candidate monetary disclosure, Blanchard additionally claimed to have earned “rental earnings” by way of the identical firm. Nonetheless, that merchandise disappeared when Walker submitted an amended submitting a couple of months later, which now confirmed that his personal firm, H. Walker Enterprises, had been accumulating hire. It’s unclear whether or not both firm has a administration stake in any of their houses.

Final yr, Georgia election officers cleared Blanchard after an investigation into whether or not she might have improperly solid a poll within the state whereas claiming to reside in Texas.