Clip: How will Herschel Walker's abortion allegations impact Senate race in Georgia?

Yamiche Alcindor : That Election Day. Midterm Election Day is just 32 days away and several key Senate races are heating up.

In Georgia, there was an October surprise. Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate, is now fighting accusations of hypocrisy, after campaigning on family values and against abortion, without exceptions for rape or incest. This week in interviews with the Daily Beast and the New York Times, a woman who says she is the mother of one of Herschel Walker's children's said he paid for her to have an abortion when she was pregnant with his child in 2009. Walker's son Christian, a conservative social media influencer, also accused his father of domestic violence, including threatening to kill him and his mother. Herschel Walker is calling all of these allegations a "lie". Take a listen to what he told me when I was reporting in Georgia.

Yamiche Alcindor : What's your reaction to people so close to you saying don't trust you?

Herschel Walker : Well, just like what I just said, the Democrats are desperate for this seat. This seat is important. They’re very desperate for this seat. I love my family, I always love my family. I'm going to win this race.

Yamiche Alcindor : I'm going to win this race. That's what Herschel Walker is sticking to.

Meanwhile, in battleground states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Republicans are on the offense, filling airwaves with ads attacking Democrats as soft on crime.

Claudia, first of all, thanks for being here to your Washington Week debut. I'm very happy to have you here. There is a lot going on in Georgia. I mean, there is just so much going on in Georgia. I was talking to voters and, Wow, this is sort of making waves. People are in their camps. I had a Republican woman tell me, even if these are true, even if all of this is believable, she still voted for Herschel Walker, because he is an opponent of abortion rights now. What do you make of how this is playing out, and what it says about sort of where we are right now?

Claudia Grisales, Congressional Correspondent, NPR : Right. We are in a very different place. Previously, a report like this could sink a candidate's campaign. But, we're not seeing that right now, as you heard when you were in Georgia, that they're very loyal in terms of what party they're following, even if you have a bombshell of a story come out like this October surprise for Walker, it's not going to deter some of these voters who are very loyal to their party.

At the same time, there could be some voters on the fence in Georgia who are thinking maybe I'm not so motivated to go out and vote for Walker at this point or a Democrat that's more energized now to vote against him. So, it's tricky times. But, in terms of making predictions, as we did in the old days of saying "this would sink a campaign", that may not be the case.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Jonathan, 'tricky times' is the way that Claudia is describing the political moment that we're all living through. Now, it's interesting because while national Republicans are sticking with Herschel Walker, at least there is some daylight there with state Republicans, the Georgia Lieutenant Governor saying even the staunchest Republicans are rattled by what they saw. They say that the baggage might be unbearable. What do you make of what this -- how this is playing out and what it means for sort of midterm politics overall?

Jonathan Lemire : Yeah. The Georgia Lieutenant Governor, a Republican, has been sort of a lone voice, though, in suggesting that that moment was too big for Walker, and that, yes, he was not perhaps a qualified candidate. He was only on the ballot because he scored a bunch of touchdowns for the University of Georgia. Well, Walker, as you know, was asked to respond. He didn't know who the lieutenant governor was, which goes to show, perhaps, his political acumen.

But, largely, Republicans are rallying around Walker, Republican voters too, those you spoke to but also Walker has seen a huge surge in donations this week since these stories came out and he has gone on the offensive. He is put out an attack ad, claiming that his opponent, Democrat Senator Reverend Warnock, is misrepresenting Walker's record. That's not the case either.

But, I think what we're seeing, though, is a natural narrowing of these races here. Polls have tightened. They've tightened in Georgia. They've tightened in Pennsylvania. We have close races in Wisconsin, Ohio. Arizona is only a few points. It's a 50:50 Senate right now. And, Democrats felt really good most of the summer with the winds at their backs, a lot of legislation passed. It does feel like though Republicans sense that they've got a bit of momentum at the moment, as the national conversation turns to, they think, issues that are good for them, mostly inflation, the economy, also crime. I think the only safe prediction here in this tricky moment is that all these rates are going to be close, and we're going to have a late election night.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Seung Min, we covered the former President Trump together. He weathered so many scandals. He sort of, in some ways, has a legacy of you can stick around, don't quit, wait around, maybe your party will come back around for you. What do you make of sort of what's going on here? It might not maybe these scandals don't matter as much as they used to.

Seung Min Kim : Well, I think if there is a political lesson, the strategic lesson that the Republican Party learned after 2016 and the Access Hollywood tape, is that at this point in the race, when most of the parties, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, are kind of wearing their partisan jerseys and in their partisan corners, you stick by your candidate. If there are claims, you deny them, despite all the evidence that we're seeing otherwise of the corroboration that we're seeing from other news organizations, because, a, it's obviously too late in the season to replace them on the ballot. And, b, you don't want to risk punish -- your base voters punishing you for kind of ditching your candidate at this stage in the game.

But, I think it's fair to say that Republicans are rattled in the sense that they don't know what's coming next. Obviously, we had another news organization put more light to these allegations from this woman earlier tonight. And, we don't know what's going to drive with the Walker campaign over the next days and weeks.

Yamiche Alcindor : It has been a drip, drip, drip, and you're talking about the New York Times reporting that this woman who said she was -- said he paid for an abortion, tried to get her to abort the child that she ultimately ended up having in 2011.

Ariane, I want to bring you in because part of the reason why abortion is such a big topic is because the Supreme Court last term --

Ariana De Vogue, Supreme Court Reporter, CNN : Yeah.

Yamiche Alcindor : -- overturned Roe v. Wade. What do you make of the significance of -- and the role that the Supreme Court is playing in its decisions?

Ariana De Vogue : Right. From my perspective, so much of the -- what happened at the Supreme Court last term is playing out now start -- you talked earlier about crime. The Second Amendment the court issued that big opinion last year. Just yesterday, a New York Court struck down a concealed carry law, and that was cited -- and they cited over and over again that Supreme Court decision. And then, when you look at the issue of abortion, and you see how quickly that landscape changed, how quickly the midterm outlet was definitely changed by that. And, you see really how the court, that doesn't like to be in the political arena, is there.

And, I think Samuel Alito was interesting last term, because he wrote that opinion. And, one of the things he said is, look, we're taking abortion out of the legal realm into the political realm. If women want to do something about it, we'll go to vote. Well, Biden just a few weeks ago, at a campaign, sites Alito and says see what Alito said women come out and vote, which is so interesting to see. Alito, the last place he'd want to be, right, is in the middle of a get out the vote speech, and there he was.

Yamiche Alcindor : It's certainly sort of head spinning --

Ariana De Vogue : Yeah.

Yamiche Alcindor : -- in some ways. Jonathan, of course, while Democrats want to talk about abortion, Republicans really want to focus on inflation. This week, we saw some news out of OPEC. What's the White House saying about gas prices possibly going up, and sort of the impact that they have on the midterms?

Jonathan Lemire : Oh, they are deeply --

Yamiche Alcindor : Go ahead.

Jonathan Lemire : Yeah. They are deeply worried about it, Yamiche. She does have -- Ron Klain told me months ago, the first thing he does every morning, even before he checks to see if he has heard from the president, is check the price of gas. They know that gasoline is the one consumer item that every Americans care how much it costs, in part because we all know what it costs. It's advertised on the side of highways. It's on billboards on every road in America, seemingly. And, as though, inflation has certainly impacted a lot of consumer goods.

Gasoline is front of mind. We know the price went down considerably over the summer. It has started to creep back up. And, this news from OPEC Plus met with great frustration from the White House. First of all, it is seen as a helping hand to Russia. We've just discussed. There were effort, we know, that the president traveled to Saudi Arabia in July, that infamous fist bump with a controversial Crown Prince MBS. They feel like, well, what do we get for that? They're angry. In fact, there is members of Congress who are calling about taking stiff action here against Saudi Arabia for doing so.

But, in terms of electoral terms, gas prices are going to go up. They're going to go up again in these next few weeks, and without fair or not, the party in power tends to pay the price. And, that's Democrats. White House is not happy.

Yamiche Alcindor : Definitely not happy about that, the White House. Claudia, I want to bring you in, because there is also, of course, these ads that are going out. Republicans are running ads on crime, but they're also targeting the first Latina elected to the Senate, and that, of course, being Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. You've been doing some reporting about ads, and, of course, the significance of the Latino vote here. Talk about what's going on.

Claudia Grisales : Right. She is vulnerable in Nevada. And, part of the problem that we're seeing here is that Democrats have long seen Latinos as allies in terms of voters. But, a lot of Latino voters are saying, no, you cannot assume we're a monolith that we're going to be voting for Democrats. Some are frustrated and feel left behind. I did some reporting in Texas earlier this year, where I heard from Latino voters who were worried about border issues and immigration.

And, there was a big warning, beginning with Biden's presidency, that this president needed to address immigration or they were going to lose Latinos along the way. And, immigration has not been addressed, and that's the price they could pay come November, they could lose some of these voters in Nevada and in Texas, for example, that they previously may have enjoyed their support before. So, it's a reminder that this is a tough issue for Democrats right now.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Claudia is talking about the role that President Biden might play, Seung Min. President Biden, in some ways, wants to be inserting himself into the midterm races. He wants to be helping out. But, there are some candidates who are actually trying to avoid him. Talk a little bit about that.

Seung Min Kim : There are many candidates who aren't really eager to see President Biden out on the campaign trail, or whatnot. I thought it was really interesting how the Democratic Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly, in his debate last night with Republican Blake Masters, he pushed back several times, particularly on immigration, the immigration policies of this administration. So, the White House, President Biden, has to find other unique ways to help out Democratic candidates. Obviously, one way is doing a lot of fundraising. He has really picked up the pace of those events over the last several -- over the last several days and weeks. And, other is just, kind of, doing official events, doing official actions that are -- they aren't political, but also they are kind of helpful to these candidates at home.

We had President Biden travel to New York yesterday, part of the -- part of his travel was the fundraisers that made so much news last night, but also was to tout the benefits of his semiconductor, allow the CHIPS law and touting jobs and investment in New York. Some, House candidates, some targeted by Republicans, showed up for that as well. So, you see how the White House has to be very careful and deliberate in a political environment where while President Biden's approval ratings had been ticking up a little bit, but here he is still significantly underwater, especially in these key states.