The mother of Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker has disputed her son’s claims that his grandmother was a “full-blooded Cherokee” and that he is himself an Indigenous American.
Mr Walker, who achieved fame as a running back for the University of Georgia and is attempting to parlay his football success into a political career in his home state, discussed his family’s purported indigeneity at a small campaign event in Forsyth, Georgia last month.
“My mom just told me that my mom, grandmother, was full-blood Cherokee,” Mr Walker said at the event. “So I’m Native American!”
According to HuffPost, which reported Mr Walker’s comments in Forsyth, the Cherokee Nation has no record of Mr Walker as one its members.
What’s more, Mr Walker’s mother told HuffPost in a phone interview on Wednesday that she could not confirm her son’s claims about his grandmother and could only offer that she heard stories growing up that her own mother may have related in some way to Cherokee people.
“She was kin to Cherokee,” Christine Walker said. “Back when I was a little child running around, she was kin to the Cherokee.”
Ms Walker said she doesn’t know how far back her apparent Cherokee ancestry might go.
“See, my grandmother, she passed when I was quite young,” Ms Walker told HuffPost. I don’t know too much about how she was connected.”
It is not uncommon for Americans, including American politicians, to claim Indigenous ancestry with scant evidence as a means of claiming an authentic American past and absolving themselves for the crimes that the US has perpetrated against Indigenous peoples and nations.
Sen Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts similarly claimed Cherokee ancestry and took a DNA test prior to her run for president in 2020 to prove her claim, a move that was widely regarded as harmful. She later apologised.
“We are encouraged by this dialogue and understanding that being a Cherokee Nation tribal citizen is rooted in centuries of culture and laws not through DNA tests,” Cherokee Nation spokesperson Julie Hubbard said in the wake of Ms Warren’s apology. “We are encouraged by her action and hope that the slurs and mockery of tribal citizens and Indian history and heritage will now come to an end.”
Mr Walker has made dubious claims about his Indigenous heritage throughout the campaign. In January, he claimed in a campaign event in Athens that his mother is “40 per cent” Indigenous. He repeatedly claimed at campaign events throughout the spring that his mother is part Indigenous, and in June told a crowd in College Park that he found out that he is “part Native American” through a 23andMe test.
The former football star has repeatedly faced claims that he is serially dishonest throughout the campaign. Most recently, Mr Walker, who opposes abortion rights, has denied that he paid for a former girlfriend to get an abortion despite significant evidence that he did exactly that.
The Republican has trailed in recent nonpartisan polls to incumbent Democratic Sen Raphael Warnock, the pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church who first won a special election for the seat in 2020.
