How Our Midterm Forecast Takes Candidates’ Scandals Into Account

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia who has campaigned on being anti-abortion, paid for his then-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has denied the allegation. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses how the scandals surrounding Walker have evolved over the course of his Senate campaign and how this could affect the outcome of the race. They break down how candidate misconduct is generally factored into the FiveThirtyEight model and if this newest allegation will even be considered a scandal by the model’s standards.