Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker suspended his presidential campaign on Monday evening. Walker’s presidential campaign lasted little more than two months total, as he entered the race in Waukesha, Wis., in July.
Walker said the GOP had gotten away from being the party that he admired when President Ronald Reagan led it.
“Today I’m being called to lead by helping to clear the field,” Walker said at the press conference. “With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately. I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same, so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front-runner.”
Walker added that he believes the party needs to be “for” something rather than devolve into personal attacks at one another. He listed the values he believes to be the true components of the Republican Party before adding with a smile, “These ideas will make our country great again.”
The governor canceled an event in California after last week’s presidential debate, and did not appear at another campaign event in Michigan this weekend. The Washington Examiner reported that the governor’s allies were calling for major changes at the top of his campaign — including bringing the people leading the super PAC supporting Walker to the presidential campaign.
Rumors then began to swirl that the governor’s donors were looking elsewhere, and some expressed their desire to do so publicly. Rick Wiley, Walker’s campaign manager, publicly stated that he was not leaving the campaign. He was scheduled to attend a forum of presidential campaign managers hosted by National Review on Monday evening, but did not appear.
A prominent donor to Walker then appeared on Fox News moments after getting off the phone with the governor before his big announcement.
“The governor recognizes the need to be a ‘team Republican,'” said Anthony Scaramucci in an interview with Fox News after getting off the phone with the governor before the announcement was made public. “I’m saddened by the decision, but I recognize why he did it. … He’s a young man he’s going to live to fight another day.”
When the news broke that Walker, who was tenth in the Washington Examiner’s power rankings, would drop out on Monday afternoon, other campaigns expressed shock.
“Well it is surprising, I think these campaigns are tough,” said Danny Diaz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign manager, at an event hosted by National Review in Washington, D.C. “I think Scott Walker is a good guy and we’ll see what the news is that’s coming out of this.”
Walker’s political opponents rushed to gloat at the demise of the governor’s presidential campaign.
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who had called Walker a “national disgrace” when the governor launched his campaign this summer, said in a statement, “Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national.”
In an interview published by Bloomberg Politics on Monday morning, Walker explained that his campaign was tossing its nationwide strategy, but downplayed the campaign’s money woes.
“We’re on pace to do things right,” Walker told Bloomberg Politics. “We’re not going to have a 50-state strategy right now.”
By the day’s end the governor’s campaign was finished. He joins former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who dropped out ten days ago, as the first major GOP candidates to drop out of the race.
