Former Walker officials say they won’t vote to reelect Wisconsin GOP governor

Three of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s former secretaries said in a letter that they won’t be voting for him in the coming election.

Paul Jadin, who previously served as the first secretary of Walker’s economic development agency, made the announcement in a letter released to The Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday, which was also co-signed by former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall and former Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten.

{mosads}In the letter, the former secretaries said they had initially signed onto to join Walker’s administration with a “fervent belief” that the Wisconsin Republican wanted to improve the state.

But they went on to claim that it became clear to them over time that Walker’s “focus was not on meeting his obligations to the public but to advancing his own political career at a tremendous cost to taxpayers and families.”

They also wrote that they will not be voting for the governor in the coming election due to the Republican’s handling of transportation, education and safety issues in addition to “pervasive questionable practices within the administration.”

“Governor Walker has consistently eschewed sound management practices in favor of schemes or coverup and has routinely put his future ahead of the state.” the letter continued. “The result is micromanagement, manipulation and mischief. We have all been witness to more than our share of this.”

The governor’s campaign issued a statement to the local outlet praising the work of the economic development agency since Jadin left and called it a “successful public-private partnership” that has been “the linchpin to huge wins and good-paying jobs in the Wisconsin Comeback, including bringing Amazon, Haribo and Foxconn to Wisconsin.”

However, the campaign’s statement did not address the criticisms made by Walker’s former secretaries in the letter.

The letter comes not long after another ex-Cabinet official of the Walker administration, former Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb, came out against the governor in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and accused him of being dishonest when it comes to road funding.

The announcement also arrives as Walker continues to trail behind state schools superintendent Tony Evers in the polls, with a recent NBC News–Marist poll showing the Republican incumbent 10 points behind in his reelection bid.