Scott Walker’s billionaires are intervening in a big way to revive the campaign of the Wisconsin governor, whose polling numbers are sliding in the summer of Trump.
{mosads}The super-PAC backing Walker’s run for president – Unintimidated PAC – is about to launch a $16.25 million advertising blitz in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. The new spending plans were first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday evening.
Recent polls suggest Walker needs the help. The governor has fallen well off the lead in Iowa, and is struggling to thread the needle between mainstream conservative policies and Donald Trump’s hard-line positions and bombastic rhetoric that’s exciting the Republican base.
Immigration has been a particular headache. Walker has been criticized for struggling to explain his position on whether he would amend the Constitution to revoke birthright citizenship — initially he indicated he would, but he now says he has no plans to repeal the 14th Amendment.
Walker has also been criticized for being open to the idea of building a wall along the U.S. border with Canada to keep out illegal immigrants — after initially describing the idea as a “legitimate issue for us to look at,” Walker has since disassociated himself from the concept.
Walker’s supporters hope that multimillion-dollar ad buys will reverse his fortunes.
Taken as a whole, this new super-PAC spending is aggressive, given that the total represents more than 80 percent of the $20 million in contributions disclosed by the pro-Walker PAC in its Federal Election Commission report on June 30.
It’s unknown how much more cash Walker’s super-PAC has raised since the mid-year report, but if it is to continue its spending momentum Unintimidated’s fundraisers will need to source more willing billionaires.
The PAC’s initial haul contained $5 million from Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks and a combined $5 million from the family of Joe Ricketts, founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade.
In early August, Unintimidated PAC announced the first phase of its paid media strategy designed to introduce Walker to voters: A $7 million base buy in Iowa which starts on Tuesday and runs through caucus day on Feb. 1. The first ad was released on Thursday.
The second phase is a $9.25 million buy that expands the playing field for Walker well beyond Iowa by ensuring that voters in each of the February caucus and primary states are familiar with his record.
According to a source familiar with the Walker super-PAC, most of that new money will go to ads blanketing all major markets in South Carolina, a state that Walker’s advisers believe will respond favorably to the governor’s conservative record. More than $8 million will be spent in South Carolina, while more than $700,000 will go to New Hampshire and more than $400,000 to Nevada.
The decision by Walker’s supporters to stack so much money in South Carolina and Iowa shows they believe his chances hinge on these two early voting states, where more conservative candidates perform better than moderates. In the 2012 primary and caucus season, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich won Iowa and South Carolina respectively, while the more centrist Mitt Romney won New Hampshire and Nevada.
Rescuing Walker in Iowa is crucial as his polling numbers there have fallen rapidly over the past month, while those of Donald Trump and Ben Carson have risen over the same period.
As recently as Aug. 3, Walker was leading among Republican candidates in Iowa with 20.5 percent of the vote, based on RealClearPolitics’ average of Iowa polls. But a month later, on Sep. 2, Walker had fallen to 7.5 percent leaving him fourth behind Ted Cruz (8 percent), Ben Carson (18.3 percent) and Donald Trump (23.3 percent).
Asked about the pro-Walker super-PAC’s new advertising, an adviser to Unintimidated PAC, Brad Dayspring, said: “Governor Walker is known for taking on the big government union bosses and liberal special interests…
“But it’s his results of turning deficits into surpluses, returning surpluses to taxpayers with billions in tax cuts, expanding school choice, and fighting to make government unions pay their fair share like the rest of us that separate him from other candidates.”