Why Walker rates as a contender, Trump doesn’t
The billionaire may be a household name while Wisconsin’s governor is a relative unknown, but that could help him in this crowded field. Many have made up their minds about Trump, but Walker has potential to shape people’s impressions of him.
Who’s a contender? Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Monday became the 15th prominent Republican to declare his candidacy for the 2016 presidential nomination, a field so crowded it takes a scorecard to keep up with all the names.
Though almost half of Americans say they’ve never heard of Walker or don’t know enough to have a view of him, other factors have vaulted the Badger State governor into the top tier of candidates from the start.
“We just have a government in Washington that can’t seem to get the job done,” he said to applause in Waukesha, Wis., where he announced his campaign. “The good news is that there is still time left to turn things around. To do this, we need new, fresh leadership. Leadership with big, bold ideas from outside of Washington.”
The question of which candidates warrant being taken seriously as prospective nominees is one confronting strategists, journalists and debate sponsors. Fox News, which will host the first GOP debate in three weeks, an-
nounced it will limit participation to those who rank among the top 10 in national polls.
Walker is a case study in why some of the candidates are able to hire the most respected strategists, draw support from the biggest donors and attract the most extensive news coverage when others can’t.
Though celebrity billionaire Donald Trump seems certain to make the cutoff to participate in the first debate next month, for instance, the conventional wisdom says there’s virtually no chance he’ll be on stage for the final debates next year, when the Republican nominee faces the Democratic one.
Trump and Walker are at opposite ends of the spectrum on a crucial measure: room to grow.
Among Republican primary voters, 21% told an NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll last month that they didn’t recognize Walker’s name. How many didn’t recognize Trump’s name? 0%.
Walker was considerably less well-known than other major contenders, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush (unknown by 2%) and even another relative newcomer, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (8%).
Walker’s obscurity is both a big asset and his chief vulnerability.
For Trump, his skill at commanding attention by expounding extreme views may be a prime asset, but it’s contributed to his status as someone who can affect the nomination debate but not win it. Voters already have made up their minds about Trump, and two-thirds of Republicans say they can’t see themselves supporting him for president. There’s a ceiling on his standing, even as the GOP field eventually gets smaller.
For Walker, only one in five say they couldn’t see themselves sup- porting him. Among Americans generally, national polls show four or five in 10 don’t know enough about the Wisconsin governor to have an opinion.
Those are voters he has the potential to win over.
J. Ann Selzer, who conducts surveys for The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News, unveiled a more complicated calculation last month to assess the standing of the candidates. It weighs whether voters choose a candidate as a first choice or a second choice and whether they could see themselves supporting him or her or not.
By that measure, Bush ranked first nationwide, Rubio second and Walker third. Trump didn’t make the top 10.
Walker, 47, is taken seriously for reasons historic and geographic.
The historic: In 2012, he became the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall election. His victory over labor opponents and re-election two years later has made him a hero to conservative activists and given him a national fundraising base.
Last week, his team posted a video titled “Recall the Recall,” in case anybody had forgotten about it. He announced his candidacy at the Waukesha County Expo Center, the venue where he had celebrated his recall victory.
Then there’s the geographic. Wisconsin borders Iowa, which will hold the opening caucuses early next year, and he spent part of his childhood in tiny Plainfield, Iowa, where his father was pastor at the First Baptist Church. He led the field in Iowa in the most recent Register poll, at 17%.
“The reason he’s considered in the top tier nationally, even though he falls behind a fistful of other candidates, is because he’s running so strongly in Iowa for the moment,” Selzer says of Walker. “The most important thing a candidate can do is win something, and the first thing they can win is Iowa.”
That said, Walker’s risk is that a misstep could make his first impression a negative one. He has seemed uncertain addressing foreign policy questions. He was mocked for suggesting that dealing with union protesters in Madison had prepared him to face down Islamic State terrorists.
His efforts to appeal to Iowa’s social conservatives, which have included hardening his stance on immigration and same-sex marriage, have raised questions about his consistency and could complicate his efforts to reach more moderate voters down the road.
One more thing: His opponents will try to define him before he has a chance to do so.