Walker courts voters beyond the Midwest
In South Carolina and other states, he must prove he’s a national contender.
NORTH CHARLESTON, S. C.— As he rumbled through South Carolina last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told his favorite story about shopping for clothes at Kohl’s department store and cobbling together so many discounts that “they’re paying me to buy the shirt.”
The tale drew chuckles from some of the 200 Republicans who came to see him at a Harley- Davidson dealership in North Charleston. But the details, including references to the “Kohl’s cash” coupons found in his wife’s purse, did not spark the same knowing nods that they did during his campaign announcement speech in Wisconsin, where the chain is based and is a more entrenched symbol of middle- class culture.
The stump- speech anecdote points to one of Walker’s challenges: proving he is a national contender who can win states beyond his Midwestern base.
He is investing time, money and organizational resources in Iowa, which holds the nation’s first presidential nominating contest and neighbors his home state. But to rise above other leading GOP candidates, he needs to show strength in other regions of the country tha thave early primaries, including South Carolina.
“Fifty percent of the people in South Carolina, you showthem a picture of Scott Walker and they don’t know who he is,” said Moye Graham, chairman of the Republican Party for a state district that covers 15 counties north of Charleston. “He probably has the least face recognition of the major candidates.”
Walker, hoping to remedy that problem, pursued an aggressive schedule of early primary states for his first week on the campaign trail, with stops in Nevada, South Carolina, Georgia, New Hampshire and Iowa, followed this week by trips to Tennessee, California, North Carolina and a return trip to New Hampshire for a motorcycle tour.
Polls have suggested that Walker can compete in South Carolina and other early states. And many GOP activists in South Carolina, where Republican primary voters are especially conservative, also said he had a shot.
But several said hewould have to visit more often — something he pledged to do — and distinguish himself from a crowded field that includes Sen. Lindsey Graham, who represents South Carolina, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has a strong network in the state. Other very conservative candidates, including Ben Carson, real estate magnate Donald Trump and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, were also mentioned favorably by activists here.
“There’s just so many candidates,” said Brian Grant, a 47- year- old pharmacist from Charleston who came to check Walker out at the Harley- Davidson event. “Nobody’s narrowed it down.”
And South Carolina voters do not always honor the winners of other early primaries with a bounce. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, won the primary here in 2012, halting momentum built by Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, who won Iowa.
“He was completely reliant on the bump. It will help, but it never really works,” said Brandon Newton, a party chairman from a district based along the border with North Carolina. “It’s really who does the ground gamein South Carolina.”
That’s where money and organization help candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has mainstream support and leads by a substantial margin in fundraising through outside groups.
“Your biggest challenge is time,” said Rick Wiley, Walker’s campaign manager, marking as the most difficult logistical hurdle a stretch of 26 contests in the first twoweeks of March-that will probably determine the party’s nominee.
Walker tries to connect with crowds, and draw a contrast with Bush, by emphasizing his humble roots, including a job at McDonald’s and his grandparents’ lack of indoor plumbing for a time.
He wore jeans, rolled- up sleeves and motorcycle boots in South Carolina, one of three states where he scheduled events at Harley-Davidson dealerships, a nod to another-Wisconsin- based company and to his hobby of motorcycle riding that signals a renegade streak. He stood before a backdrop of motorcycles stacked three stories high in North Charleston.
Many who took pictures and sought his autograph were eager to talk about their-Wisconsin ties— a few wore Green Bay Packers jerseys or carried the team’s mug.
Walker is one of the most polarizing candidates in the field, loathed by Democrats and union activists and admired by conservatives for defeating a recall effort that followed his rollback of collective bargaining rights for public employees in his state.
That fight is the centerpiece of Walker’s speeches and the issue by which party activists knowhim most.
“We took on the unions, and we won,” Walker said in Lexington.
Walker has tried tomove still further to the right to court social conservatives. His work to curtail abortion rights drew some of his loudest applause here, along with his boast of passing a voter- ID law and his fight to require welfare recipients to take drug tests.
Walker has tiptoed around issues that could risk alienating conservative voters, even if they are less controversial with moderates.
He has mostly sidestepped questions about whether South Carolina should have removed the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds, calling it a state issue. That allowed him to avoid taking sides on a topic that remains divisive among the state’s Republicans.
To reporters, he praised Republican Gov. Nikki Haley for “bringing together a broad coalition to get the job done.”