Since then he had another lackluster debate performance, the latest national poll showed him getting one half of one percent support in a Republican primary, and his fundraisers were calling for him to shake up his campaign.
Today he announced he was dropping out of the race for president.
So much for the union bashing card, eh?
No one is happier than organized labor to see Scott Walker drop out of the 2016 contest.
In July, when the Wisconsin governor announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination, AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka issued a one-sentence statement: "Scott Walker is a national disgrace." On Monday, after hearing that Walker's candidacy had ended, Trumka said in a written statement: "Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national."
For labor, Walker's failure as a presidential candidate is especially sweet given the twin humiliations it's suffered from Walker in Wisconsin. A labor-backed effort to recall Walker failed in 2012 after Walker pushed through a bill drastically reducing public employees' bargaining rights. Then, in 2014, Walker won re-election after Trumka declared Walker's defeat organized labor's top priority. Earlier this year, Walker had made Wisconsin the country's 25th right-to-work state, freeing public and private workers from any legal requirement to pay dues or their equivalent to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf.
But Walker was never able to gain traction with his anti-union message in the pre-primary contest for the White House — in part, possibly, because unions have been gaining greater public approval in recent years, even among Republicans. Since 2009, Gallup found, union approval has risen from 48 percent to 58 percent for all voters, and from 29 percent to 42 percent for Republican voters.
There have been a lot of surprises in the presidential race already, but this may be the biggest one.
Scott Walker, once the frontrunner for Iowa, is out four months before the caucus is held.
