Scott Walker endorses Trump on convention floor
CLEVELAND — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker officially, and somewhat tepidly, endorsed Donald Trump on the convention stage Wednesday, a full 10 months after dropping out of the Republican primary.
“America deserves better than Hillary Clinton.” Walker said. “That is why we need to support Donald Trump and Mike Pence for president and vice president.”
Walker explained his endorsement to the crowd. “Last August, I said that any of the Republicans running would be better than Hillary Clinton,” he said. “I meant it then, and I mean it now. So let me be clear: A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary Clinton.”
Walker has been reluctant to embrace Trump ever since he dropped out of the race last September, dancing around the subject of whether he was fully endorsing him. Just last month, he commented to WKOW about the Clinton-Trump matchup: “It’s just sad in America that we have such poor choices right now.”
The Wisconsin governor said he didn’t want to endorse Trump until the real estate mogul renounced his comments that a federal judge of Mexican ancestry was unfit to preside over a civil suit against him because of his heritage. Trump never apologized for those remarks, but Walker appears to have come around anyway. He told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he was pleased with Trump’s choice of Pence, a fellow Midwestern governor, as his running mate.
He took aim at Clinton in his speech, much of which focused on the presumptive Democratic nominee. Indeed, he mentioned her by name more times he did than Trump. “The simple truth is: Liberal Washington insiders created these problems,” he said. “And Hillary Clinton is the ultimate liberal Washington insider. If she were any more on the ‘inside,’ she’d be in prison.”
Walker rose to national prominence several years ago, when he backed a bill opposing public sector unions and then faced and then survived a 2012 recall election over the issue. Many expected him to be a frontrunner in the Republican primary this year, but his campaign quickly flamed out.
Liz Mair, a Republican consultant who briefly worked for Walker’s campaign, said Walker dropped out of the race early in an effort to help the party nominate someone other than Trump. “Unlike a lot of other candidates who stayed in the race way too long and divided up the vote, he actually had the foresight to try to solve this,” she said.
Although Walker quietly went back to Wisconsin politics after dropping out, Republicans say his White House bid was unlikely to be the last time he vies for national office. He may try again for the Republican nomination in 2020, or could seek a cabinet secretary position if Trump wins. (Mair said he’d make a good agriculture secretary.)
“A lot of our guys get nominated the second time around,” Mair said of Walker’s chances in 2020.
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