Flagging Walker puts focus on Iowa, South Carolina

With his poll numbers sagging, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has canceled two speeches he was scheduled to give next weekend in California and Michigan so he can instead head to South Carolina and Iowa.

Stacy Day, a spokeswoman for Walker’s presidential campaign, did not answer a question about whether those changes were the result of recent polls showing support for Walker dropping sharply in places such as Iowa.

The latest poll by Quinnipiac University, released Friday, found that in two months the Wisconsin governor has fallen from first in Iowa to 10th among Republican candidates, trailing not just front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson, but also second-tier candidates such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky.

Walker went from winning the support of 18 percent of likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers in July’s Quinnipiac poll to just 3 percent in the latest survey. Other traditional candidates also are struggling, with Trump, Carson and Carly Fiorina taking more than half of the likely caucus-goers surveyed, even though none of the three has held elective office.

Tribune News Service