GOP presidential hopeful Scott Walker visits Lexington today

Republican Scott Walker will stop in Lexington on Wednesday on his first visit to the Palmetto State since formally entering the race for the 2016 presidential nomination.

The Wisconsin governor, whose battle against unions raised his national profile, has finished near the head of the pack in polls of South Carolina’s GOP voters. Walker was the favorite in an April Winthrop Poll, leading among influential GOP evangelical and Tea Party voters.

Walker will speak at a meet-and-greet at Hudson’s Smokehouse and Saloon at 11:20 a.m., his second stop on a day-long tour in the state. Walker also will attend meet-and-greets in North Charleston and Mauldin, near Greenville.

Walker announced his long-expected entry into the race on Monday in an online video, entering a crowded field of 15 candidates competing for the Republican nomination.

Walker’s S.C. state director Dan Tripp, a former state lawmaker from 1994-2006, offered few details about the GOP’s latest candidate. Tripp gave talking points about Walker being a principled conservative and a fighter, the themes of the governor’s stump speeches.

“He knows how to pick political fights, but he knows how to win them,” Tripp told The State.

Asked about Walker’s ability to handle national-security issues despite his lack of foreign relations experience, Tripp said, “It boils down to leadership. He has shown himself to be a leader.”

Tripp said the Walker campaign has no immediate plans to announce a South Carolina leadership team of supporters among political and business leaders as other candidates have done soon after entering the race.

Other candidates have been building their S.C. financial and grassroots supporters, gobbling up commitments, which could pose a problem for latecomers to the race, including Walker.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who lives in Seneca, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, whose family has deep political ties in the state, have claimed many top S.C. supporters.

The advantages that other candidates have in South Carolina could explain Walker’s late entry into the primary fray, said College of Charleston political scientist Kendra Stewart.

Focusing resources in other early-primary states – Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada – could be part of Walker’s broader political strategy, Stewart said.

“Although Walker’s anti-union stance is appealing to South Carolinians, he is probably not socially conservative enough to be a Palmetto State favorite,” she said in an email.

Walker rose to national prominence when he proposed eliminating collective bargaining rights for state employees shortly after he was elected Wisconsin governor in 2010. His critics moved successfully for a recall election in 2012, but Walker won that contest and was re-elected in 2014.

A newcomer to national politics, Walker is at a disadvantage when it comes to fundraising, so focusing his efforts in Iowa, where he’s polling well, is a good strategy, Stewart said. A poor performance in Iowa or New Hampshire could take Walker “out of the race completely,” making South Carolina irrelevant.

Graham’s presence in the S.C. primary also means some candidates will focus more heavily on other states, “realizing that with a South Carolinian on the ballot their chances of winning decrease significantly,” Stewart said.

Steve Fooshe, a longtime S.C. political consultant and Columbia lobbyist, said Walker’s challenge will be to build momentum by connecting with grassroots voters in the Palmetto State, “doing the retail politics, making the phone calls, going to all the rubber-chicken dinners.”

“With the fights he’s had to fight to be elected in Wisconsin, he knows what he needs to do,” Fooshe added.

In national polls, Walker and most of the other GOP candidates have struggled to rise above the single digits. Only Bush, in the lead, and New York real-estate mogul Donald Trump have broke into the double digits in the crowded GOP field.

But the Wisconsin state chief has performed better in S.C. GOP polls. In an average of those polls, Walker was favored by 13.3 percent of would-be Republican S.C. primary voters, narrowly trailing Bush’s 13.7 percent. Walker also edges Graham’s 11 percent support in the poll average.

Walker’s Wednesday visit is not his first to the state.

Walker was received warmly in May, when he spoke with several other candidates at the Freedom Summit in Greenville – a showcase of conservative activists and GOP presidential hopefuls.

In March, Walker headlined fundraisers for the S.C. Republican Party and, in August 2013, he joined Gov. Nikki Haley for her re-election campaign kickoff.

Haley, who shares Walker’s distaste for labor unions, campaigned for him in 2012 when he was facing the recall election.

This story was originally published July 14, 2015 at 6:57 PM.