Walker raised $37 million to fight off recall

Governor Scott Walker raised three-quarters of his campaign funds from out-of-state donations in the closing days of the recall.

Walker raised seven-million dollars from May 22nd to the end of June with 74-percent of the money coming from people who don’t live in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Director Mike McCabe says it continued a trend for the Governor who relied heavily on out-of-state donors to fight off this recall. “Overall if you look back to January 2011 and you look at all the money he raised, and he raised over 37-million dollars to ward off this recall election, overall 64-percent of his money came from outside of Wisconsin,” he says. “So he was very heavily reliant on outside donors but that reliance increased the closer he got to the election.”

McCabe said Walker’s ability to accept donations of any size was a factor in his fundraising, but so was the way the race was seen as a national referendum.

Out-of-state donations to Democratic challenger Tom Barrett also picked up in the closing days of the election. McCabe says Barrett raised roughly 50-percent of his money in the final reporting period from people who live outside Wisconsin. That means overall the Milwaukee Mayor raised 36-percent of his money from out of state–a percentage far smaller than the Governor’s but much larger than normal in Wisconsin.