Inside Scott Walker’s Comeback Strategy

After two years of mending fences after a failed presidential bid, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) “has clawed his way back. His numbers have inched up each of the past four quarters, and his approval rating is now back in the mid-to-high 40s,” according to James Hohmann.

“As the GOP primaries continued without him from New Hampshire to South Carolina and beyond, Walker convened the first of more than 100 ‘listening sessions’ in all 72 of Wisconsin’s counties. His advance team would set up two whiteboards in the front of every room. The governor would spend the first 20 minutes asking attendees to say something positive about the state, which he’d write down. Then he’d spend the next hour asking how Wisconsin could be better, filling up the second whiteboard. He tried to talk as little as possible.”

“The governor offered several concrete proposals in his budget around the themes that came up again and again, such as opioid abuse and broadband access, but he said the most important result of the sessions was conveying to Wisconsinites that he had not ‘moved on.'”