Philip Bump notes that Scott Walker’s Presidential Campaign was the shortest major party campaign in two decades:
The complete and utter collapse of Scott Walker’s presidential bid appears to bring to an end the shortest presidential campaign since at least 2000.
Walker’s bid began with his announcement July 13 before a fancy backdrop and in front of an energetic crowd in Waukesha, Wis. It ended in Madison on Monday, in front of a drab background and with only a few reporters listening in. From start to end, the campaign lasted 70 days — a shorter campaign than even Rick Perry’s, since Perry started earlier.
Looking back at major candidate campaigns since 2000, 70 days appears to be the shortest, by at least a week. Jim Gilmore’s 2008 bid lasted 79 days. Tim Pawlenty hung on for 83 days in 2012.
Walker, of course, was leading in the polls in Iowa, and doing strongly elsewhere for several months before he entered the race. He didn’t officially enter the race until July 13th largely, he said, because of the need to deal with the budget in Wisconsin. Once he did get in the race, though, his numbers began sinking like a stone. While Donald Trump’s rise in the polls is obviously part of what happened to Walker, it seems fairly clear that once voters began to get to know Walker they started turning away from him.
