GREEN BAY, Wis. — The first day in what could be one of the most competitive governor’s races in the nation saw Gov. Scott Walker and his newly minted general-election opponent, Tony Evers, crisscrossing the state, dropping major ad buys — and already taking off the gloves.

Walker, a Republican seeking his third term, embarked on an aggressive state fly-around on Wednesday, holding campaign-style events at manufacturing plants in Eau Claire, La Crosse, Wausau, Green Bay and Waukesha.


Inside a Green Bay-area factory, Walker held up the state’s economy as a major achievement, citing reduced taxes, low unemployment and job growth.

“We’ve turned things around, we’re moving forward not backwards, and now is not the time to turn around and go the wrong way,” he told a small crowd of workers and supporters.

But the governor, who made an unsuccessful bid for president in 2016, was quick to go negative on Evers, Wisconsin’s superintendent of schools, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday. Walker depicted his opponent as a pawn of union bosses and hit him on the same issue featured in a new attack ad: Evers’ handling of a teacher accused of making sexually crude remarks.

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Walker rolled out a new workforce development platform, complete with a promise of tax breaks, forgiveness of student-loan debt and apprenticeship programs beginning as early as 7th and 8th grades.

Asked whether his new messaging was a shift away from his branding himself as “the education governor” now that he is facing someone from that field, Walker responded: “No, just the opposite,” he said.

“I’m perfectly fine running against Tony Evers, because the best testimony to our investment in schools over the last two years is Tony Evers himself: He called our budget a pro-kid budget.”

Evers, however, had railed against Walker for cutting school funding in previous budgets.

For his part, the Democratic candidate made appearances in Madison, Appleton, Plymouth and Waukesha on Wednesday, and has a series of public events on deck for Thursday.

Republicans dropped a $500,000 negative ad on Evers even as he walked on stage to claim the nomination Tuesday, and Walker himself followed that with his own ad on workforce development. Evers dismissed it as a “divide and conquer” strategy from Walker that would no longer work.

Democrats, through the Democratic Governors Association, announced a $1.8 million ad buy on Wednesday that paints Walker as an insider politician who shunned Wisconsin residents while pursuing higher aspirations. It then traced Evers’ career from the classroom to superintendent of 2,000 public schools.

Both parties boasted reasons for feeling emboldened by Tuesday’s primary contest.

Democrats pointed to higher turnout by their party across the state than by Republicans, saying it showed voter enthusiasm and a craving for change. Wisconsin Republicans, though, highlighted turnout in the 2016 primary, saying more Democratic numbers in the end didn’t translate to general-election wins.