AP Photo Walker quits after blowing through campaign cash In dropping out, the Wisconsin governor calls on the GOP to unite against Donald Trump.

Scott Walker decided to end his 2016 campaign after burning through cash and disappointing donors who thought the one-time frontrunner would be one of the last men standing this primary season.

"Today, I believe that I'm being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race for a positive conservative message to rise to the top of the field," he said at a press conference in Madison.


The sudden decision opens up opportunities for other candidates, among them Marco Rubio, who has already scored some of Walker’s financial backers.

The announcement comes on the heels of a new CNN poll that showed Walker registering as an asterisk -- less than one percent -- following a second straight lackluster performance in the GOP debate last week.

Walker, who had a fundraiser in Indianapolis scheduled for Monday night, spent the day in private meetings before the planned announcement.

“Finances just aren’t there,” Walker said on a conference call with staff minutes before the governor's press conference, according to a source who participated. Walker also told the group that the “field needs to narrow to a positive conservative messenger.”

The departure represents a stunning fall for the Wisconsin governor, who led polls in Iowa for several months earlier this year after delivering a well-received speech there in January that inspired both the party's grassroots and its donor class. For months, Walker was viewed as a top contender, but he failed to live up to the early hype he inspired -- he struggled with the consistency of his positions, appeared overly scripted and seemed to lack command of the issues, particularly on foreign policy.

One of the campaign’s biggest mistakes, however, was failing to manage expectations after a hot start.

“In terms of how the press and voters view these candidates, the bar is different for everybody,” said Ron Kaufman, a long-time Massachusetts operative who is backing Jeb Bush. “The bar for Jeb is so high because you all see him as president. Trump's bar is very low. Walker was fine in the beginning because his bar was low. As soon as he said, ‘I'm the frontrunner, the bar went way up and he couldn't get over it.”

For several weeks, Walker’s donors have been grumbling about the campaign’s downward spiral in the polls, with many pointing their fingers at campaign manager Rick Wiley, who was saddled with the blame for the campaign’s overspending — the staff had ballooned to 90 people — and for the candidate's shortcomings. According to a source familiar with the campaign's operations, donors lost confidence in the campaign operation as Walker began his uninterrupted slide. Many donors informed the campaign they weren’t writing more checks until organizational changes were made and some began to hedge their bets by contributing to other campaigns.

One Walker bundler informed the Rubio campaign that he would be switching sides after fulfilling one final fundraising obligation for the Wisconsin governor, according to a source familiar with the conversation,

Walker’s New Hampshire director has also committed to support Rubio, Terry Sullivan, Rubio’s campaign manager, announced Monday night at a roundtable of GOP campaign managers in Washington.

Wiley was scheduled to appear at the same event; some operatives close to the campaign saw his absence from Madison Monday when the decision to end the campaign was finalized as evidence of an ongoing impasse between him and Walker. But Wiley was on the conference call with staff and spoke several times, calling Walker the “best candidate in the field” with the “best ideas,” according to the source on the call.

After reassuring anxious donors on a conference call last week, Walker’s campaign appeared to be moving full steam ahead, especially on the fundraising front in an effort to refill his depleted campaign coffers.

Walker had planned to attend a fundraiser Monday evening at the Conrad Hotel in Indianapolis, followed by events in Terre Haute, Ind., a New York City fundraiser on Thursday and more events Friday in Washington.

But hints of Walker’s imminent demise were hiding in plain sight: in Walker’s failure to rule out senior staff changes in the spin room following last week’s debate, his decision to cancel appearances at events over the weekend in California and Michigan and the defection of top donors who stated publicly that they were starting to hedge their bets.

On Monday, many Walker donors were caught off guard by what one described as “a flurry of phone calls” as word got around that their candidate was dropping out.

“He needed a big week last week and it didn’t happen,” one donor, speaking anonymously, said. “He’s a pragmatic man. I think he realized after last week that the writing was on the wall.”

Even before they’d gotten the news, the most committed Walker donors conceded their nervousness about the future. “We're a little worried that's too little too late,” said Leonard Tannenbaum, a donor to Walker’s Unintimidated super PAC, prior to the announcement.