Gov. Scott Walker has launched a national fundraising tour in an effort to defend the eight Republican state senators facing recall elections, a conservative website is reporting.
Walker was in Florida on Friday, the Newsmax website said, to drum up support for FrontlineWisconsin.com. The FrontlineWisconsin website urges people to donate up to $8,000, or $1,000 for each state senator, to "send a message across America that the people we elect can take courageous votes and stand by their convictions."
Walker said little about the Florida trip or other fundraising efforts during a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
"Governor Walker is committed to defending the Republican Senators who stayed in Wisconsin and stood up for middle class taxpayers by making the tough choices to balance our budget," said Katie McCallum, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
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It is unclear where Walker has traveled on the tour so far, or other locations he is planning to visit.
Walker did an interview with Newsmax, which reported that he visited Newsmax and its CEO, Christopher Ruddy, at the company's West Palm Beach, Fla. headquarters. He discussed the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, unions, and recall efforts against the GOP senators.
Walker talked about the likely recount in the court race.
"That will be pretty costly," Walker said. "But I think it's pretty clear that the big government labor-union bosses that have been fighting the reforms in Wisconsin now for the past month and a half, I don't think they're going to give up."
He also discussed the controversy over his law to dramatically limit collective bargaining for public workers in the state.
"We're giving people, the workers in our state, the right to choose whether they want to be in the public-employees union, and whether or not they want up to $1,000 a year to come out of their paycheck, or whether they want to better spend that on their families, their healthcare, and other things in their life," he said. "That's what really is at the heart of it."