Gov. of Wisconsin officially suspends 2016 presidential campaign

WISCONSIN (KUSI) – Scott Walker announced his resignation from the Republican presidential race at a press conference Monday afternoon.

According to CNN, Walker entered the primary in July as a front-runner, but his promising position quickly fell after poor debate performances dried up support from donors. 

The New York Times first reported Walker’s plans to drop out. Those intentions were confirmed to CNN by a senior campaign official, a GOP strategist close to the campaign, and a senior GOP adviser with knowledge of his plans.

One source close to Walker said the governor called some of his top supporters early Monday to inform them of his decision to drop from the race. 

This person said Walker’s recent plummet in the polls was a big factor in his decision-making.

He sounded "upbeat," they said, and his message to supporters was, "I did the best I could."

Moving forward, Walker said the best use of his time and the party’s time would be to dedicate all resources to whoever the eventual nominee will be.

Walker rocketed to the front of the GOP pack in Iowa after a rousing speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January, but he was hurt by lackluster performances in the first two Republican debates

Walker failed to garner even one-half of 1 percent nationally among likely GOP primary voters.

There had always been hope in the Walker campaign that Trump supporters were not active caucus-goers, the source said, but it was hard to fight the popularity of both front-runner Donald Trump and Ben Carson.