Presidential campaign spending: Reports show Gov. Walker's team spent about $90K/day

MENOMONEE FALLS -- Gov. Scott Walker stopped by a Menomonee Falls business on Friday, October 16th -- a day after the Federal Election Commission (FEC) released finance reports from his presidential campaign.

Governor Scott Walker

The report from the FEC show Walker's campaign raised about $7.4 million, but spent about $6.4 million. Averaged out over the 71 days Walker was officially in the presidential race, his campaign was spending about $90,000 every day.

"A conservative governor from a very small state, nationally you need to have a show of force you need to show that, 'Hey, I am serious about this, I am willing to get some of the best and brightest people, and I`m willing to spend the money in order to do that,'" said Chris Haworth, political strategist.

Walker assembled a crew of about 90 staffers around the country -- and some of his top people were on pace to make about $200,000 a year.

FOX6 News asked Haworth if the size of Walker's campaign and some of those salaries may have been what led to the campaign's demise.

"I think he spent exactly what he thought would be needed in order to surge out to a lead and I think it accomplished that goal early on. Unfortunately his performance in the debates weren't as strong as he had hoped and as strong as his donors had hoped it would be," said Haworth.

Walker exited the race on September 21st -- as his fundraising could not keep pace with expenses. The governor himself had this to say on Friday about his campaign spending.

"I commented on my getting out of the race on the 21st of last month and I said that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm focused on being governor of the state of Wisconsin," said Walker.