Scott Walker Is Running for President. Here’s What You Should Know About Him.

The lowdown on the latest GOP candidate to enter the race.

<a href=http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/GOP-2016-Walker-Guns/9aab4235224242deaf3615583bdfcb7d/32/0>Jeffrey Phelps</a>/AP

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Gov. Scott Walker is set to announce his presidential candidacy on Monday in Waukesha, Wisconsin, joining a crammed field of GOP hopefuls.

In a few short years, the two-term governor has rocketed from obscurity to become a Republican frontrunner thanks to his conservative—and often controversial—stewardship of Wisconsin. After taking office in 2011, he set the tone for his governorship when he rammed through legislation that drastically curbed the power of public employee unions, setting the stage for a showdown with organized labor that made national headlines. As a result of anti-union effort, Walker became the only governor in Wisconsin history to face a recall election. During his tenure, Walker has implemented a hit list of right-wing measures. He signed controversial voter ID legislation, a state budget that defunded Planned Parenthood, and, this spring, a bill that made Wisconsin a right-to-work state. As Walker launches his presidential campaign, he faces an investigation into whether his campaign violated election rules during the recall campaign by coordinating with outside spending groups.

Ahead of his announcement on Monday, here are the things you should know about Walker, from Mother Jones‘ archives:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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