Pawlenty’s PAC picks Wisconsin’s Duffy

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC announced the winner of its crowdsourcing endorsement: Congressional candidate Sean Duffy, who is running against Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. Duffy will get to co-host a Facebook townhall with Pawlenty and will be given fundraising opportunities through the Freedom First PAC.

Duffy beat out Rep. Michele Bachmann, who came in second. Other candidates in the top five were Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Adam Kinzinger, a candidate in Illinois’ 11th district; Mick Mulvaney, a candidate in South Carolina’s 5th district; and Rep. Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Roland Burris.

Duffy told Roll Call, “We don’t have a Republican governor or even an assembly or senate, so we like to adopt governors from nearby states. I think [Pawlenty has] most definitely raised his profile recently, so people know who he is.”

Ashland County’s district attorney and a former cast member on “The Real World: Boston,” Duffy hopes to unseat Obey, the third-longest serving member of the U.S. House and chair of the House Committee on Appropriations.