posted April 20, 2015 07:53 PM            

According to The New York Times, David Koch told a Monday gathering of GOP donors that he and his fellow billionaire brother, Charles Koch, want Walker in the White House.

"We will support whoever the candidate is," Koch said at the Manhattan event, according to Times reporter Nick Confessore's sources. "But it should be Scott Walker."

The Koch brothers are two of the most free-spending donors in American politics, and they have a vast network of rich allies to help fund their various political organizations. Indeed, they reportedly plan on spending close to $1 billion in 2016, and liberals have long sought to make them the face of a broken campaign finance system.

Several Republican candidates were also thought to be aggressively pursuing the Kochs' support. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Kentucky), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) all joined Walker at a Koch donor confab in January.

Their support might not be a complete gamechanger for Walker, however. The Times reported that David Koch said his family might personally contribute to Walker's campaign, but their organizational network would remain neutral until a Republican nominee emerges from the primary.

"Koch suggested that the political organizations they oversee — which include Americans for Prosperity, a grass-roots organization, and Freedom Partners, a donor trade group with an affiliated super PAC — would not intervene in the Republican primary process on behalf of a single candidate," Confessore wrote.