Wausau - Twenty-ninth district senator Jerry Petrowski endorsed former governor Tommy Thompson today at the GOP headquarters in Wausau.

Thompson is running for Senator Herb Kohl's seat.

Thompson told supporters his campaign got off to a slow start after June 5th, but is picking up momentum as the August 14th primary gets closer.

His speech focused on his record as a governor. "We are the best-insured state in America for healthcare and I'm able to take that experience to Washington and immediately start out day one as a participant," Thompson said.

His opponents have run ads accusing him of supporting universal health care, but Thompson said he's given over 500 speeches against "Obamacare" and laid out his plan for replacing it.

"We have a disease system in America in which we wait until people get sick, then we spend billions of dollars to get them well" he said. "I want to make sure we change that and put people in a position to take care of themselves."

Thompson's opponents are state lawmaker Jeff Fitzgerald, small business owner Mark Neumann, and businessman Eric Hovde.

Whoever wins the primary faces democrat Tammy Baldwin in November.