Walker ran for reelection in 2018, but facing low polling numbers and Lieutenant Governor Mallott's resignation, he dropped out of the race on October 19, 2018, and endorsed Democrat Mark Begich.

Walker ran in the 2022 election as an independent, but lost to Republican incumbent Mike Dunleavy and Democratic candidate Les Gara.

Walker was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and raised in the small, rural interior city of Delta Junction and the port of Valdez on Prince William Sound.

During World War II, Ed was an Alaskan Scout with Castner's Cutthroats in the Aleutian Islands and Frances worked on the Alaska-Canadian Highway.

[4] Walker worked in his family's construction business as a carpenter, laborer, and teamster on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which helped him pay for his education.

[8][10][11] Walker "represented the city of Valdez in lawsuits that charged [oil] companies with lowballing the property tax valuation of the industry-owned Trans-Alaska pipeline system".

[9] Walker challenged incumbent governor Sean Parnell as well as Gerald L. Heikes, Merica Hlatcu, Sam Little, and Ralph Samuels in the Republican Party primary election on August 24, 2010.

[13] Later that year, he decided to run as a nonpartisan candidate instead, taking the advice and encouragement he had received prior to his 2010 campaign from former Alaska governor Wally Hickel.

[4][14] Walker selected Craig Fleener, a former Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, to run for lieutenant governor on his ticket.

Walker opposed the construction of the Pebble Mine and acknowledged the existence of climate change and the need to adopt energy policies to help mitigate its harmful effects, but supported increasing oil and gas pipeline capacities and new drilling for petroleum in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

He also supported gun rights, a degree of state sovereignty for Alaska, and the Medicaid expansion made possible by the Affordable Care Act.

In December 2015, Walker proposed reinstating a statewide income tax as well as reducing annual payments to qualified state residents from the Alaska Permanent Fund.

[39] His June 2016 partial veto of legislation pertaining to the APF resulted in annual payments to state residents being cut by more than half.

[43] In September 2018, the office of Anchorage District Attorney Richard K. Allen entered into a controversial plea bargain in the case of a former FAA air traffic controller who allegedly kidnapped a native Alaskan woman, choked her until she passed out and then masturbated over her.