Culminating a movement months in the making, Gov. Scott Walker beat Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a much-anticipated gubernatorial recall election, making Walker the first governor in the country’s history to survive a recall election.
Despite heavy voter turnout, which experts predicted would help Barrett, Walker earned 53 percent of the vote while Barrett received 46 percent. When the two met in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Walker won in a similar fashion, 52 to 46 percent.
The movement to recall Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators came in response to legislation passed early last year that, among other things, limited collective bargaining rights for most public sector employees. Nine other state senators faced recall elections in 2011, and two incumbent Republicans lost their seats.
To force the most recent round of recall elections, organizers gathered nearly 2 million petition signatures between the candidates and turned them in to election officials in January.
Walker celebrated his victory at the Waukesha County Expo Center and quickly called for Wisconsin to move on from the bitter division that has consumed the state for the past year and a half and to look toward a future of cooperation.
“Tomorrow is the day after the election and tomorrow we are no longer opponents,” Walker said. “Tomorrow, we are one as Wisconsinites, so together we can move Wisconsin forward.”
Barrett preached a similar message of cooperation in Milwaukee, but also called on Walker and the state’s Republicans to “at the end of the day, do what’s right for Wisconsin families.”
Democrats said they had a massive, well-organized field program, but it was no match against what state Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison, called “the best politician money can buy.”
Barrett raised around $4 million in the two months he was in the race, while Walker raised more than $30 million over the past year.
“We had put together a great field program and we had an overwhelming number of enthusiastic volunteers,” said UW-Madison’s Young Democrats President Peter Anich, “but when it came down to it, there is only so much people can do when you are facing corporations.”
But College Republicans Chair Jeff Snow said that is “a bogus claim.”
“Barrett didn’t get into the race as soon,” Snow said, adding, “there was definitely a huge infiltration of union money that made it a lot more competitive.”
On campus, student voting was down around 50 percent compared to the 2008 presidential election. Across the rest of the state, the recall election saw a much more similar turnout between the two elections.
“Students aren’t around Madison,” said Anich. “All the freshman population are all gone from the dorms.”
Snow said if the election had taken place during the school year, the result would not be any different.
“Even though college students tend to vote liberal, and most students would have probably voted for Barrett, Walker won by more than 200,000 votes,” Snow said.
Republicans also won four of the other five recall elections held June 5. However, incumbent Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard lost 51 to 49 percent to Democratic challenger John Lehman. The victory gives Democrats control of the state Senate until the November elections.
