In the one race in Wisconsin, which really was a referendum on Scott Walker, the Democrat, a political neophyte and heir to a Boston fortune, beat the Republican Jeff Stone in the Milwaukee County Executive. The position, once held by Scott Walker, became a symbolic race. Stone himself campaigned as someone who identified with Walker and wanted to emulate him. Chris Abele also ran ads to say that Stone was Walker's clone.The race was called early and the win was decisive.
The Prosser-Kloppenberg judicial race has been going back and forth all night. Now at midnight EST, Kloppenberg has taken a slight 6,000 vote lead. The race now ranks as the most expensive state court race in America. Conservatives out spent their democratic counterparts by 3 to 2. Prosser's people felt that the incumbent would have topped his 55% margin of last time except for the labor dispute. Prosser to counter the identification of him with Scott Walker began to flood the airwaves with ads where he talked about being an independent, fair judge.
What will be interesting to see is the resolution of the problems surrounding the Waukesha vote. Observers noted that Waukesha filed data that showed that 100% of the registered voters had cast their ballots and the numerical votes were identical to the last Prosser election. If this ends up as close as it appears, we may see a recount.
Other races in Wisconsin are going on that will cast a stronger light on whether there is a great backlash against Walker.
Republican legislators today tried to back away from their previous statements that they could not have passed the union-busting bill at another time. They suggest they may re-introduce it against during the regular budget debate for a full hearing. This suggests that they know they violated the law in passing it in the first place. This all may have been to soften the tone before the judicial election, which may change the balance of power on the courts.
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