Wisconsin News: Wisconsin senators face recall vote
August 10th, 2011 | by |MADISON, Wis. – Six Wisconsin senators fought yesterday to keep their jobs in a recall election, trying to beat back Democratic challengers who stoked a political backlash against Governor Scott Walker, a Republican who worked to strip public employees of most union rights.
Fueled by millions of dollars from national labor groups, the attempt to remove GOP incumbents could shift control of the Wisconsin Senate to Democrats and provide a new gauge of the public mood less than a year after Republicans made sweeping gains in this state and many others.
Besides the six Republicans on yesterday’s ballot, two Democratic incumbents face recalls next week. A third Democrat survived a recall attempt last month.
Republicans hold a 19-14 advantage in the Senate, so Democrats need to win five of the eight elections to take control.
If the Democrats won only one or two yesterday, they cannot take control. If they won three or four, control hinges on the outcome of next week’s recalls. If they won at least five, they will take control of the Senate no matter what happens next week.
The stakes were clearly much larger than control of the Senate. The recall election will also help determine whether the Republican revolution led by Walker regains momentum or suffers a major setback. Both parties also were testing messages ahead of the 2012 presidential race, in which Wisconsin was expected to be an important swing state.
Republican and Democratic strategists were leery of reading too much into the results heading into next year’s campaign.
The recall effort helped stir passions in the Democratic base “in ways we might never have been able to achieve on our own,’’ said Roy Temple, a Democratic political consultant with extensive experience in the Midwest. But, he said, that doesn’t mean the recall can offer much more than hints about broader trends.
“Wisconsin was a swing state before, and it will be after,’’ Temple said. “Maybe [the recall] is a sign of strong intensity, and that’s not meaningless, but it’s not predictive.’’
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said the party was “all in’’ to win the races. A coalition of national unions spent millions on attack ads and other campaign activity to wrest seats from the Republicans. Conservative groups also spent millions.
It all amounted to a summer unlike any other in Wisconsin. More than $31 million was estimated to have been spent on the nine recall efforts, rivaling the $37 million spent on last year’s governor’s race.
“I feel that a lot of people didn’t get their way, threw a crybaby fit, and decided to have a recall. The majority of Wisconsin already voted,’’ said 43-year-old Ross Birkigt of Menomonee Falls. “It’s a shame that all of a sudden this happens and that a lot of special-interest money gets poured into it. I’m kind of getting sick of seeing this stuff on TV every single minute.’’
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