MILWAUKEE — Sixteen months after this state erupted into one of the fiercest political wars in residents’ memories, voters began streaming into polling places on Tuesday to decide whether Wisconsin will remove Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican whose decision to cut collective bargaining rights for most public workers set off the fight.
Mr. Walker, who cast his own vote at a school in this city’s suburbs not long after the polls opened, is only the third governor in the nation’s history to face a recall election. Under Wisconsin's provisions for recall — never before tested when it comes to a governor — Mr. Walker finds himself competing for his job against Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, the Democratic challenger.
While the outcome will decide Mr. Walker’s immediate political future, it is also being looked to as a sign about how this state will approach fiscal and other policies in the months ahead, how comfortable other states’ leaders will feel challenging collective bargaining rights and unions, and about President Obama’s chances come November in a key state that he won four years ago.
In many cities, lines were reported at polling places, even before they opened at 7 a.m. Central Time. In Janesville, not far from the Illinois border, about 20 residents waited among a landscape of ferns and flowers in front of the Rotary Botanical Gardens.
“It’s going to be a big one today,” said Lois Altmann, 83, a volunteer poll worker, as she taped maps of the county on walls inside the garden's visitor center where voting booths were being erected. “Soon we can stop hearing about this.”
For months, Wisconsin residents — those on both sides of the debate — have complained that this fight has changed what was once mostly a gentle, civil political climate and turned friends and neighbors against one another.
"I’m looking forward to this being over," said Adam Crandall, 45, who declined to say who he was backing, but stressed the need for Wisconsin to balance its budget and attract new businesses. "Frankly, I’m disappointed for the state of Wisconsin that we had to go through this, but it’s time to move forward."
This has been a campaign in dizzying, fast-forward mode. Under state rules about the timetable of recall elections, Mr. Barrett became the Democratic nominee only last month, after winning a contested primary.
More than $60 million has been spent in this battle, much of it by outside groups — significantly more than has ever been spent on a governor’s race here and so much that, by Monday, local television stations were buried in political ads during breaks for every show. Mr. Walker’s campaign has raised some $30 million, much of it from out of state.
In the last, frenzied day of campaigning on Monday, volunteers on both sides filled long tables at phone banks and walked house to house, urging support for their candidates. Given only a small number of voters who are thought to be undecided in this election, turnout will be key. State election officials were predicting a large turnout, despite the unusual June timing and the fatigue from multiple elections already this year.
About 60 to 65 percent of Wisconsin residents of voting age are expected to go to the polls on Tuesday, the state’s Government Accountability Board said. That would be a higher turnout than two years ago, when Mr. Walker and a wave of Republicans largely swept state and federal offices here, but not as high as the more than 69 percent turnout in 2008, when Barack Obama easily won the state.
While high-profile politicians have traveled here on behalf of both candidates, President Obama has not come here. Mr. Obama may not have wished to alienate independent and Republican voters who he won over four years ago by taking a front-and-center stand on such a divisive issue in the state. Late Monday, Mr. Obama’s camp posted on Twitter on Mr. Barrett’s behalf, saying that he would “make an outstanding governor.”
The Walker recall race has drawn a great deal of notice outside the state because of its potential implications for the future of unions and the presidential race, but there are other races here on Tuesday, too — more in a series of recall elections that began last year.
By filing signatures on recall petitions, Democrats, union supporters and others also forced recall elections of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (who is the nation’s first lieutenant governor to face a recall election) and four Republican state senators, including Scott Fitzgerald, the majority leader in the Senate who held a key role in passing Mr. Walker’s agenda. Republicans control the State Assembly, but the Democrats hope to regain control of the State Senate, which is currently split evenly, thanks in part to the recent resignation of one of the recalled Republicans. The Senate race in the Racine area is seen as competitive. There, Senator Van Wanggaard, the Republican incumbent, faces John Lehman, a Democrat who previously served in the State Senate.
Still, even if Democrats were to seize a Senate majority through these recalls, they acknowledge that a victory might only be temporary: In November, half of the State Senate seats and all of the State Assembly seats are up for election, and they will be competing for districts with boundaries newly drawn by the Republican-dominated Legislature.
“This certainly carries symbolic importance for us,” said State Senator Fred Risser, a long-serving Democrat who was among a group that fled the state for weeks last year to try to prevent a legislative quorum on Mr. Walker’s cuts to collective bargaining rights. “Hopefully it will show where the voters are going, and create momentum. But in the end, what happens in November will really decide whether we’ll be able to put the brakes on some of what the Republicans want to do with this state.”
Mr. Walker has held narrow leads in most polls in the governor’s race, but given the state’s strong political division, some aides already were pondering the possibility of a recount, which a losing candidate may request under state law. In April 2011, not long after tens of thousands of union supporters and others spent days marching in protest after Mr. Walker’s announced his plan to cut bargaining rights and benefits to avoid a budget deficit, another election was held that demonstrated just how evenly split the state may be.
In a nominally nonpartisan judicial retention election, David T. Prosser Jr., a Republican-appointed State Supreme Court justice who is widely viewed as part of a conservative bloc on the court, kept his job, but barely. JoAnne Kloppenburg, a lesser-known challenger championed by liberals, seemed, at least briefly, to have won the election, which by then had turned into a referendum on Mr. Walker. After a formal recount of the more than 1.5 million votes cast, Justice Prosser won by 7,004 votes. Some wonder if Tuesday’s election could be as close.
Steven Yaccino contributed reporting from Janesville, Wis.
Mr. Walker, who cast his own vote at a school in this city’s suburbs not long after the polls opened, is only the third governor in the nation’s history to face a recall election. Under Wisconsin's provisions for recall — never before tested when it comes to a governor — Mr. Walker finds himself competing for his job against Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, the Democratic challenger.
While the outcome will decide Mr. Walker’s immediate political future, it is also being looked to as a sign about how this state will approach fiscal and other policies in the months ahead, how comfortable other states’ leaders will feel challenging collective bargaining rights and unions, and about President Obama’s chances come November in a key state that he won four years ago.
In many cities, lines were reported at polling places, even before they opened at 7 a.m. Central Time. In Janesville, not far from the Illinois border, about 20 residents waited among a landscape of ferns and flowers in front of the Rotary Botanical Gardens.
“It’s going to be a big one today,” said Lois Altmann, 83, a volunteer poll worker, as she taped maps of the county on walls inside the garden's visitor center where voting booths were being erected. “Soon we can stop hearing about this.”
For months, Wisconsin residents — those on both sides of the debate — have complained that this fight has changed what was once mostly a gentle, civil political climate and turned friends and neighbors against one another.
"I’m looking forward to this being over," said Adam Crandall, 45, who declined to say who he was backing, but stressed the need for Wisconsin to balance its budget and attract new businesses. "Frankly, I’m disappointed for the state of Wisconsin that we had to go through this, but it’s time to move forward."
This has been a campaign in dizzying, fast-forward mode. Under state rules about the timetable of recall elections, Mr. Barrett became the Democratic nominee only last month, after winning a contested primary.
More than $60 million has been spent in this battle, much of it by outside groups — significantly more than has ever been spent on a governor’s race here and so much that, by Monday, local television stations were buried in political ads during breaks for every show. Mr. Walker’s campaign has raised some $30 million, much of it from out of state.
In the last, frenzied day of campaigning on Monday, volunteers on both sides filled long tables at phone banks and walked house to house, urging support for their candidates. Given only a small number of voters who are thought to be undecided in this election, turnout will be key. State election officials were predicting a large turnout, despite the unusual June timing and the fatigue from multiple elections already this year.
About 60 to 65 percent of Wisconsin residents of voting age are expected to go to the polls on Tuesday, the state’s Government Accountability Board said. That would be a higher turnout than two years ago, when Mr. Walker and a wave of Republicans largely swept state and federal offices here, but not as high as the more than 69 percent turnout in 2008, when Barack Obama easily won the state.
While high-profile politicians have traveled here on behalf of both candidates, President Obama has not come here. Mr. Obama may not have wished to alienate independent and Republican voters who he won over four years ago by taking a front-and-center stand on such a divisive issue in the state. Late Monday, Mr. Obama’s camp posted on Twitter on Mr. Barrett’s behalf, saying that he would “make an outstanding governor.”
The Walker recall race has drawn a great deal of notice outside the state because of its potential implications for the future of unions and the presidential race, but there are other races here on Tuesday, too — more in a series of recall elections that began last year.
By filing signatures on recall petitions, Democrats, union supporters and others also forced recall elections of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (who is the nation’s first lieutenant governor to face a recall election) and four Republican state senators, including Scott Fitzgerald, the majority leader in the Senate who held a key role in passing Mr. Walker’s agenda. Republicans control the State Assembly, but the Democrats hope to regain control of the State Senate, which is currently split evenly, thanks in part to the recent resignation of one of the recalled Republicans. The Senate race in the Racine area is seen as competitive. There, Senator Van Wanggaard, the Republican incumbent, faces John Lehman, a Democrat who previously served in the State Senate.
Still, even if Democrats were to seize a Senate majority through these recalls, they acknowledge that a victory might only be temporary: In November, half of the State Senate seats and all of the State Assembly seats are up for election, and they will be competing for districts with boundaries newly drawn by the Republican-dominated Legislature.
“This certainly carries symbolic importance for us,” said State Senator Fred Risser, a long-serving Democrat who was among a group that fled the state for weeks last year to try to prevent a legislative quorum on Mr. Walker’s cuts to collective bargaining rights. “Hopefully it will show where the voters are going, and create momentum. But in the end, what happens in November will really decide whether we’ll be able to put the brakes on some of what the Republicans want to do with this state.”
Mr. Walker has held narrow leads in most polls in the governor’s race, but given the state’s strong political division, some aides already were pondering the possibility of a recount, which a losing candidate may request under state law. In April 2011, not long after tens of thousands of union supporters and others spent days marching in protest after Mr. Walker’s announced his plan to cut bargaining rights and benefits to avoid a budget deficit, another election was held that demonstrated just how evenly split the state may be.
In a nominally nonpartisan judicial retention election, David T. Prosser Jr., a Republican-appointed State Supreme Court justice who is widely viewed as part of a conservative bloc on the court, kept his job, but barely. JoAnne Kloppenburg, a lesser-known challenger championed by liberals, seemed, at least briefly, to have won the election, which by then had turned into a referendum on Mr. Walker. After a formal recount of the more than 1.5 million votes cast, Justice Prosser won by 7,004 votes. Some wonder if Tuesday’s election could be as close.
Steven Yaccino contributed reporting from Janesville, Wis.