WISCONSIN DEMS MAKE WALKER WALK THE PLANK
Governor once stripped nearly all collective bargaining power from public workers
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, beloved by Republicans for pushing through a conservative revolution but so reviled by liberals that they tried to recall him from office, warned for months that he was at risk of being overwhelmed by Democratic anger.
He was right.
The tide that swept him out Tuesday stalled a political career that radically transformed the purple state and helped bring about President Donald Trump’s narrow victory there in 2016. For nearly eight years, Walker delighted conservatives and frustrated liberal opponents who could never figure out the right recipe to knock him off. At one point, he was seen as a potential presidential front-runner.
Trump’s entrance into the 2016 race forced Walker out. And distaste over Trump’s first two years as president contributed to depressed Republican turnout, and massive Democratic votes, in key parts of Wisconsin, leading to Walker’s narrow 31,000-vote loss to state education chief Tony Evers.
Walker conceded the race Wednesday. Evers’ margin of victory stood just above the 1 percentage point threshold that would allow Walker to seek a recount.
Walker’s longtime opponents, including a core group who sang protest songs daily in the rotunda of the state Capitol, could barely contain their glee. They danced, hugged, cried and beat on drums for an hour Wednesday, holding signs that said things like “There is a god.”
Walker blew into office as part of a red wave in the 2010 election, with Republicans capturing control of the state Legislature at the same time. Together they enacted a host of conservative reforms, chiefly taking away nearly all collective bargaining power from teachers and other public workers as part of a fight in 2011 that put Wisconsin at the forefront of a new war over union rights.
That battle that drew protests as large as 100,000 people spurred the 2012 recall, which Walker won. It raised his national profile and laid the groundwork for his presidential bid. Along the way, Walker signed laws making Wisconsin a rightto-work state, enacting a 20-week abortion ban, passing a concealedcarry law and scaling back a host of environmental regulations that businesses opposed.