MILWAUKEE, (Reuters) – Political activists converged on Wisconsin yesterday to join get-out-the-vote efforts two days before a historic recall election for Republican Governor Scott Walker that is seen as a test for November’s presidential race.
Walker enraged the labor movement last year when he eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public sector unions as part of a push to limit government and slash spending in the politically divided state.
Some observers are calling the June 5 vote the second most important U.S. election of the year.
President Barack Obama easily captured Wisconsin by 14 percentage points in the 2008 election, when he defeated Republican John McCain. Two years later, Republicans in Wisconsin roared back to elect Walker, defeat Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and take over the state legislature.
Mitt Romney, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, has called Walker a “hero,” while Obama has supported Walker’s Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
All over the Midwestern state – known for its dairy farms, factories and the revered Green Bay Packers NFL football team – political professionals and volunteers fanned out to ensure their supporters made it to the polls on Tuesday.
“It’s really about the future of this state,” said Bob Peterson, the president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association as he grilled hamburgers on Saturday for volunteers who will try to boost the anti-Walker vote.
Civil Rights activists Reverend Jesse Jackson from Chicago and Al Sharpton from New York, both aligned with the Democratic Party, will be in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, to try to spur a strong turnout by black voters.
If he is defeated, Walker would become the third state governor recalled from office during his term, after North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier in 1921 and Gray Davis of California in 2003.
Polls show a close race although Walker has held a single-digit lead since the recall date was formally set, and there are almost no undecided voters. The focus is on voter turnout in a state with a history of high voter participation.
During an appearance Sunday on the CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Barrett said a tracking poll he’d seen two nights ago showed him just “one vote behind (Walker). Not one percentage point behind but one vote behind.”
