The Scott Walker era is over!
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers is now governor-elect of the state of Wisconsin, defeating incumbent Gov. Scott Walker Tuesday by 30,849 votes (1,324,648 to 1,293,799).
Evers’ victory means former state legislator Mandela Barnes, who campaigned with Evers across the state, is the first African American lieutenant governor in state history.
Both Evers and Barnes were listed together on the bal-lot, as was Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
In another electoral surprise, federal prosecutor Josh Kaul narrowly beat incumbent Atty. Gen. Brad Schimel for the state’s top cop position. Kaul garnered 1,310, 300 total votes (50%) to Schimel’s 1,287,627 votes (49%).
Milwaukee again played a prominent role in Tuesday’s general election and the wins of Evers, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Cong. Gwen Moore, and three other state-wide races.
All of the candidates endorsed by the Community Journal last week won.
Of the 1,324,648 votes Evers received statewide, 167,560 (78%) came from the city. Walker received only 42,332 votes (19.75%). Baldwin received 175,617 city votes (81%) to State Senator Leah Vukmir’s 38,406 (17.91%).
Moore garnered 168,971 Milwaukee votes (79%) to her closest competitor for the Fourth Congressional Dis-trict seat, Tim Rogers, who received 38,471 votes (18%). Kaul also won the city, receiving 163,974 votes to Schimel’s 42,987.
The state’s largest city was also was at the center of a controversy over 47,000 absentee ballots weren’t counted until early Wednesday. Absentee ballots can’t be counted until the polls opened Tuesday, election day.
Here are the city’s absentee ballot totals:
- Scott Walker: 7,188
- Tony Evers: 38,674
- Leah Vukmir: 6:345
- Brad Schimel: 7,530
- Josh Kaul: 37,882
Baldwin was one of several U.S. senators in key national election contests to retain her seat, defeating Vukmir. The incumbent senator won by 288,843 votes (1,471,904 total to 1,183,061).
Doug LaFollette retained his posi-tion as Secretary of State (1,380,202 votes-53%), defeating Jay Schroeder (1,233,404-47%). Sarah Godlewski will be the new state treasurer, de-feating Travis Hartwig. She collected 1,323,586 votes (51%). Hartwig re-ceived 1,215,553 (47%).
Aside from the four major candi-dates the Community Journal en-dorsed last week (Evers, Barnes, Moore and Baldwin), the other 16 candidates the newspaper endorsed won:
State Assembly
District 8-JoCasta Zamarrippa
District 9-Marisabel Cabrera
District 10-David Bowen
District 11-Jason Fields
District 12-LaKeshia Myers
District 16-Kalan Haywood
District 17-David Crowley
District 18-Evan Goyke
District 19-Jonathan Brostoff
District 20-Christine Sinicki
State Senate Tim Carpenter
With the exception of Zamarrippa (who was challenged by Angel Sanchez), the majority of the afore-mentioned state legislative candi-dates (all incumbents except Haywood and Myers) won uncon-tested races.
In city and county elections, for-mer county board supervisor and state lawmaker Nikiya Dodd won her race for Alderperson of the fifth al-dermanic district, defeating Matthew Elder. Dodd received 9,785 votes (68%); Elder got 4,625 votes (32%).
Earnell Lucas, a former Milwau-kee Police captain and head of secu-rity for Major League Baseball, won his uncontested race for Milwaukee County Sheriff, replacing the contro-versial former Sheriff David Clarke.
Marijuana was on the Tuesday bal-lot…and it won…six times A major-ity of voters in six state counties, including Milwaukee County said yes to legalizing adult use of mari-juana.
Seventy percent of Milwaukee County voters favored the measure with 30% of voters rejecting the change in state law. The other coun-ties that approved advisory referen-dums to change the law on Pot were Dane, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Racine and Rock.
A total 2,671,347 state votes were cast.
Leave a Reply