Republicans were last night gloating at dealing President Obama an early blow following the party’s decisive win in a crucial electoral contest in Wisconsin that could set the stage in the race for the White House.
Mr Obama’s camp professed to be unconcerned by the result of Tuesday night’s gubernatorial race, in which Republican Scott Walker became the first governor in US history to survive a recall election and keep his seat. He won by a seven per cent margin.
Republicans said the victory represented an “absolute disaster” for the US leader, and a solid public vote of confidence in the party’s 2012 general election pledge to fix the economy by shrinking government and reining in public spending.
Click below to listen to Alexandra Frean, our Washington bureau chief, discuss the politics of the Wisconsin recall.
After a gripping year-long battle, Mr Walker beat a Democratic and trade union-led attempt to remove him from office in a contest that widely came to be seen as a proxy for November’s battle for the presidency.
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“This race should draw a sharp contrast in the eyes of voters,” Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a victory memo. “On the Republican side stood Scott Walker . . . he balanced the budget, got Wisconsinites back to work, and put government back on the side of the people. It’s certainly a far cry from what President Obama is offering.”
Fresh from his victory over Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, Mr Walker yesterday said his win sent out a “powerful message” that candidates willing to make tough decisions on public spending could succeed.
He added that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican presidential candidate, now had a chance to win Wisconsin in the general election, even though no Republican candidate has won it since Ronald Reagan in 1984, provided he was willing to visit the state and “make a compelling case about how he’s willing to take on the tough challenges”.
Mr Romney lost no time in attempting to capture the momentum built up by Mr Walker’s victory. “Governor Walker has demonstrated over the past year what sound fiscal policies can do to turn an economy around, and I believe that in November voters across the country will demonstrate that they want the same in Washington,” he said.
He is now expected to campaign aggressively in the state, which voted for Mr Obama by a 14 percentage point margin in 2008, but which even the President’s campaign managers have now labelled as an “undecided”.
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The recall election, prompted by Mr Walker’s efforts to squash collective bargaining by public sector unions, is also being seen as a test of the power of big labour when pitted against Republican donors from the private sector. These out of state contributors to Republican political action committees put millions of dollars behind Mr Walker’s campaign enabling him to outspend Mr Barrett significantly.
Having spent more than $10 million (£6.5 million) supporting Mr Barrett, the fear now among union leaders across the country is that Mr Walker’s victory will embolden political leaders in other states to regard cutting back on union rights and benefits as a way to solve their budget problems.
That could be bad news for Mr Obama, whose electoral fortunes depend heavily on the support of big labour. The unions “picked a fight they weren’t able to win”, Gary Chaison, a labour expert at Clark University told The Hill congressional newspaper “This shows them at their weakest.”
In fact, the weaknesses were already beginning to show before Tuesday’s vote. Membership of public sector unions in Wisconsin fell sharply after the introduction of Mr Walker’s trade union restrictions. At the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, membership fell to 28,745 in February 2012 from 62,818 in March 2011.
But the Wisconsin result was not all bad news for Democrats. After separate recall elections for four state senators on Tuesday, the Democrats won one seat, regaining control of the state senate for the first time since Mr Walker took office in January 2011.
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The result, which may still be subject to a recount, could plunge the state senate into gridlock, although the seats will have to be defended again in elections in November.
Exit polls from the Walker election also suggest that Republicans are by no means guaranteed success in November. The President still leads Mr Romney 53 to 42 per cent — with more voters saying Mr Obama would do a better job on the economy.