walker got what he deserved----good bye
5
Thanks for everyone's support from other States. Wow we really must have been doing that bad for everyone to congratulate us on getting back our Wisconsin. When you live it every day it makes you wonder does any other State have this messed up system. Thanks for your support.
5
Huge mistake for Wisconsin. Schools are struggling because Administrators can't manage the checkbook. Cut staff 10% per year and give the money to classrooms. Decertify Unions. Take the money back. Give it to classrooms. America is not "shovel ready". Trade and for-profit schools should be teaching construction management not criminal justice. Wisconsin, you just dug yourself another pothole.
1
@HaleGM Wisconsin is IN a very deep hole, and the person holding the shovel is Scott Walker, a venal and incompetent hack who has sold off state forests to the paper industry and committed the taxpayers to footing the bill for Foxconn, which won't make itself whole until 2042. And who will these "Construction Managers" you envision be managing? Because the only people willing to perform manual labor in this country are undocumented workers.
2
Congratulations, Wisconsin. Your long , Statewide nightmare is over. Remember it, for 2020. Please.
3
It's a great day here in Wisconsin!!! Not only did we get rid of Scott Walker, who cost me, a teacher, a lot of money, but we also won all of the other state-wide offices: Attorney General, State Treasurer, Secretary of State, and we now have a black Lt. Governor. Tammy Baldwin is staying in the Senate. We would have sent Randy Brice to the House if not for the GOP's gerrymandering of the First District.
I have thought today of the cold days I marched around the state house in opposition to Act 10, and am so happy that Walker has finally been stopped. Maybe now teachers will win the appreciation they deserve and school funding will improve, maybe our roads will improve, maybe we will revisit a commuter train, maybe our DNR will once again protect the environment, and maybe the thousands of people who qualify for Medicaid will finally get covered. The state house is still controlled by the GOP, and now they are going to have to learn to work across the aisle for the betterment of this great state.
25
It is very comforting to see that American chose education over hate in WI
15
As a retired UW-System professor (I retired because of Walker), I experienced firsthand the negative impacts to the UW-System because of Walker. In my department, we lost 50% of our faculty representing over 90 years of teaching experience, as well as 100’s of professional contacts to place student interns. Star faculty, too young to retire, were lured to other universities. The big losers were students.
Note: the Wall Street Journal just reported that Foxconn Technology Group is considering bringing in personnel and robots from China to work at the Wisconsin Foxconn factory. Jobs forecasted are at risk, yet Wisconsinites hold the bag for $4,000,000,000 in incentives given to Foxconn by Walker.
15
On Wisconsin!
Scott Walker's ideology affected our state in a lot of creepy ways.
These included centralizing driver licensing (a result of the voter ID laws; changing the department of commerce to "workforce development," its scandal-plagued replacement; trying to purge the Wisconsin Idea (our century-old concept that education benefits everybody) from our constitution; and imperiling the future of the roughly 10 per cent of the world's fresh water contained in our ground water, as well as putting the Great Lakes at some risk.
Implementing Gov. Walker's ideology has been unbelievably expensive. Rejecting a billion dollars for Medicaid expansion. State-backed loans with no prospect of repayment, arising from business development efforts. The Foxconn nightmare.
Even worse are the social fissures that opened throughout the state, especially in our more sparsely populated northern counties.
I personally hope that one of Mr. Evert's first actions will be moving Doug LaFollette, our venerable Sec. of State, out of the furnace room or wherever the Walker administration had stashed his desk, back into more reasonable quarters. This would be a symbolic way of showing that work was underway to restore state operations to full functionality.
19
Walker really divided the state; he soiled the temperate populace of Wisconsin into fighting factions even before Trump came on the scene. The newly elected governor Evers, an educator for life, has taught one final lesson to Mr. Scott Walker that arrogance, hubris and divisive politics never pays in the long run. I hope the Wisconsin voters teach the same lesson to Trump in 2020.
27
I think the one reason that Walker succeeded in the union area is because of the recession. Many residents were taking a large hit but found it unsavory the way the teachers union pressed for strong wage/benefit increases even in a bad economy. It was bad PR and it seemed they always had the upper hand in the frequent contract cycles. It didn't help that the UW system as caught hiding a billion in cash reserves while complaining about funding. A different system but still led to people being suspicious of educators or at least those in charge of representing them.
1
Phew! Free at last, free at last. Scott Walker had tormented liberals enough in Wisconsin. From strangling the unions, to winning the recall election and re-election. He had caused them to question their very existence ! Now the liberals in State St., Williamson St. and Monroe st. Madison can stick their chest out and enjoy their craft beer and cheese curds !
12
Unfortunately we still have a state legislature stacked with a grossly disproportionate number of Republicans--66% in the Assembly and 58% in the Senate--despite the fact that more than half the statewide vote total was Democratic. Evers' first order of business needs to be establishing a non-partisan redistricting mechanism that ends this outrageous gerrymandering once and for all and exposes the Republicans for the anti-democratic crooks they are..
33
@Richard -- Prima facie evidence that the GOP stacked the deck in its extreme gerrymandering practices now before the United States Supreme Court. They can't win based on their ideas or performance, so they resort to denying the people their proportionate voice.
20
Thank you Tony Evers for taking back Wisconsin. I have been a public school teacher in Wisconsin for 30 years. Before Scott Walker was our governor, teachers in Wisconsin were well respected, treated fairly and there were plenty of us to maintain quality schools. Today we have a teacher shortage, no substitutes to cover our classrooms, fewer teaching assistants and more unpaid duties than we've ever had. I'm so grateful that Tony Evers ran for governor and is looking out for the kids of Wisconsin!
Eight years ago, I protested at our states capitol with hundreds of other concerned teachers. I'm hoping once Tony Evers takes office, Wisconsin teachers will rally at our capitol in celebration and gratitude. Let this new journey begin! :)
21
We should note that President Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, yet we were the state that he won by his smallest margin, 30,000 votes. So a 15,000 vote swing would have denied him this victory. Now, Democratic Governor-Elect Evers has won the state by 30,000 votes, ousting the Republican incumbent. This would seem to be bad news for President Trump's prospects for 2020.
It would be interesting to see what the 2018 election results might tell us about the President's prospects to prevail in 2020 in the other states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that pushed him over the top in 2016.
8
@Jerry S. Only if there is record turnout in 2020 to match the turnout yesterday. Chances are that the turnout will be there depending on who the democrats nominate. I was hoping Beto wins in Texas, he would have been the no-brainer candidate to take on Trump.
@JimK Beto can still run!
2
@Lee, well, Richard Nixon might be the historical comparison; he successfully ran for president after being defeated for governor of California. But he was the VP for eight years before this. I like Beto, but I think there will be better choices for the Democratic candidate in 2020.
1
Scott Walker is an egotistical, narcissistic person, right up there with Donald trump. Thankfully the people of Wisconsin, the state in which I was raised, wizened up to his self-interests and gave him the boot. Now let's hope that same energy is present in two years to oust you know who.
40
My take on Walker. A disgraceful man who tore the life blood out of Wisconsin's young people with his crushing of the Teachers Union.
How can the leader of a State be so callous that he believes only he counts and a must win, at anyone else's cost? Fits Trumps profile perfectly.
Good riddance.
37
Scott Walker was a wonderful leader, rightened the sinking ship, and was vilified for his firm stance against big money unions. So sad.
1
@Joe yohka
I notice you're not from Wisconsin. If you were here you might know that under Walker's school funding has gone way down and class sizes are up. Conservationists are concerened about damage to water quality. Many Republicans decry the loss of local control we've seen. Roads are filled with potholes.
And unions were seldom mentioned by either walker or Evers in the campaign. Even if they had been, the unions do not have the money to oppose Walker.
12
@Joe yohka Scott Walker was and is a Koch Brothers stooge. He has done nothing in life but be a politician...for all the wrong reasons. He has gutted Wisconsin's public schools. He has ignored decaying infrastructure. He has put in jeopardy the healthcare of thousands of Wisconsin residents. His ego is insatiable. His arrogance without end. His ambitions have always been his driving force. He has never been about leading the State of Wisconsin and its people. His agenda starts and stops with Scott Walker. I know -- because I have suffered through his 8 years of self-promotion and "what's in it for me" strategies. The residents of Wisconsin spoke yesterday...me and 1.3 million of my like-minded friends.
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@Joe yohkaThank you for your comment, Donald.
6
Bravo Mr Evers, well done - that's excellent news.
25
There are many odious characters in American politics but Scott Walker is surely near the top of the list. Removing him from office does not resolve the conflicts in American society but it is certainly a step in the right direction. It is distressing that he lost by such a slim margin after selling out his constituents with the financially, legally and environmentally harmful Foxconn deal which turns out to be an enormous con.
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Scott Walker will be fine - the Koch brothers need an overpaid butler, I suppose.
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@Alan
You know, Alan, I've always been amazed at how small government Republicans and "strangle government in the bathtub" conservatives like Scott Walker happily nurse at the teat of government for their own enrichment while bashing their employer. As a Wisconsinite, I know that Walker worked in the private sector for less than 2 years before finding his place at the feeding trough. If he becomes the Koch butler, it will be the first honest work he's done in decades!
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@diannao1 SPOT ON! Couldn't have said it better myself. He is the epitome of everything he claims to loathe about "establishment" politicians. I hope he and Koch brothers will be very happy together....somewhere else!
9
Kudos to the people of Wisconsin! I took my son to visit the University of Wisconsin months after Walker's first win, well after he had dismantled teacher's unions and depleted public schools. It was Spring, and by then the hoards of protesters were long gone. But when we visited the beautiful state capitol, just blocks from the Madison campus, a small, peaceful protest was still taking place. As we entered the capitol's rotunda, we were handed a song book and invited to join others singing "This land is your land." Way to go Wisconsin: You finally have your land back.
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Ladies and gentlemen, our long statewide nightmare is over.
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Of course you have bad roads .. you live in WI. What a shame if WI abandons the right course to swing back to mindless socialism, unionism. They could easily lose Foxconn, ULine and other businesses to states that are not going to put up with Liberal nonsense
1
@RJPost
We had some of the best roads in the Midwest before Walker's election. And your claim that with the election of Evers we're moving toward "mindless socialism" is laughable. You demonstarte that you know nothing about Wisconsin or about Tony Evers. He's no more of a socialist than my daughter's pug is.
39
@RJPost
You mean states that don't bribe businesses to open or stay here with billions in taxpayer-funded giveaways so our governor can tout his job-creation record. How is it that corporate welfare is fine but the kind that helps actual people is derided as socialism?
15
@RJPost: "mindless socialism???" Most of the top industrial nations of the world have social democratic governments that take care of their populations with healthcare, infrastructure, and environmental concerns so the people can concentrate on making a living. Sure, their taxes are higher but they get more "bang for their buck" and are more satisfied for it. They don't have to worry about going bankrupt if they become I'll and can pay for their medications or medical care. These countries also have excellent public transportation that puts ours to shame.
16
It's more than just Tony. The Dems won all five constitutional offices in Wisconsin . . . Gov, Lt Gov, AG, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer. Also, Tammy Baldwin won reelection with a 10 point margin. The only downsides were in the gerrymandered legislative seats.
It's taken us eight years to get back to having leadership which will be more concerned with our roads, our schools, our water, and our health than with their own political advancement, and it's really sweet.
49
Public school teachers are, generally speaking, some of the most selfless people that there are. Teachers must be allowed the right to collective bargaining.
Good riddance to Scott Walker.
79
There is a limit apparently to just how much draconian anti-social governance any society is willing to tolerate - even Wisconsin..
32
That Scott Walker ever came to prominence in Wisconsin is truly sad. He is as vacuous as they come, with his career defined by an utter lack of substance. The problem with Walker was that he was so fixated on the grand prize that he simply never bothers to learn the underlying processes of anything. That is how he gutted education and then raped Wisconsin's taxpayers of billions of dollars in the ill-fated Foxconn "deal". But he is not alone, as we have a plethora of politicians from both parties "bang on the drum all day" but never grasp the negative consequences of their policy decisions. Scott Walker was the Debbie Wasserman Schultz of the Republican Party. Thankfully, Walker is done... Sadly, Debbie is not...
21
Oh, no!
If Scott Walker is unemployed then trump will hire him on for Water Inspection!
Tony Evers: I am so delighted!!!
Thank you!
24
Forward!
25
Thank God! I grew up in Wisconsin and still have close ties there. Scott Walker and the republican controlled state legislature were bad for Wisconsin and America as a whole. They're responsible for the downgrade of one of America's best public school systems. They're enactment of the "Right-to-Work" state only puts more money in the pockets of treasonous Americans such as Diane Hendricks who don't pay fair taxes nor her workers a fair, living wage in Beloit, WI. And the deal with FoxxConn?? One solution: Lock Him Up!
40
Happy, happy, happy in Wisconsin!
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Wisconsinites finally realized they’d been Foxconned. A fitting end for the corporate welfare king.
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@Mr. Grieves Unfortunately I don't think they realize how Foxconned they were.
4
This win is particular sweet for me. I remember marching in protest of his actions with union folk in Manhattan early in his tenure when he was destroying the good things in Wisconsin under the direction of his masters the Koch brothers.
55
The Democrats deserve congratulations and gratitude for finally dispatching Koch Brothers loyalist Scott Walker, but it's a stretch to imagine them inspired in any way by Robert M. La Follette. If La Follette attempted a run today he would be thoroughly vilified as an inveterate socialist first and foremost by the Democratic party establishment and liberal media outlets like MSNBC, (as shown with watered down La Follette Bernie Sanders and even the harmless Jill Stein.) They would condemn La Follette's opposition to war as pro Russia and anti Israel. The natural inclination on the part of the Democratic base toward La Follette's platform favoring unionization and government takeovers would be dismissed as unrealistic, the only realistic choice the suitably milquetoast Mr. Evers.
6
So fitting and deeply ironic that a teacher beat him. Walker wanted to open classroom teachers to those with skills but no college degree. Evers as head of department of public instruction fought hard for high teacher standards including rigorous licensure. If ever there was evidence in America that we need strong teachers to educate ALL children in the humanities it is now.
I hope walker decides to return to college to complete his undergraduate degree. There are lots of excellent Wisconsin teachers to help him in that noble endeavor.
97
Brilliant wit!
11
This is a wonderful day. Kringle for everyone!
37
@Carolyn Spedden, for those in other states, we should point out that kringles are oversized Danish pastries that are big (in several ways) in the Racine area.
6
@Carolyn Spedden Best comment of the day!
2
@Carolyn Spedden
Wisconsin's always been known for great food, and until recently a pragmatic social responsibility to make sure everybody gets enough to eat.
Thousands of German POWs working on Wisconsin farms during WWII said after the war that they were fed much more, and much better, food than they would have eaten at home as either a soldier or civilian. A major intangible in winning the long-term moral war.
4
Oh, this result makes me so happy! Scott Walker's terrible influence was felt far outside of Wisconsin. The FoxCon catastrophe seems like the cherry on top of his disastrous time in office.
44
I wonder if the folks who found 7,000 supposedly "missing" votes in Waukesha County that handed the 2011 Supreme Court election to Republican David Prosser will come up with, oh 31,000 or so, to change this result. Along with our clean environment, clean elections are a thing of the past in Wisconsin.
34
@Richard Walker's successful voter suppression campaign over the last 8 years leaves him no room to claim "I was robbed" by voter fraud. At my very busy WI polling place yesterday, my driver's license was quite thoroughly scrutinized by election personnel before I was given a ballot. Walker has no one but himself to blame for his loss. He has divided our great state at every turn--no more so than in his continued legislative attempts to undercut the City of Milwaukee. The City has now rendered its verdict on him. Good riddance!
20
One bright spot in a fairly dismal election - getting rid of Walker is a great win for America
66
True to form here in Wisconsin, our new Governor-elect Evers noted in his victory speech that his priority is to "solve problems, not pick partisan fights". Compare this to defeated incumbent Scott Walker, who has neither the grace to concede defeat nor the courage to show his face to supporters at his election night watch party.
Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Walker, and your refusal to put the welfare of WI citizens ahead of your quest for power shows just how ill suited you were for the job of public servant as governor of Wisconsin.
Good riddance.
241
May Wisconsin's victory prove yet another shining example for the rest of the country -- including those of us needing it here in Texas!
51
@SGK Beto and his campaign are inspirations to Wisconsinites and Americans everywhere. Intelligent, charismatic, his choosing not to vilify but work across party lines, was awesome. Even in his narrow loss, Beto's candidacy helped energize and elect other Texas Dems, no small accomplishment in a state political climate that has demoralized Democrats for years. I look forward to seeing this Texas star continue to rise.
20
The Fox Con deal now has dumped $4.1 billion into the laps of WI taxpayers with some economists now claiming each job gained will cost $370K...with no chance of a state payback. Walker removed all taxes for FC and the state gain will come, if ever, from taxes on employee salary. It gets worse: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/did-scott-walker-and-donald-trump-deal-away-the-governors-race-to-foxconn https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker
39
@anthro Yes, the New York Times completely missed the Foxconn issue. The price Walker paid is cash payments to Foxconn, not "tax credits" as the article says. Foxconn will never pay any taxes directly. This is a horrible deal for Wisconsin tax payers Walker's legacy will be dragging down Wisconsin for decades.
1
This makes my heart happy. I've lived and grown up in WI for the past 27 years and I've seen first-hand the damage that Walker and similar political rhetoric has caused: failing businesses, crumbling infrastructure and school systems, increased poverty and frustration, attacks on environmental protections, etc. etc...Trump is the same thing but on a National level and it just doesn't work. It makes the rich richer and middle class evaporate into thin air.
It's far past time that we have someone to represent what a majority of the state and country wants. Despite pockets of right-leaning communities scattered about, I have to believe WI is still a progressive state that wants to embrace the future- not wallow in mid-1900's ideology. Thank you for voting, people of WI.
71
@JR
A government composed of rich and poor with little or no middle class is one of the definitions of a third-world country.
29
@JR How do you account for unemployment going from 8% in 2011 with Doyle to 3% in 2018 under Walker?? failing businesses, I don't think so. You don't get that kind of unemployment decreases with failing businesses, so please, give facts on your failing businesses argument?
2
@Mzjan Perhaps you might want to look at national unemployment rates from, say, 2004 to today. You will find that Wisconsin tracks that pretty closely. You might then want to blame George W. Bush for the disaster of 2008 and credit Obama for the recovery. But I bet you won't.
45
To say Walker lowered taxes is inaccurate in the broad sense. Because the result has been increased fees across the board from state parks to hybrid cars. Local governments from school boards to county boards have had to raise taxes to cover the reduced revenue from the state. Net effect, a state that has deteriorated.
110
As a lifetime resident of Wisconsin and now retired, I have lived with changes in this great state of Wisconsin. I just wonder how anyone can not recall our state's 8% unemployment rate under the previous governor, Jim Doyle's control and now, over the past 8 years with steadily decreasing unemployment, we have a 3% unemployment rate under Scott Walker. We will quickly go back to those higher rates of unemployment rates with Tony Evers and Democrats running things. Businesses will quit hiring and leave the state. Very sad to say for the residents of the state of Wisconsin.
3
@Mzjan
How much of that decrease in unemployment comes from the vast number of Baby Boomers retirements? Job opportunities all over the country are up because the largest segment of the workforce is calling it a day.
25
@Mzjan It's a little disingenuous to say that was all Walker's doing. Look at the US Unemployment Rates starting in 2009, per BLS.gov. It's a full 5 point drop.
2009 9.3
2010 9.6
2011 8.9
2012 8.1
2013 7.4
2014 6.2
2015 5.3
2016 4.9
2017 4.4
12
@Mzjan I have watched Wisconsin deteriorate from the comfortable distance of my former home Chicago. I have felt the pain as Walker destroyed teachers' unions, one of the best public universities in the country, harassed tenured faculty, undercut the poor by depriving them from access to expanded Medicaid and rigged the courts in his favor. He is a vile man and his behavior in the light of his defeat speaks volumes. Congratulation, Wisconsin! You did it. The rest of the country is happy for you. You didn't buy into Trumpian fearmongering and dystopian distortions. I am happy for you!
41
Wisconsin did not so much swing conservative as its Democrats failed to support their own establishment, which was too conservative to win their enthusiasm.
Now the party won them back. The party leadership moved, but the voters did not.
9
Thank you Wisconsin.
90
Not entitled to a recount Scott Walker. You signed Assembly Bill 153. Remember?
150
When it is all said and done the Walker political trajectory and Trumps' will have many similarities - white hot at the launch and a fatigue of the electorate at the close. Bring it on.
48
Welcome back Wisconsin!
134
Exactly!
6
Its been a dark 8 years here in Wisconsin. Scott Walker is a tea party charlatan. He cheated in college and was never able to finish. As a county executive in Milwaukee he systematically defunded the park system and public transportation. As governor he stomped out collective bargaining with a well-documented stream of illegal contributions that was never prosecuted because the stacked conservative supreme court threw the case out and ordered prosecutors to “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation”. He went on to scrub the public record of all climate change references, fire the majority of the scientists staffing the Dept of Natural Resources, and cancel a prominent high-speed rail project that was already underway on what many viewed as racial grounds (i.e. "criminality" coming up from Chicago). He denied Wisconsinites $2.5 million in federal subsidies by not expanding Medicaid (a prideful move he did to bolster his anti-Obama credentials for his presidential run) and of course he cut state and blocked federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health initiatives.
Our lakes are green, our roads are crumbling, rural poverty is skyrocketing, and we are lagging behind our neighbor states on health metrics...its been a dark 8 years for what I still see as the progressive state of Wisconsin. Welcome Tony Evers and good luck!
253
@Robert
And as always a Democrat has to come in to clean up the mess left behind by GOP plundering.
116
Do not forget his decimation of our school systems and bargaining rights for public employees.
My relief at his exit is palpable.
65
This candidate kept his eye on the prize; what was best for the people of Wisconsin. Scott Walker's continued policies would have bankrupted the state and starved the school districts. He's already given away the ranch to Foxconn. He's another Don the con, in Wisconsin colors. It will be interesting to see if Foxconn actually builds this plant.
79
This (and Dem victory in KS), in my opinion, is more significant than the close defeats in FL and elsewhere.
75
“We have bad roads. We have a struggling school system that’s been politicized. And frankly, we have a health care system that’s under attack.”
This is the kind of message Democrats need. This speaks to everyone and crystallizes what has happened under right-wing control.
132
As someone who was born and raised in Wisconsin, this is welcome news. Walker's policies have decimated Wisconsin.
102
Some semblance of sanity has returned to Wisconsin, my home state. Even if by a razor thin margin.
62