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So far, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has largely lost out on union spending in the recall race for governor.

That's about to change, according to a top labor leader.

Unions spent heavily to back one of Barrett's Democratic primary challengers, and so far have not made the same kind of splash backing Barrett in the general election against GOP Gov. Scott Walker on June 5. Meanwhile, Walker and his allies have spent unprecedented sums on television ads and other campaigning.

But a top state employees union leader said Friday that his group would help back television ads soon to help Barrett and make up some but not all of that financial difference.

"It's in the can now," said Marty Beil, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 24. "I believe we're talking serious money."

Beil's union and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the largest state teachers union, tried to keep Barrett out of the race earlier this year and through the group Wisconsin for Falk spent more than $4 million to support former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk in the May 8 Democratic primary. Despite that spending, Barrett handily won the primary.

Walker last year ended most collective bargaining for most public workers, leading in large part to the current recall effort against him

Beil did not say what entity would run the new ads. But Kelly Steele, a spokesman for We Are Wisconsin, a coalition that's includes Beil's union, said it would soon start its advertising campaign.

Steele added that his group had 29 field offices open around the state to contact voters and boost turnout.

"We have built a statewide field program surpassing anything ever done here, even at the presidential level, to turn out the vote for Tom Barrett's campaign to reunite and move Wisconsin forward again," he said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Walker had no comment on the union ad buy, but state Republican Party spokesman Ben Sparks said that the party had 23 get-out-the-vote offices around the state.

Spending by We Are Wisconsin would bolster that by Barrett's own campaign, as well as the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee, which has been running spots for weeks.

During last summer's Senate recall elections, We Are Wisconsin led the spending and laid out $10.7 million, with most of that coming from national unions.

But Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said that Democratic groups won't be able to reach that total. So far, Republicans have outspent Democrats, in part because Walker has vastly out-fundraised Barrett, bringing in more than $25 million from January 2011 to April.

"That will no doubt change and it's already changing," said McCabe, whose group tracks campaign spending and lobbies for tighter campaign finance laws. "I expect it will be more even going forward, but the Democrats are not going to catch up."

Besides his own heavy advertising, Walker has been getting substantial support from ads by the Republican Governors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

Barrett focuses on probe

On the campaign trail Friday, Barrett called for Walker to disclose whether he knew of or authorized the secret email system that Walker's former aides are accused of using for campaign business on taxpayers' time during his time as Milwaukee County executive.

An ongoing John Doe investigation has resulted in charges against three staffers who worked for Walker when he was county executive, as well as one county appointee and a major campaign contributor. Walker has said he is not a target of the probe, although he has hired criminal defense attorneys and has set up a legal-defense fund.

Speaking at his Milwaukee campaign headquarters, Barrett demanded Friday that Walker say whether he was connected to potentially illegal campaign activities. Noting that key aides are accused of unlawful campaigning 25 feet from Walker's county office, Barrett told reporters, "The people of this state deserve to know if he was involved in that" and whether he authorized or even knew about the email system.

Barrett also repeated his previous call for Walker to disclose more details about who is contributing to his defense fund and how it was set up. State law allows such a fund only if the candidate, the campaign or campaign workers are under investigation.

Walker campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews deflected questions about the Doe probe and sought to turn the conversation back to the jobs issue that has dominated the campaign in recent days.

"Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is desperate to talk about anything other than his failed record in Milwaukee, where unemployment has jumped 28% in his eight years as mayor, and he does not want to talk about Gov. Walker's successful time in office . . . ," Matthews said. "In the absence of any credible policy ideas, he's flailing around."

Most of Barrett's news conference was focused on jobs, as he hammered Walker for releasing favorable employment data that has not been reviewed by the federal government for accuracy, just before the release of a different set of official numbers painted a bleaker picture.

Barrett is relying on a monthly survey of a small sample of employers, showing Wisconsin lost 33,900 jobs last year - more than any other state in the nation - while Walker is focusing on unverified data from a broader and generally more reliable quarterly survey indicating the state gained 23,321 jobs in 2011. Questioning Walker's figures, Barrett said, "A 57,000-job swing would be unprecedented in the history of the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

But at his own stop in Madison, Walker countered that the swing in numbers raised questions about the monthly data Barrett was relying on, rather than the quarterly jobs census.

"These are not numbers we get to make up," he said.

He noted his administration said in March 2011 it would use the quarterly data to track his promise to create 250,000 private-sector jobs during a four-year term. Democrats have said the new quarterly figures can't be trusted because they have not yet been reviewed by the federal government and were rushed out less than a month before the recall election.

Even with the new numbers, Walker is not on pace to meet his job promise.

Walker said the Legislature could take up a bill that could bring a $1.5 billion open-pit mine to northern Wisconsin after the recall against him and state senators. The measure failed to pass in March, at a time when Republicans controlled the Senate 17-16, because of opposition from GOP Sen. Dale Schultz of Richland Center and all Democrats. That would change after the recalls, Walker suggested.