Governor

Tea Party hero faces difficult contest

In one of the hottest races in the country, Gov. Scott Walker, a hero to conservatives and a villain to liberals for his campaign against public employee unions, is seeking a second term.

Polls show him in a close contest with Mary Burke, a former executive of the Trek Bicycle Corporation and a former state commerce secretary. Her lack of a political track record, and Mr. Walker’s contentious term in office, make this race primarily a referendum on the governor, a Tea Party favorite who is seen as a possible presidential contender.

In a state that President Obama has carried twice, Mr. Walker won a close race for governor in 2010, the year of a Republican wave. In his first months in office, he pushed through budget-cutting legislation that included deep reductions in public employee benefits and stripped those unions of most of their collective bargaining power.

That legislation sparked weeks of raucous protests that drew national attention, with thousands of people crowding into and around the statehouse in Madison. It also prompted legislators in the Democratic Party to leave the state in an unsuccessful effort to block the bill by preventing a quorum. But the bill became law, weakening the unions’ political power, which Mr. Walker’s opponents charged was his intent all along.

The governor further cemented his conservative standing by favoring antiabortion measures, rejecting the federally financed expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and signing a law requiring voters to present identification at the polls.

For much of the year, the voter identification law loomed as a factor in the election, as analysts predicted that it would lower turnout among minority, poor and young voters, favoring Republicans. Democrats and civil liberties groups called it a partisan attempt at voter suppression that would produce election-day chaos – a charge that Democrats used to try to rally their base. But on Oct. 9, the Supreme Court blocked implementation of the law. Mr. Walker has proposed mandatory drug testing for people receiving government benefits, and his ads have accused Ms. Burke of copying parts of her economic recovery plan from other states. Ms. Burke has countered that it is natural to borrow good ideas, while criticizing the governor’s handling of state finances — all in keeping with her self-described image as a nonideological pragmatist.

Mr. Walker survived a recall election in 2012, with 53 percent of the vote. Ms. Burke has called for prosecutors to resume a stalled investigation into possible illegal coordination among his recall campaign and outside groups that supported him.