Wisconsin Election Is Referendum on Governor

By MONICA DAVEY
NYT

MEQUON, Wis. — Until a few weeks ago, this state’s election on Tuesday for a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was widely expected to be dull and predictable.

But fights over the agenda of Wisconsin’s newly powerful Republicans, including cuts to collective bargaining rights, have turned this quiet judicial match into a bitter, expensive, highly personal and politicized battle, inflamed with advertising dollars expected to reach into the millions from outside liberal and conservative groups, including the Tea Party Express.

The race has turned into a referendum on Wisconsin’s new Republican governor, Scott Walker, his collective bargaining bill, and, more broadly, the Republican politicians who now control the Capitol.

“This has really become a proxy battle for the governor’s positions and much less a fight about the court itself,” said Charles H. Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

(More here.)