In winning re-election, Gov. Scott Walker, a hero to conservatives and a villain to liberals for his campaign against public employee unions, keeps alive speculation that he could be a Republican contender for national office.
Mr. Walker survived one of the most closely watched races in the country, in a state President Obama has carried twice, against Mary Burke, a former executive of the Trek Bicycle Corporation and a former state commerce secretary. With Ms. Burke’s absence of a political track record, and Mr. Walker’s contentious term in office, the race was primarily a referendum on the governor, a Tea Party favorite.
Mr. Walker won a close race in the Republican wave of 2010, and promptly 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 caused weeks of raucous protests that drew national attention, with thousands of people crowding into and around the statehouse in Madison.
The changes in law weakened the unions’ political power, which Mr. Walker’s opponents charged was his intent all along. Labor groups supported an attempt to recall the governor in 2012, but it failed.
Mr. Walker further cemented his conservative standing by favoring anti-abortion measures, rejecting the federally financed expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, proposing mandatory drug testing for people receiving government benefits, 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. But on Oct. 9, the Supreme Court blocked implementation of the law.
In the last weeks of the campaign, Mr. Walker’s campaign accused Ms. Burke of copying parts of her economic recovery plan from other states, calling it plagiarism. Ms. Burke countered that it was natural to borrow good ideas, while criticizing the governor’s handling of state finances.
Brad Schimel, a Republican, won a tight race for attorney general that determined who would be responsible for defending contentious state laws from legal challenges. But in the shadow of the governor’s race, the major candidates — two county district attorneys, Susan Happ, a Democrat, and Mr. Schimel — remained largely unknown.
A few months ago, Democrats thought they had a long shot’s chance in two Republican-held districts, but they fell far short, hobbled by the national atmosphere and poor fund-raising. In the Seventh District, which Mitt Romney carried by 3 percentage points in the 2012 presidential election, Representative Sean P. Duffy, a two-term Republican incumbent, easily turned back a little-known challenger, Kelly Westlund. And in the Sixth Congressional District, Glenn Grothman, a Republican state senator and outspoken conservative, handily defeated Mark Harris, the Winnebago County executive.
—RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA