WISCONSIN
      Nov. 6, 2012 U.S. Senate

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Tammy Baldwin (D)
1,547,104
 		51.41%
Tommy Thompson (R)
 		1,380,126
 		45.86%
Joseph Kexel (I)
 		62,240
 		2.07%
Nimrod Y.U. Allen III (I)
 		16,455
 		0.55%
write-ins
 		113
scattering
 3,373
 0.11%
 
 3,009,411
Plurality: 166,978 (5.55 percentage points).
 WI Elections Commission


Notes:  On May 13, 2011, Sen. Herb Kohl (D), first elected in 1988, announced he would not run for re-election.  In the fifth most expensive Senate race of the 2012 cycle (>), U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) defeated former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) and two independents.

Baldwin, 50, served on the Dane County Board of Supervisors from 1986 to 1994, then served six years in the Wisconsin Assembly before being elected to Congress in 1998; she was the first openly gay person elected to the House.

Thompson, 70, had been a fixture in Wisconsin politics for decades, but had turned more to the national stage in recent years.  He was first elected to the Assembly in 1966 and served ten terms; in 1986 he was elected governor and he served in that position for 14 years.  He resigned in Jan. 2001 to become Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration, and served in that position to 2005.  He then turned to the private sector, and also made a brief run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2007 (+).

Baldwin was unopposed in the Aug. 14 primary, while Thompson emerged from the competitive GOP primary (>), garnering 197,928 votes (33.99%), to defeat asset manager Eric Hovde 179,557 (30.83%), former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann 132,786 (22.80%) and former Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald 71,871 (12.34%).

Baldwin and Thompson engaged in three debates:

Sept. 28 - sponsored by Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation from Milwaukee Public Television studios at Milwaukee Area Technical College (>);

Oct. 18 - sponsored by Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and TMJ4 at UW-Marathon County in Wausau (>);

Oct. 26 - on WISN-TV from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee (>).

Republicans saw encouraging signs in Gov. Scott Walker's success in the June 5 recall election.  Further, Mitt Romney's selection of Rep. Paul Ryan, the congressman from Janesville, as his running mate, put the state in play in the presidential race, leading to a fair bit of activity (+).  In the general election Wisconsin had the second highest turnout as a percentage of voting eligilble population, trailing only Minnesota.  When the votes were tallied, the Obama-Biden ticket won with a plurality of 7.06 percentage points and Baldwin prevailed by 5.55 percentage points (+). 

According to Open Secrets (1, 2), spending by all candidates and outside groups totalled $81.5 million while spending by the two general election candidates and outside groups totalled $68.5 million.  The two campaigns spent a total of $24.8 million: Baldwin $15.2 million and Thompson $9.6 million.  Outside groups spent a total of $43.7 million; ten groups invested more than $1 million in the race—on the Democratic side: DSCC ($7.9M), Majority PAC ($4.9M), Women Vote! ($3.2M), AFSCME ($1.7M), and on the Republican side: NRSC ($6.7M), Crossroads GPS ($4.7M), US Chamber of Commerce ($2.9M), American Crossroads ($2.7M), Club for Growth Action ($1.7M) and Americans for Prosperity ($1.5M).


Campaign Managers:
Tammy Baldwin:  Karin Johanson
(Oct. 2011)  Principal at Dewey Square Group, 2007-11.  Executive director (from Spring 2006) and political director (2005-06) at the DCCC.  State director for ACT Florida in the 2004 cycle.  Principal at Precision Communications, Inc., a consulting firm in Silver Spring, MD.  Managed Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin's winning campaign in  2002.  Political director at the DCCC in 2000 and worked as its West Coast field director.  Communications director, then political director at EMILY's List.  Worked for U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) for ten years including the last two as chief of staff.  B.A. in political science from American University.
 
 Tommy Thompson:  Ryan Burchfield
(Sept. 2011)  Political analyst at Targeted Victory, Dec. 2010-Sept. 2011.  Campaign manager on Todd Young for Congress (IN), Dec. 2009-Nov. 2010.  Deputy Victory director for the RNC, Dec. 2007-Dec. 2009.  Analyst at the General Services Administration, Feb.-Dec. 2007.  Director of voter registration and identification for the Nevada Republican Party, Aug.-Nov. 2006.  B.S. degrees in economics and aeronautical and astronautical engineering from The Ohio State University, 2006.


See also:
David Catanese.  "Thompson camp: Keep calm, hit hard."  Politico, Sept. 26, 2012.

Iowa State University Archives of Women's Political Communcation: Tammy S. Baldwin
 
  



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