Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the recall election Tuesday amounted to a significant defeat for the nation’s labor unions, who had mounted one of their most aggressive grass-roots campaigns ever to defeat the Republican governor.
As one of his first acts after taking office two years ago, Walker had targeted the unions representing government workers, moving to curb their collective bargaining rights. The failure of the union effort to oust him on Tuesday sent reverberations across the labor movement and the Democratic Party, signaling that one of President Obama’s most powerful constituencies is politically vulnerable and may not be able to help him as much as expected in this year’s election, either in Wisconsin or across the country.

Allied labor groups rallied more than 50,000 volunteers who knocked on 1.4 million doors and placed 1.8 million calls, according to figures from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The AFL-CIO deployed the best of its targeting and technical team to try to rally opposition against Walker. The weeks-long standoff at the state Capitol last year, which drew tens of thousands of union supporters and national attention, had invigorated the movement, too.
But even after the groups allied against Walker spent $18 million, it was insufficient to match the sitting governor, whose campaign and supporters spent $47 million, according to figures from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group that tracks political spending.
In interviews, union leaders rejected the idea that the outcome reflected any growing antipathy with labor, or the diminished presence of unions.
The campaign “showed our ability to put boots on the ground,” said Gerry McIntee, the head of AFSCME.
The unions did have some success. The share of people from union households who turned out to vote rose from 26 percent in 2010 to 33 percent on Tuesday. Voters also narrowly ousted a Republican from the state Senate, shifting the balance of power there.
Moreover, in Ohio, after Gov. John Kasich (R) approved a similar law curtailing collective bargaining for state workers, voters there in November overwhelmingly overturned it.
“This was a defeat and a serious one for unions,” said Harley Shaiken, a University of California Berkeley professor who studies unionism. “But it doesn’t say they’re a paper tiger. It says they’re vulnerable.”
Walker and his supporters used much of their financial advantage on buying television advertising time, inundating the airwaves with messages arguing that his moves against the unions were necessary. “The reforms are working,” one the ads broadcast across the state told viewers.
They also touted figures that showed that the state budget was facing a deficit of as much as $3.5 billion, amounting to a crisis that made reforms critical.
“This was a referendum on collective bargaining rights, and the unions lost,” said Luke Hilgemann, director of Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin, an issues advocacy group that spent more than $5 million in the campaign. “The taxpayers of Wisconsin made it very clear that they did not support lavish pay and benefits for government workers.”