Doyle won 52.7 percent of the vote, while Green took 45.4 percent, giving the incumbent Democrat an easier-than-expected victory in a race that some had speculated would go down to the wire.,”
As part of Tuesday night's election coverage, WTMJ-4 projected after the station's own exit polls that Jim Doyle would win another four years as governor and that Democrat Kathleen Falk would be Wisconsin's next attorney general.
Looking back, one out of two isn't bad.
Doyle beat Republican challenger Mark Green for the state's top executive office, but Republican J.B. Van Hollen edged Falk in a very tight race after the final ballots were counted Wednesday.
Doyle won 52.7 percent of the vote, while Green took 45.4 percent, giving the incumbent Democrat an easier-than-expected victory in a race that some had speculated would go down to the wire.
After the race had been all but decided, both Doyle and Green called for bipartisanship. Doyle said that while the race had sometimes been an ugly one, it was time to move forward.
"We have honest differences, but we all love Wisconsin," he said.
Independent candidate Nelson Eisman finished a distant third, falling just short of two percent of the vote.
Meanwhile. Van Hollen, a former U.S. attorney, beat out Falk, the Dane County Executive, to become the state's next top cop. Out of more than two million ballots cast, Van Hollen eclipsed Falk by around 9,000 votes.
Other state races:
Incumbent Democrat Herb Kohl cruised to another term in the U.S. Senate, taking more than 67 percent of the vote and winning more ballots than Republican Robert Lorge and independent candidate Rae Vogeler combined.
Incumbent Democrat Gwen Moore will represent the students of her alma mater once again. Moore, the U.S. congresswoman for Wisconsin's 4th District, won her second consecutive term in the House after soundly defeating Republican challenger Perfecto Rivera with 72 percent of the vote.
Democrat Steve Kagen beat out Republican John Gard in the state's 8th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by Green, who opted to run for governor instead of seeking reelection.
Democrats took a handful of seats to win a slim majority in the Wisconsin State Senate and narrowed the Republican's lead in the State Assembly.
'Yes' vote across the board
A constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and to bar civil unions, passed easily.
With 59 percent of voters saying 'yes' on the amendment, Wisconsin joined 26 other states that have passed similar amendments.
Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia all passed marriage amendments Tuesday. At 52 percent to 48 percent, South Dakota's amendment passed by the slimmest margin, while Tennessee's passed by the widest at 81 percent to 19 percent.
Arizona became the first state to defeat such an amendment, with around 51 percent of voters saying no to the amendment.
Wisconsin voters also passed an advisory death penalty referendum, which recommends to the state legislature that the state bring back capital punishment. The non-binding referendum passed with around 56 percent of the vote.
Milwaukee County voters also passed by a large margin a non-binding referendum recommending that the U.S. withdraw troops from Iraq, with 72 percent voting yes.
Blue shift
Wins by Wisconsin Democrats echoed the national trend on Tuesday, with Democrats projected to take control of the both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in more than a decade.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had picked up 29 seats in the House, giving them 229 in total and more than enough for a majority.
The Democratic gains mean that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) will become the first female Speaker of the House in the nation's history.
Democrats also picked up six seats in the Senate on Tuesday, coming through with narrow victories in key races in Virginia, Montana and Missouri to secure a total of 49 of the Senate's 100 seats.
The Senate's two independent members, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have both said they will caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving the party control of the Senate.
Media outlets did not call a winner in the Montana race unti Wednesday morning, and did not project the Virginia outcome until later that night. Both races appear to have been won by fractions of a percentage point, coming down to a few thousand votes.
Democrats also picked up six governorships across the nation, giving them 28 overall.
Of Tuesday's 435 House races, 37 Senate races and 36 gubernatorial races, Republicans did not unseat a single incumbent Democrat, according to projections.
Students weigh in
Jason Rae, a College of Arts & Sciences sophomore and the head of College Democrats of Marquette, said he was "ecstatic" with Tuesday's results.
"Wisconsin made the right choice yesterday," Rae said, who spent part of the evening in the Union Sports Annex watching the results with other College Democrats.
Rae said he saw the results as a sign that the country had had enough of current Republican leadership and was ready for change.
Meanwhile, Samantha Toigo, a College of Arts & Sciences sophomore who headed Marquette Students for Green during the campaign, said she was surprised by Doyle's margin of victory.
"Obviously, I was disappointed (with the outcome)," she said.
Toigo also said she hopes Doyle follows some of Green's advice to lower taxes and to respect human life in embryonic stem cell research. She said the election's results have hit some Green supporters hard, and that she had spoken with many who said they were reconsidering living in Wisconsin.
The terms of Tuesday's winning candidates will officially begin in January 2007.
Bridget Thoreson of the Tribune staff contributed to this report.
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