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Everybody decided some time ago. very few voters decided in the last few days. bret: steve, we knew turn-out would be big. the state was predicting 60 to 65%. we don t have all the numbers but clearly the state was energized. yes. it sounds like that number is going to be accurate. maybe even slightly low depending on what happens in the last couple of hours. you re hearing report all morning. i talked to someone votes in town of wharton, heavily pro-walker town and votes every election at lunchtime. when he voted in 2010, he was the 500th voter. this time, he was in the 1300s. you had the huge push of voters early. particularly in the republican county. bret: one of the questions, chris, has been about the president not choosing to come here to wisconsin. to campaign for mayor barrett. the president tweeted last night it s election day in wisconsin tomorrow. i m standing by tom barrett. he would make an outstanding ....
have facebook or twitter or these organizing tools that people use to get together. i think what you re seeing is political parties, the extremes of the parties to be able to use these tools to really push their message forward. mark, explain to us where we re seeing the widest divide. some of this is not surprising, right, when you talk about maybe social issues. then the environment was one of these one of these topics that people felt differently about when it comes to the role of government. yeah. i think it boils down i think to an economic issue in many ways. what you re going to hear from conservatives, certainly from a lot of republicans is that a lot of the regulations that are coming out of here in washington, d.c. are adversely affecting people out across the nation, you know. it s greatly hurting them maintain their jobs, shutting down plants. also they are seeing all of these other nations around the world not really abiding by the environmental res ....
group in the middle. governor walker says the bill was necessary to balance the budget. opponents called it union busting and organized huge protests at the state capitol. democratic lawmakers even the left the state to try to keep republicans from passing that bill. they passed it anyway. governor walker signed it into law more than a year ago. the recall effort began. only two other u.s. governors have ever faced recall votes. each lost. the outcome tonight is still very much up in the air. let s get to team fox coverage now. james rosen with more on the exit polls for us. first to mike tobin is live for us in milwaukee. tell us what you are hearing from voters. well, we re seeing a pretty strong turnout. the numbers we are getting from the city of madison anyway that liberal strong hold says 48% of that population had turned out as of 4:00. we are also hearing reports that in the conservative hub of waukesha they are seeing a very strong turnout. here in milwaukee, ....
45% said they were driven chiefly by opposition to the republican incumbent. now factor in the unions. they were obviously the driving force in the staging of this recall election. not surprisingly, more than seven in ten union members today favored mayor barrett. among those who said they have a union member in the household, though, governor walker was still picking up almost four out of every ten votes. with mayor barrett garnering 6 of 3%. strikingly, these are roughly the same levels of support that each candidate drew in 2010. so bret, this is an election still in progress. it will bear watching throughout the night. back to you in wisconsin. bret: we will watch and report as the raw numbers come in as well. james, thank you. today s voting culminates a long and bitter battle in wisconsin. over workers rights, government accountability and jobs. correspondent mike tobin has the time day of the recall effort. election day. finally, after a year-and-a-half of d ....
each other and have president obama and former president clinton fighting on opposite sides. larry sabato is the director of center for politics at the university of virginia. larry, you don t get to see a gubernatorial recall election very often. what are you watching for in wisconsin today? this is only the third one, jon. we political junkies are getting a big fix tonight. obviously everyone knows that this is an off, off-year race in the sense that it s in june and yet there s going to be a giant turnout. i think both democrats and republicans will show up in large numbers but the crystal ball to be honest has had this leaning or likely walker for months. we have never had it in the toss upcategory. we think that most of the key factors in the race favor walker. so we ll be very surprised if he isn t confirmed in office. jon: this is a rerun of the gubernatorial election from two years ago and from what i can tell, based on the polling, it hasn t moved all that mu ....