[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]MIDDLETON — After 32 years without re-electing a Democratic governor, Wisconsin voters re-elected Gov. Jim Doyle by 53 percent Tuesday night to secure him four more years in the state's top spot.
After the announcement, Doyle said he thought the re-election surpassed his experience four years ago when he thought it was "extraordinary" to be the only candidate to defeat an incumbent Republican governor that year, and become the first Democratic governor elected in Wisconsin in 16 years.
"The voters of Wisconsin have decreed that this state is going to move forward for four more years," Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton said. "They know a good thing when they live it for four years, and they want four more."
Doyle defeated U.S. Rep Mark Green, R-Wis., who picked up about 45 percent, and Green Party candidate Nelson Eisman, who picked up nearly 2 percent.
And Green conceded the election "graciously," as described by both Doyle and Lawton.
"I know this has been a difficult campaign, and sometimes it got a little bit more heated than any of us wanted," Doyle said to the packed crowd at the Madison Marriott West hotel. "But right now, it is time for us in Wisconsin to come together. We have honest differences, but we all love Wisconsin."
Doyle also talked of making progress in his last four years, but he conceded that there remains a lot of work to be done, including providing health care for every child in the next year, focusing on middle-class families, making quality education available to all and promoting stem-cell research.
"Because of your help here today, we have made sure today that Wisconsin will remain the nation's leader in stem-cell research," he said. "I will never ever turn my back on the families touched by diseases and disability, who are hoping for a cure and looking to Wisconsin to fulfill that hope."
Despite losing an election loaded with mudslinging from both sides, Green was also quick to emphasize the need for both parties to work together.
"As we all know, we face great challenges in Wisconsin, and we should be pulling together, Democrats and Republicans alike, to beat those challenges," Green said to a crowd of supporters gathered at the Comfort Suites Hotel in Green Bay.
Campaign controversy aside, Green's speech largely focused on the crossroads at which Wisconsin citizens now stood.
"This is a blessing, this state that has given [so much] to each and every one of us," Green said. "And our job is to hold onto it, gingerly; enhance it if we can, and pass it on to our kids and to our grandkids, yours and mine."
Still, as Green noted earlier in his speech, the campaign experience has forced him to fall back in love with the state of Wisconsin, and such sentiment was apparent in his closing statements.
"Let's reach out to that experience, you and I; as we move forward, let's make sure it is alive and well in Wisconsin," he said. "Let's be a great state, that great community the nation turns to when they look for ideas when they look for answers. I pledge to work with all of you, and I pledge to work with Gov. Doyle. Together we might find those answers."
And Doyle agreed, saying he believes the people of Wisconsin have the ability to make the state great.
"Hard work is the Wisconsin way, and common sense and good values have always been our guide," Doyle said. "So let's get to work, and 'On Wisconsin.'"
Sundeep Malladi contributed to this report from Green Bay