U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., will become Wisconsin’s first female senator and the first openly gay senator in the country’s history after defeating former Gov. Tommy Thompson for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday.
Baldwin won 51 percent of the vote compared to Thompson’s 47 percent in the U.S. Senate election, setting her to up make the jump to the upper chamber following 14 years of representing Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Baldwin shortly after 11:30 p.m. with 73 percent of the vote counted.
Baldwin will replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., who is retiring at the end of his term in January after 24 years in the Senate.
At her election night party at Madison’s Monona Terrace, Baldwin took the stage shortly before the official call was made to claim victory. She recounted her 14-month journey on the campaign trail and how people all over the state told her they wanted a candidate who would stand up for the middle class.
“The people’s voice was heard tonight, Wisconsin,” Baldwin said. “Come January, your voice will be heard in the United States Senate.”
With her election, Baldwin said she was well aware of the barriers she was breaking, but insisted she had other goals in mind when she first announced her candidacy.
“I didn’t run to make history,” Baldwin said. “I ran to make a difference.”
Although the campaign was one of the most negative in history, Baldwin extended an olive branch to Thompson and his supporters, pledging to work with them and serve the interests of all Wisconsin citizens in the Senate.
“Here’s the promise I want to make to you: I will be a senator for all of Wisconsin,” Baldwin said. “We can only move forward if we move forward together.”
In his concession speech in Milwaukee, Thompson congratulated Baldwin and President Barack Obama on their victories and urged his backers to get behind their newly elected leaders, but to push them in the right direction.
“We fought the good fight and came up short,” Thompson said. “That doesn’t mean we should stop fighting the good fight. We have to continue that fight because this country has been so good to all of us.”
The Democrats will retain control of the U.S. Senate after emerging victorious in several other key races around the country, including those in Virginia, Connecticut, Indiana and Missouri, while the Republicans will remain the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives.
