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MADISON, WISCONSIN, June 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Scott Walker made history last night as the first governor to prevail in a recall election, a contest pro-life leaders say benefited the state’s unborn children most of all.

Walker won the union-led recall election by 53 percent to 46 percent over Democrat Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee whom Walker defeated in 2010. He won a more crushing victory on a county-by-county level

“Governor Walker has contributed more to building a culture of life in Wisconsin than any other single public servant in our state’s history,” said Susan Armacost, Director of the Wisconsin Right to Life Political Action Committee, in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com. “Yesterday’s elections were wonderful victories for unborn children.”

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Walker’s margin of victory may have come from pro-life activists, who “understood the high stakes for unborn children in yesterday’s recall elections and they voted their right-to-life conviction,” she said.

Armacost called Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who also faced recall, “right-to-life champions.”

On the evening of the election, before polls closed, Wisconsin Family Action President Julaine Appling told LifeSiteNews.com that Walker “has certainly done things so far that show he is truly 100 percent pro-life. To lose him would mean quite a setback for the pro-life movement in Wisconsin.”

Among other reforms, Walker has signed a ban on telemed abortions and cut a $130,000 state contract with Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and NARAL Pro-Life America of Wisconsin endorsed Barrett.

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The election took on national importance as a barometer of the upcoming presidential elections. Wisconsin, which has not supported a Republican presidential candidate since 1984, has been closely trending Republican since the election of Barack Obama.

Richard Viguerie, a pioneering small government campaigner and proprietor of ConservativeHQ.com, named Walker “the conservative movement’s new leader.”

“No one filled the Gipper’s shoes until Scott Walker came on the scene,” he said

Viguerie believes Walker’s victory proves that Mitt Romney or any other national Republican candidate can campaign and win “as an unabashed principled, small government, constitutional conservative.” 

Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and four state senators also faced recall. The Republicans won all of the elections with the possible exception of State Senator Van Wanggaard, whose race remains too close to call as of this afternoon.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser congratulated Kleefisch in a press release. “Lt. Governor Kleefisch understands that protecting the unborn and strengthening women in leadership are not only compatible choices, but complementary and essential roles,” she wrote.

As results began to pour in last night, Walker’s opponents sometimes reacted with raw emotion. “This is the end of democracy,” said one weeping anti-Walkerite. “Democracy died tonight,” he said. “If we didn’t win tonight, the end of the USA as we know it just happened.”

An overzealous supporter slapped Tom Barrett in the face after his concession speech.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee police are investigating a series of death threats against Governor Walker following his re-election.

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board estimated that the election, which ultimately maintained the status quo, cost Wisconsin taxpayers between $2.1 million and $10 million.