Unions may get second choice Democrat in Wisconsin recall, but vow to defeat Scott Walker no matter

Tom Barrett Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is favored to win the Wisconsin recall primary tonight and go on to face Gov. Scott Walker on June 5. Since former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk drew the most support from unions in the primary, a Barrett victory would mean that the unions that not only didn't endorse him but in some cases campaigned quite actively against him would have to recalibrate quickly to keep the hope of defeating Walker alive, while facing a "unions can't win" narrative.

Though Barrett has had the endorsements of a few small unions, and last week picked up a late endorsement from Teamsters Joint Council 39, which has a reported 25,000 members, Falk has more endorsements from larger unions, including AFSCME, SEIU, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, and has received $4 million in support from labor.

The narrative that a Falk loss would show union weakness is already heating up; Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips told Politico that "One reason they've been losing a lot lately is ' not only can they not win independent households, but they have trouble keeping a lot of their own members." Jason Altmire, among many others, might disagree, but it's something unions will have to contend with as they work to consolidate support around Barrett. And they do intend to do just that:

Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said his union has at least 20 field locations around the state that have been assessing how to transition to backing Barrett for the past 10 days.

'We've got four weeks ' until the general election, so we can't take a week trying to figure this all out, kissing and making up and all that kind of stuff, so we're prepared to pivot immediately on Wednesday morning if Barrett wins,' Beil said.

That's the crucial thing: Wednesday morning it's the Democratic nominee fighting to defeat Scott Walker on June 5, and that means everyone who values collective bargaining, equal pay protections, reproductive choice, or sex education, or job growth in Wisconsin has to be completely behind the Democratic nominee and focused on defeating Walker.