• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

A year of popular organizing and partisan showdowns is ramping up to a photo-finish conclusion in the Wisconsin recall election to be held on Tuesday to determine if Governor Scott Walker will keep his office. A Marquette Law School Poll conducted last weekend found Walker, in office for only one year before facing a recall, leading with 52% of the vote to challenger Tom Barrett’s 45%. Tom Barrett lost to Walker by a nearly identical split when they faced off in the 2010 Gubernatorial race, reflecting a sharp, persistent partisan divide in the state. The two candidates squared off in a debate on Thursday night with Barrett reminding voters of the labor battle Walker sparked, and the Governor accusing his rival of taking orders from union bosses.

Meanwhile, the embattled Governor’s campaign has once again been buoyed by wealthy donors throughout the popular resistance to his anti-union, pro-corporate agenda. During the 2010 Gubernatorial race, through campaign and super PAC funds, Walker was the recipient of about $100,000 of Koch Brother money. This time around, Walker continues to be funded by conservatives from outside his state with ambitions for a national right-leaning agenda. John Nichols of the Madison Capitol Times wrote this week that 70% of Walker’s 31 million war chest has come from out-of -state contributors, including Texas millionaire developer Bob Perry and billionaire Nevada casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Walker’s campaign also received $500,000 from Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks, who paid zero dollars in taxes in 2010.

Barrett, Mayor of Milwaukee, was elected to face Walker in an early May primary that gave him less than 30 days to fund-raise. In just under a month he has raised about $4 million, with 70% of his campaign funds come from smaller in-state donations.

GUESTS: John Nichols, associate editor of the Capitol Times in Madison, Wisconsin and a correspondent for The Nation magazine, contributing writer for The Progressive, co-founder of Free Press, author of many books including his latest called Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street; Paul Buhle is co-editor with Mary Buhle of, It Started in Wisconsin, Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest. He founded the Students for a Democratic Society journal Radical America and the archive of Oral History of the American Left. He is also coeditor of the Encyclopedia of the American left and is a former Senior lecturer at Brown University.