Republican judge nears Wisconsin election win

MADISON, Wis (Reuters) - The Republican incumbent in Wisconsin's closely watched Supreme Court race was one step closer to being officially declared the winner on Friday after officials finished their review of the closely-watched vote.

Statewide results for the election, which came to be seen as a referendum on Republican efforts to curb public sector unions, will not be certified before next Wednesday, when the deadline passes for the candidates to request a recount.

But with all 72 of the state's counties reporting, the incumbent, former Republican state assemblyman David Prosser, appears to have beat the challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, by 7,316 votes -- a margin of 0.488 percent of the almost 1.5 million votes cast.

That means Kloppenburg, an assistant state attorney specializing in environmental issues, can demand a free recount, under Wisconsin law. Her campaign did not immediately indicate on Friday whether it would do so.

Kevin Kennedy, the head of the Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections in the state, said in statement his agency would certify the results, which took 10 days to compile, "when we know whether a recount is requested. That decision is now in the hands of the candidates."

Races for the high court are normally low-profile affairs. But this year, the contest took on added significance because it was the first statewide race since the Republican-controlled legislature approved a proposal by Governor Scott Walker to restrict public workers union rights.

Several legal challenges to the law are also making their way toward the state's top court -- giving the race's outcome additional importance.

Prosser's apparent victory means the high court's current 4-3 conservative majority will stand, something that opponents of the anti-union measure regard with concern.

Walker and the Republicans who backed the curbs on collective bargaining by public workers said they were needed to help close budget gaps across the state.

Critics saw the bill, which eliminates automatic deduction of union dues, as a Republican attack on the single biggest source of funding for the Democratic Party -- unions.

The deeply partisan fight was part of a broader national confrontation between the Republicans and unions that could be the biggest since then President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers nearly 30 years ago. Lawmakers in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and several other states pushed anti-union measures of their own.

The stakes are high for labor because more than a third of U.S. public employees such as teachers, police and civil service workers belong to unions while only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are unionized. In Wisconsin, 46.6 percent of government workers are union members

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher and Jeff Mayers; Editing by Greg McCune)