With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the Wisconsin state supreme court race between conservative incumbent David Prosser and labor-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg is still too close to call. Prosser leads by 356 votes out of over 1.4 million cast, but most of the remaining handful of outstanding precincts appear to be in Kloppenburg territory. I've seen no firm count on the number of absentee and provisional ballots, but my instinct tells me that Kloppenburg may pull this one out.

Either way, we're talking recount, and I can assure you, Wisconsin, that we here in Washington know your pain.

But regardless of the final tally, there's little question that even a 50-50 split can be seen as a sharp rebuke of Gov. Scott Walker and his anti-worker policies. Just a few weeks ago Prosser was expected to cruise to victory in a landslide over a little known opponent who had never before served as a judge, but with the race suddenly transformed into a proxy battle over Walker's policies, Kloppenburg's support soared. And even if the backlash against Walker falls just short of knocking out Prosser, the ensuing recount is sure to keep Democrats on the ground energized and engaged as they continue to mount recall campaigns against eight Republican state senators.

All in all, not a bad night for the people of Wisconsin.

UPDATE: Kloppenburg up by 224.