Tom Barrett told hundreds of cheering supporters in his victory speech that “I need you like I’ve never needed you before and more important, this state needs you like it’s never needed you before.”

“We have a lot of work to do in the next 27 days,” he said, warning that Scott Walker’s campaign would unleash a barrage of attack ads. Blaming Walker for dividing Wisconsin as he has never seen it, Barrett said, “That division is the exact opposite from the way I will govern.”

“It does not have to be this way in Wisconsin,” he said.

Barrett said that under Walker, the state lost the most jobs in the nation between March 2011 and March 2012, and said of Walker, “He took his eye off the ball.”