Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker concedes race to Democrat Tony Evers

MADISON, Wis. (KMSP) - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker conceded defeat Wednesday in a tight race against Democrat Tony Evers. 

Unofficial results show Ever beat Walker by about 29,000 votes, or just over 1 percentage point, out of more than 2.6 million votes cast. State law only permits recounts for losing candidates who are within 1 percentage point. 

Evers is the current Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin, a role he has served since 2009. The 67-year-old is a native of Plymouth, Wisconsin. He is a career educator, working in the Tomah, Oakfield and Verona, Wisconsin school districts before becoming Superintendent in 2001. 

Walker first became Governor in 2010 and won a recall election in 2012. He won re-election in 2014. 

Walker's campaign had initially waited to concede until some ballots in Milwaukee were counted, which they claimed had been damaged and recreated. In a statement conceding defeat, the campaign said it had determined that any change in the result after the ballots were counted "would not be significant enough to determine the outcome of the election, despite its close margin and questions about how the city of Milwaukee executed its election night operations."