Incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson pulled out an astonishing victory in a rematch against former Sen. Russ Feingold in Wisconsin Tuesday. Johnson garnered 52.2 percent of the vote when Fox News called the victory around 10:45 p.m.

Earlier in the year, Feingold had polled up to 16 percentage points higher than Johnson before the incumbent senator narrowed the gap to just one point at the end of October. The week before the election, the RealClearPolitics polling average found Feingold up by 2.7 percent in a race that remained largely tight for the last month.

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During the last few weeks of the campaign as Feingold watched Johnson steadily chip away at his double-digit lead to bring the race to a near dead heat. The most recent Marquette University poll, which is often considered to be Wisconsin’s premier poll, found the two nearly tied – a far cry from Feingold’s vast 14-point lead in the poll at the end of September.

Johnson was dubbed a political outsider when he challenged Feingold for his seat back in 2010 – Johnson’s first bid for any political office. Defeating Feingold by five percent of the vote in 2010, Johnson cut off Feingold’s 18-year streak in the Senate. Johnson remarkably succeeded in his own bid for reelection in the blue-leaning state and pulled out the victory against all polling odds.