At the state level, by the mid 1980s, the conservative transformation of the Republicans was completed. Subsequently, the party began to break free of its status as a minority party in the state. In 1986, the party's candidate for governor Tommy Thompson successfully unseated one-term incumbent Anthony Earl by a wide margin. Having campaigned on a conservative platform, during his time in office Thompson become most well known for his welfare reform efforts, which would later serve as a national model for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in 1996. Following his initial election, Thompson would go on to win three more elections in the 1990s, each one by double digit margins, and would serve a record 14 years in office before leaving in 2001 to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Republicans also won back control of the state legislature for the first time in over twenty years in the "Republican Revolution" of 1994, giving the party a governing trifecta for the first time since 1970. In spite of these gains however, the party continued to struggle with elections to federal offices, namely elections to the U.S. Senate. Following Republican Robert W. Kasten Jr.'s 1992 defeat in his bid for re-election by Russ Feingold, the party would fail to win another Senate race for nearly two decades.