Thursday, June 14, 2018

Special elections still showing WisDem gains.

Wanted to give a quick look back at Tuesday's special elections in Wisconsin. Let's start with the State Senate race, where Dems got another GOP-held seat to flip, as Caleb Frostman beat Andre ("The Handmaid's Tale") Jacque.

As usual, J Miles Coleman of Decision Desk HQ had great charts which broke down the votes in these two races. In the Senate race, the key to the 2.8% victory for Frostman came from his home area of Door County, which has overwhlemingly turned blue in the last 2 statewide races.


Even though the Appleton eastern suburbs are a small part of the district, they have decent population. And these areas also went for Frostman.




Dallet also won these areas in April, and if those areas and others around Appleton stay blue in November, there is little way Scott Walker to win a third term for governor. And don't think Scotty doesn't know it, which helps explain why he was in the area on Tuesday throwing out $60 million in WEDC funds to help a campaign donor Green Bay Packaging expand.

Moving over to the Assembly race, the Republicans held onto the seat, with John Plumer beating Ann Groves Lloyd 53-45. As Coleman notes, this was still a 6 point shift to the Dems from November 2016, but it also removed about half of the gain Dallet got in April.


You can see that Plumer held his own in Columbia County, actually edging out Lloyd overall, and then ran up the score in the absurdly red eastern part of the district to get the win. Which led to the following analysis from former GOP Rep. Joe Handrick.


But hey, that's just the way you drew it up, isn't it Joe? You know, when you and the GOP leadership went Off the Square and illegally gerrymandered the state in 2011?

Overall, it's another step forward for Dems and the "Blue Wave 2018" theme, which keeps some on the bandwagon, and encourages more to get on. There's still plenty of work to do in the next 5 months, but only having to flip 2 GOP seats to win the Senate is a lot better than having to flip 3 this Fall. And if even half of the shift to the Dems that we've seen in these special elections holds up, Scott Walker and any other GOP running statewide is in BIG trouble.

Lastly, never forget that the only reason these elections were happening this week is because Scott Walker wanted to cancel them entirely and had to be dragged to court to be forced to follow state law. These races would have happened at the same time as the Supreme Court race in April, at no extra expense to the local communities, had Scotty simply done his damn job and scheduled them when he hired the two GOP legislators that decided to cash in. But he chose not to.

Scotty pulled those shenanigans because Gov "Unintimidated" thought GOPs would lose and be in a weaker position for November, and in Senate District 1, he was proven correct. Those facts can't be allowed to slip down the memory hole for the next 21 weeks.

12 comments:

  1. Groundwater is vulnerable to manure contamination in norther Kewaunee where it is now blue. The red parts of the county aren't as vulnerable. The map is very interesting from that perspective. If blue equals water woes, you will see Calumet turn progressively more blue.

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    1. I keep waiting for that to happen, and I was wondering if the CAFO messes were related.

      Also makes you wonder if we see Adams County and the nearby Central Wis area shift back to blue this November, especially after the Supreme Court case that opened the door to that mega-farm which the locals tried to block.

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  2. I live in eastern Appleton. Dems had a strong ground game here. Several workers and mail drops the last two weeks. On the morning of the election State SenatorJennifer Schilling knocked on my door. Enjoyed meeting her. For the record, I had already voted.

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    1. Good story, and very good signs. Especially with work-for-less and the defunding of public schools and roads, you'd think that area might be ready for a change.

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  3. Another take-away, Caleb Frostman was near-perfect in his messaging. See
    http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2018/06/wisconsin-dems-need-work-on-messaging.html

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  4. The malcontends blog is really very good.

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    1. Yes, he does a really good job and I recommend that people give Michael's blog a look.

      And he's right. Universal values of decency and "doing the right thing" are a great message. Better communities, clean water, better schools, etc.

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  5. I am chomping at the bit for the governor’s race to begin in earnest. I am tired of having absolutely no clue who the Democratic candidate will be. Let’s pick someone and get the show on the road.

    By no means am I overconfident. This will be a brutal, bloody, hard-fought campaign, as the current governor is desperate and has no job prospects outside of politics. But if we are smart and dedicated, we can do this.

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    1. The primary is August 8 so make sure all the students you know are registered and know where they can voter and if they need to vote absentee. Also make sure everyone has the appropriate ID.

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    2. Primary is Tuesday the 14th, FYI.

      I'll take the charitable view, assume your intentions are good, and hope you read last year's calendar.

      http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/2018/fall

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    3. I knew I should have double checked. Sorry.

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  6. The might have been even farther apart if today's job report had been released before the election showing the may job totals were down 5300 private sector jobs and April's losses were revised down further to -5600 jobs. On the other hand, MN reported a may job gain of 10,200 jobs. I didn't see data on whether April's MN loss of around 3000 jobs was revised up or down. So the WI numbers appear to be adjusting to the gold standard numbers after all!

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