Today's Wisconsin polls show Sanders, not Clinton, is best for Dem electability

A couple of interesting reads on Wisconsin polls hit Wisconsin’s two largest newspapers over the weekend. The first was Saturday’s installment from Craig Gilbert’s “Wisconsin Voter” series in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and it went in-depth on in-state polls regarding the Democratic presidential primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Gilbert quotes Marquette Law Poll director Charles Franklin, who points out the geographic and demographic differences between Clinton and Sanders in the state polls. Gilbert admits that these numbers likely understate Sanders’ current support, because it consolidates the last 4 months of polls, during which Sanders has closed the gap on Clinton from 12 points last September to 2 points in the most recent poll that was released last week.

In Wisconsin, the byproduct of these political and demographic fault lines is a regional one. The Madison TV market is the only part of the state where Sanders has enjoyed a clear edge over Clinton in recent months, boosted by his strength among young and very liberal voters. But in the city of Milwaukee, Clinton has led Sanders by an average of more than 30 points, reflecting her strength among African-Americans and older and more moderate white Democrats. It made perfect sense that Sanders' first Wisconsin stop last year was Madison and Clinton's was Milwaukee.

The polling numbers reflect "divisions on age and ideology, especially, and race to some extent, and how that's embedded in our geography," Franklin said. "You see it dividing up right along I-94 between the state's two strong Democratic bastions."

Those two areas alone won't determine the outcome of the Wisconsin primary if the race is still going strong in April. "The rest of the state really does matter," Franklin said.

Hold onto that point about “the rest of the state” while we go into our second poll-related story, mentioned as part an in-depth Wisconsin State Journal story on Sunday from Matt DeFour regarding Gov Walker’s taxpayer-funded propaganda “listening tours.” Those closed-to-the-public events started in light of his plummeting approval, and as DeFour notes, Franklin’s Marquette Law School Poll showed serious deterioration in Walker’s support in the non-urban, non-Democratic vote (urban Dems already disapproved of him).

Among Republicans Walker’s approval level dipped from 92.5 percent in fall 2014 to 84.2 percent more recently.

Walker’s support has plummeted the most among self-described independents and independents who “lean Republican.” Among the latter group his approval level fell 22.3 points to 60.9 percent, though Franklin noted those voters are more likely than self-described independents — whose approval of Walker dropped 19 points to 23.2 percent — to vote for Walker if he runs again.

Walker also has seen his support evaporate in the northern part of the state, where his approval level is down 21.2 points, and the Fox Valley region, where it is down 16.5 points. In the conservative stronghold of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties, Walker’s approval level is down 10 points to 54.9 percen
The one place his approval level increased over the past year, by 5 points to 28.5 percent, was in Milwaukee County, though Franklin noted the increase was not statistically significant because of a smaller sample size. In September Walker signed a bill committing $80 million from the state over 20 years to a new Milwaukee Bucks arena, a move that was panned by some conservative groups.

The article also comes with some telling graphics, including this one that reiterates those geographic drops in approval in the northern half of the state, along with a noticeable drop among middle and upper-class Wisconsinites.



Now let’s go back to the Democratic presidential race, and the most recent Marquette Poll on the subject, which showed Clinton leading Sanders 45-43. Now note this breakdown across the various geographies of the state, among people who said they planned to vote in the Dem primary.

Clinton vs. Sanders, Wisconsin Jan 2016
Urban Clinton 48-38
Suburban Sanders 52-38
Rural Clinton 48-40

City of Milwaukee Clinton 65-23
Rest of MKE market Clinton 45-44
Madison market Sanders 55-31
GB/Appleton market Clinton 48-40
Rest of state Clinton 47-45

Relatively tight outside of the bases of Madison and the City of Milwaukee, isn’t it? But here’s where Clinton’s “electability” argument gets turned on its head, because in those same areas of GB/Appleton, the rest of the state, and the rural parts of Wisconsin where Hillary has a slight lead, Sanders does noticeably better against GOP opponents. Let me rerun these figures that I referenced in a post a week ago.

vs. Trump
City of Milwaukee Clinton +49, Sanders +44 (Clinton +5)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -5, Sanders +9 (Sanders +14)
Madison Market Clinton +25, Sanders +40 (Sanders +15)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton +3, Sanders +11 (Sanders +8)
Rest of State Clinton +2, Sanders +6 (Sanders +4)

vs. Cruz
City of Milwaukee Clinton +42, Sanders +42 (0)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -17, Sanders -7 (Sanders +10)
Madison Market Clinton +16, Sanders +39 (Sanders +23)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton -5, Sanders +11 (Sanders +16)
Rest of State Clinton +2, Sanders +6 (Sanders +4)

vs. Rubio
City of Milwaukee Clinton +34, Sanders +42 (Sanders +8)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -22, Sanders -10 (Sanders +12)
Madison Market Clinton +16, Sanders +34 (Sanders +18)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton +1, Sanders +10 (Sanders +9)
Rest of State Clinton +5, Sanders +9 (Sanders +4)

In other words, those swing areas of the state, the ones which will decide the Dem primary and go a long way toward deciding the final outcome in November, are areas that Hillary Clinton wins the primary in for now, but Bernie Sanders does significantly better in for the general election. And those are the same areas that Scott Walker has suffered his biggest drop in approval over the last year.

So it seems obvious to me that in February 2016, there is one Democratic candidate that would be the most likely to win Wisconsin in November, and help the downticket rural and northern Wisconsin areas that must be swung toward the Dems in order for them to get power in the Legislature and gain seats in Congress. And unlike what the “professionals” try to spin to you (you know, the same ones who thought a bland Mary Burke campaign was the “most electable” strategy in Wisconsin in 2014), that candidate wouldn’t be Hillary Clinton, but instead is Bernie Sanders.

Take a look at those articles and those poll numbers, and show me how I’m wrong by saying Bernie's more electable and better for Dem prospects in Wisconsin. Not based on “Well, this may happen or the Republicans will say this” (bad assumptions as well, by the way) but based on the polling numbers themselves. Go ahead, try!

Wisconsin economic failures get some more national attention

Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released their monthly coincident index report, which is an approximation of each state’s economic performance over the last 3 months. And Wisconsin did not do well.



That report earned Wisconsin and other states in pink and red some national notice in Friday’s Washington Post Wonkblog, in an article titled “The seven states that are doing much worse than the rest.”

The main reason is historically low oil prices. The price of a barrel of Brent crude has fallen from over $100 in mid-2015 to less than $35 today. That is weighing on the economies of North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have extensive energy reserves and/or oil and gas refining facilities.

In Wisconsin and Illinois, fiscal issues and the sluggish performance of some manufacturing industries was likely to blame.

In total, 41 states saw their economies grow. The states with the strongest growth -- over 1 percent in the three-month period, according to the estimates -- include Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Georgia, West Virginia, New Jersey and Maine. Michigan and Oklahoma weren't fairing too well either at the end of 2015 -- the Philadelphia Fed's data shows that their economic growth was unchanged from three months before.

And that's not just a recent trend. Using those updated figures, we see that Wisconsin has the worst economy in the Midwest since Scott Walker took office at the start of 2011. And notice the flattening in both here and Illinois in the last half of 2015



UW’s Menzie Chinn also talked about the coincident index with this post on Econbrowser, noting how ALEC states like Wisconsin and Kansas have failed to keep up with the growth in the rest of the country.

Yet here’s Gov Walker this week, trying to spin to the Portage Area Chamber of Commerce that things are just swell in Wisconsin (and using taxpayer dollars as part of this propaganda tour, no less).

Walker told the gathering he had good news to share, that unemployment in Wisconsin is the lowest it has been since 2001.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has been tracking downward through the second half of 2015, from 4.6 percent to 4.3 percent. This beats the national average that went from 5.3 percent to 5 percent over the same time. Walker said the state’s fiscal situation is far healthier than that of Illinois, which is running an unemployment rate almost a full percent above the national average.

First of all, anyone who has to reach for the train wreck in Illinois to make yourself look better already seems desperate. But second of all, Wisconsin has almost always had lower unemployment than the rest of the country for the last 30 years, and being 0.6% below the national rate (as it stands today) is underperforming that history, if anything. In addition, it’s well-documented that Wisconsin’s drop in unemployment in the last year had more to do with people leaving the labor force than it had with people finding a large amount of jobs.

And how can Walker talk up Wisconsin’s fiscal health when even leaders in his own party are admitting that the state budget is messed up and in serious trouble? What’s doubly interesting is how those WisGOPs try to blame a “slowing national economy” for the budget troubles, which implies that the national economy was going pretty darn well before the last few months. All that's missing is the "THANKS OBAMA!"

So if the U.S. economy is slowing from the solid growth it previously had (likely a true statement, by the way) why didn’t Wisconsin’s budget become more stable while the good times were going on? And why wasn’t Act 10 the budget cure-all that it was sold as 5 years ago? And why does our economic growth continue to lag the rest of our neighbors in the Midwest? HMMMMMM???

U.S. jobs slow, but is market getting tight?

It was a mixed bag in today’s US jobs report. The total job gains on the payroll side were mediocre, but the household survey showed a drop in the unemployment rate, and a long-desired gain in wages. It adds to the theory that while the country is not in recession as of this time, we may be nearing the peak of this multi-year expansion.

We’ll start with the payrolls side, which had its lowest seasonally-adjusted gains since September, and was well below the 279,000 a month in gains that we averaged over the previous 3 months.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in January. Employment rose in several industries, led by retail trade, food services and drinking places, health care, and manufacturing. Private educational services and transportation and warehousing lost jobs. Mining employment continued to decline.

The lower job gain number is concerning, but we’ll need more time to see if it’s a one-month blip, or the start of a lower-growth trend.

The manufacturing increase is nice to see, as that sector added 29,000 jobs, and got back above the 7-year highs that manufacturing employment was at in July. We’ll see if it keeps gaining as oil stays low and the dollar stays strong, but at least for the last few months, the manufacturing recession that some of us was worrying about has held off (47,000 jobs gained there since September). Construction employment is also staying strong, up another 18,000 seasonally-adjusted jobs in January, and 314,000 since the end of 2014.

The better part of the report comes from the household survey, which had improvements in two key stats.

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 7.8 million, and the unemployment rate, at 4.9 percent, changed little in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were down by 1.1 million and 0.8 percentage point, respectively….

After accounting for the annual adjustments to the population controls, the civilian labor force and total employment, as measured by the household survey, were little changed in January. The labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, was little changed. The employment-population ratio (59.6 percent) changed little over the month but was up by 0.3 percentage point since October.

Even better than that was the “missing link” in the Obama Recovery wasn’t so missing in the January jobs report.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours in January. The manufacturing workweek edged up by 0.1 hour to 40.7 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.3 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.8 hours….

In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 12 cents to $25.39. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent. In January, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 6 cents to $21.33.

Very good to see wage growth get bumped up by 0.5% in a month, which should be well above the rate of inflation.

However, I’m going to be skeptical that this is a long-term trend where wage growth finally picks up, because 13 states had minimum-wage increases on or around January 1, which could account for some of those gains. Indeed, the low-wage leisure and hospitality sector had a hourly wage increase of 0.75%, and while “retail trade” only had an hourly wage increase of 0.34%, it had a weekly wage increase of 0.66%. By comparison, manufacturing had an hourly wage increase of 0.31%, and construction had no hourly wage increase at all (weekly wages in construction actually dropped), so let’s not think the great wage stagnation that we’ve seen over the past decade-plus has somehow come to an end.

Lastly, the January report also features annual benchmarking, which allows for changes to overall figures since 2011. The BLS notes that this actually changed very little for prior years (it lowered the total jobs figure by 206,000, or about 0.1%), and actually increased the job gains for 2015 by 85,000. This means 2015 ended with 2.735 million new jobs, and nearly 13.4 million have been added since the end of 2009.

The jobs charts have been updated accordingly, and it means that the Walker jobs gap grew by 31,600 last year to just over 100,000 jobs overall, and 106,000 in the private sector.





Bottom line, the January jobs report showed some good signs, as a tighter labor market and minimum wage increase likely contributed to good wage gains. But that lower job growth in January, lower GDP growth at the end of 2015, and a questionable economic outlook for 2016 means that we shouldn’t be comfortable, and bank on the good economic stats of the mid-2010s to continue this year.

As if we didn't know - Wisconsin budget, education will stay messed up next year

If you thought that Wisconsin’s budget problems were a thing of the past, well…you were a fucking moron before today. But we got further confirmation that things are still a mess when it comes to the state’s finances. And it came from none other than the one guy most responsible for causing the problem.

The governor responded to concerns raised on Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, at a Madison forum hosted by the Wisconsin Counties Association. Fitzgerald told county officials he expects the next budget will be "just as rough as this past one."

[Gov Scott] Walker told reporters Wednesday most of those concerns are tied to the national economy.

Wisconsin's large manufacturing sector is heavily influenced by national and global factors, Walker said.

"But we’re still going to persevere, and again, what we’ve done in the past is even if we’ve had adjustments on the revenue side, we’ve accommodated that through adjustments on the spending side. We’d look to do that forward," Walker said. "My focus is, whatever savings we can get in things like how we administer health insurance, I want to focus on more money for education."

What do you mean we are going to persevere, Scotty? We aren’t the ones able to take in 6 figures + benefits from the taxpayer (barring indictment). But we’re the ones that are already paying the price for your careless, crooked policies, and apparently will continue to have that pain continue to be inflicted on us.

The comments led to yet another hilarious and biting press release from the two Assembly Dems on the Joint Finance Committee- Gordon Hintz and Chris Taylor.

Breaking: Republicans ponder whether lousy budgeting results in lousy budgets @ChrisTaylorWI https://t.co/M4QjOJfK6F pic.twitter.com/aDCddfNSic

— Gordon Hintz (@GordonHintz) February 3, 2016

“As Majority Leader Fitzgerald acknowledged, with Republicans in control, more cutting and gutting is on the horizon. We can expect another cut and gut budget that leaves our children behind, perpetuates a transportation mess, and fails to make the investments our state needs to thrive. The blame game and list of excuses doesn’t work anymore - they have had six years of absolute power and three budgets to get it right,” stated Rep. Taylor. “Republicans seem intent on continuing their bad choices of huge corporate tax giveaways, which will reduce state revenues by $570 million this biennium, on the backs of our children and our future. If Democrats were in control, we would make the investments in our people we need for our state to truly move forward.”

“Perhaps my Republican colleagues need to be reminded that this budget was only ‘rough’ because of self-inflicted decisions. The Governor’s 15-17 budget actually spent over a billion dollars more than his previous 13-15 budget, so the reason why our public school classrooms and UW System have taken such a hit is no mystery. Public education is just not a priority for the ruling party,” said Rep. Hintz. “At the same time, Republicans chose to leave hundreds of millions of federal Medicaid dollars on the table and continue their expansion of ineffective tax cuts. Shortsighted budget decisions combined with the worst economic growth in the upper Midwest is a guaranteed recipe for continued ‘rough’ budgets.”

Jumping off of Rep. Hintz's point, a big reason the next budget will be so "rough" is because of those prior cuts to education. Those cuts are back in the news this week, as the UW Board of Regents will discuss changes to layoff procedures as part of preparation for another year with less funding than they had 8 years ago. In addition, that document is part of the WisGOP Legislature's decisions to radically change tenure, which will hamper UW's reputation and ability to attract talent.

And in today's Wisconsin State Journal, there's an article discussing the 70-80 staff positions that are slated to be cut in Madison schools, one year after that same district cut 100 positions. These possible cuts also come 10 months after Madison voters passed a $41 million referendum just to keep up with maintenance and needed building improvements.

Oh, and the average Wisconsin homeowner is seeing his/her property taxes are going up, with additional local sales taxes possibly being stacked on top of that (well, it's either that or the roads fall apart). And this dimwit is thinking he can get his massive campaign debt retired in the next year as he laughs grifts his way through fundraisers, including one tonight at the ritzy Madison Club downtown?

Meh, what does this jackwagon care? He's out the door with a nice pension and wingnut welfare to collect in 2 1/2 years. Or so he thinks...

$384 million tax cut now "clarified" to $0?

Tomorrow's Assembly Ways and Means Committee meeting had an interesting last-minute addition to it, and it involves a huge business tax giveaway that you may have thought was dead.

You may remember me referencing this "economic substance" bill when they tried to jam it through a public hearing last month. At the time, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimated that it would cost the state up to $384 million a year, which is certainly not anything that can be done when there's only $64 million of breathing room in the budget over the next 17 months. The bill seemed to be put underground after that.

Well, it's BAAAACK! As far as I can tell, the only change is a "clarifying amendment", which apparently gives more definition over what constitutes "economic substance", but doesn't seem to change much of the actual details of the bill. According to the Joint Survey Committee on Tax Exemptions, the clarifying amendment made the fiscal effect of most of the bill as "indeterminate," and apparently that was good enough for the 6 GOP-associated members of the 9-person committee. They signed off on the bill as "appropriate public policy," while the 3 Dem-associated members voted no, and now the bill is back at the Committee level, where it can be voted on tomorrow.

Simple question- what if the DOR is right and the GOPs on the Tax Exemption survey are wrong, and this clarifying amendment doesn't prevent this from being a massive giveaway? Then this budget that already will likely need a repair bill due to the slowing economy will need to have further cuts put upon it.

Maybe we should put this thing away until there's actually room in the budget for it to fit (if it should ever be considered at all)...if there ever is room again any time in the near future.

Uh oh, this market just crossed the streams again!

You may remember this scene from the classic ‘80s movie “Ghostbusters”, where Harold Ramis's character reminds the others that they need to be cautious and never “cross the streams.”



Well in the U.S. stock market, the streams have also been getting crossed, and it just happened again today, and you're probably seeing a "protonic reversal" on your 401k. These “streams” involve the 50 and 100-day moving averages of the DOW Jones Industrial Average, and it’s been an uncanny predictor of when the market will dive and stay down over the last 6+ months.

On July 20, the Dow was in great shape, at around 18,100, and the 50 and 100-day simple moving averages were just below that, with the 50-day average slightly above the 100-day average. But both the 50 and 100-day moving averages were starting to level off of their multi-year winning streak, and if anything were trending slightly down. So one week later, when the market had dumped 660 points, both moving averages turned downwards, and the 50-day dove below the 100-day average, “crossing the streams” for the first time.

The DOW muddled in a tight range for the next 3 weeks, but never got back to the (now slipping) 50 and 100-day moving averages. Then on August 17, the oil glut and other concerns led to full-blast selling, and nearly 900 points were shed in 8 days. However, the DOW recovered from there in succeeding 2 ½ months, getting back above 17,900 at the start of November, and on the surface, it seemed the market’s troubles had passed.

But take a look at the steadier, less volatile red line on the chart, which signifies the 100-day moving average.



It never stopped declining in that time period, and dropped from nearly 18,000 in late July to 17,200. And it’s noteworthy that all peaks that the DOW would hit in December were still lower than the 17,900 it was at in early November, so when the 100-day average finally started to (barely) trend up around Christmas, the DOW wasn’t that high above it. Sure, the 50-day average bounced back with the runup in Fall, but it wasn’t able to get back to its prior levels, sitting at 17,611 on December 29, as the market closed on December 29 with the DOW was at 17,720.98.

In the next 3 weeks, the DOW blew off another 2,000 points as the global economy and oil markets started declining further, which seems to have helped to “over-strengthen” the dollar and constrain potential US growth in the process. The 50-day average has dropped in kind, especially with the market staying at these lowered levels in 2016, and today it went back under the 100-day average, with both ending the day within a few points of 17,060- more than 900 points below where the streams were first crossed in July.

If you believe in trading based on charts and momentum (as opposed to, you know, the actual economy and other real-world stuff), this would indicate that there’s a “lid” to the stock market that sits about 5% above where it is now. And with both the 50 and 100-day averages on pace to stay in decline for the near future, with U.S. growth slow and no real spark to jump out of it, there is no reason to believe there will be a stock market recovery before the snow’s gone, if not well after it.

Not that I should be taken as any kind of a stock picker (quite the contrary, I suck at this "investing" side of legalized gambling), but the charts and the numbers are showing some interesting trends these days. Especially with the streams getting crossed again today.

Fitzgerald sees writing on wall, tries to screw Dem candidates

These sleazebuckets just don’t stop, do they?

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald introduced a bill Monday that would bar county executives from serving simultaneously in the Legislature, a move that could force a Democrat to decide between his lucrative executive position or a Senate seat.

Third-term Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris is running for Sen. Mark Gudex’s seat in the 18th Senate District. Gudex, a Fond du Lac Republican, announced in November he wouldn’t seek re-election, saying he got a job offer in the private sector. (or was going to lose this November and he didn’t have the guts to face the voters)

Of course, Fitz had no problem with GOP supporters like Bob Ziegelbauer or Paul Farrow staying in the Legislature while they were serving as county execs, but NOW he claims that taxpayers should be concerned over “double-dipping and want to address it directly.” And nevermind that Harris’s term in Oshkosh would run out 3 months after he’d take office in the State Senate, Fitz is insistent that this important issue must be taken up NOW!

That’s scummy enough, but even more absurd is that the AP reports the same prohibition against “double-dippers” would not apply to state legislators that serve in their local governments in other offices. And I know this will shock you, but some Republicans in the Legislature are part of that group.

The bill would not ban lawmakers from also keeping other types of local government positions. Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, also works as mayor of the city, for example.

Novak said in an interview with the State Journal that he understands Fitzgerald’s concerns as county executives tend to make higher salaries than positions like Novak’s, which pays about $12,000 annually.

But he said holding both positions has helped “tremendously” in staying abreast of the issues that local officials and constituents want their state government to address. He said there was no conflict of interest in holding both positions.

The WisGOPs aren’t even trying to govern at this point. Instead, all they care about is paying back their donors and try to pass petty laws that slant the field against Democrats.

Then again, if you look between the lines of Fitz’s reasoning, he’s basically admitting that Harris is going to win that Fox Valley-area swing seat this November. And the rush to pass these awful laws is likely happening in part because the GOP realizes they are in line to get their asses kicked this November, and fall out of power in at least one house of the State Legislature (likely Fitz’s Senate). Time for Dems to turn up the heat and make Fitz’s fears come true. Last week’s Marquette Poll shows that the GOP has lost major ground in swingy NE Wisconsin, and publicizing this type of abuse of power could/should kick them further behind the Dems among decent people.



And since Fitz is so petrified of this guy, Mark Harris, that’s as good reason as any to give a donation to make sure this great public servant becomes a great State Senator. I did today, and I recommend you to do the same. Click here to help Mr. Harris out, will ya?