Federal judge- Wisconsin Supreme Court righties made up John Doe decision

If you thought John Doe was dead and that the WisGOPs and their right-wing puppetmasters would get away with their money-laundering scheme, today's procedure in Milwaukee's federal court should make you re-think that. I mentioned this case yesterday, where John Doe prosecutors are asking to retain evidence to defend themselves against a lawsuit from Walker lackey Cindy Archer, and in the course of arguments, it appears that the decision ending the investigation may not stand.

The hearing was also a rare opportunity for the public to hear lawyers argue in open court on both sides of what has become a contentious legal battle with broad political implications. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, which decided not to hear oral arguments before making its 4-2 decision last summer, invalidated long-standing Wisconsin rules that campaigns aren't allowed to coordinate with supposedly independent groups that sponsor thinly veiled political ads.


In grilling Archer's lawyers, Adelman, a former Democratic state lawmaker appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton, noted no court had previously held that such unregulated coordination is protected by the First Amendment.

"Is that a new federalist court we have now?" Adelman asked, suggesting the Wisconsin Supreme Court is interpreting the First Amendment more broad than the U.S. Supreme Court.

Translation: Adelman is saying the Wisconsin Supreme Court pulled their "reasoning" in the John Doe case completely out of their ass, and are making it up as they go. And it's pretty clear why- to cover up the money train that involves the organizations that got the "WMC 4 (now 5)" on the Supreme Court, and may well directly involve the campaigns of some of the justices themselves.

This is exactly why SCOTUS must take the John Doe case, to determine if it was OK for the WMC 4 to drive a truck through campaign finance laws, and expand things well beyond the heinous Citizens United decision. And no matter what is decided, it won't make things look good in the eyes of the average voter. Upholding the WMC 4 would make our American electoral system even more secretive and beholden to big money than we thought it was (and don't think the average voter hasn't noticed), but SCOTUS slapping down the WMC 4 will confirm their corruption in the eyes of many casual observers, and open the door for the mountains of money-laundering evidence to be released, and freeing the way for indictments against more WisGOPs.


Keep your eye on this one. With Scalia being dead, there goes one more vote saying "Money is speech," and John Doe would be a very good case for SCOTUS to draw the line to try to head off the people's revolt. I just would like it to be done sooner than later, before another set of Wisconsin elections are bought by these oligarch groups and their puppet politicians who don't have the guts to speak up for themselves, and choose to hide from the voters who they are and what they really want to do.

AG Schimel shows who he works for- not us

Good work by the Journal-Sentinel’s Patrick Marley this afternoon in exposing more scumminess at the Wisconsin Capitol. This time it comes from our alleged “top cop” being led by the nose from a group of amoral slime who are trying to eradicate the state’s campaign finance laws through the John Doe cases and trelated lawsuits. The particular situation involves Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm asking to maintain possession of John Doe evidence to defend himself in a lawsuit filed against him by Scott Walker appointee Cindy Archer.

Documents released Tuesday under the state's open records law show the lawyers suing Chisholm provided Schimel's team with an outline of how to frame its argument trying to keep Chisholm from having easy access to material seized in a probe of Gov. Scott Walker's campaign....

The records released Tuesday show Andrew Grossman, an attorney at the firm representing Archer, on Jan. 7 provided Deputy Attorney General Andrew Cook a copy of filings by Chisholm's team seeking to keep the material prosecutors had seized.

"Please let me know if there's anything else we can do to assist," Grossman wrote.

Two week's later, on Jan. 21, Grossman's firm sent an overnight letter to Assistant Attorney General David Meany with a three-page legal memo titled "Proposed Issue Outline for Wisconsin Amicus Brief in Archer v. Chisholm."

A week later, on Jan. 29, Schimel and his aides filed their friend-of-the-court brief siding with Archer.

Now, both Grossman and Schimel's spokesperson are shrugging this type of coordination off as legal and not a big deal. But legal/not legal isn't the point- it's the sleazy ethics and the question of "Who's ordering who?" I ripped this pic from John Peterson at Democurmudgeon, and my only hesitation in posting it is that Homer wouldn't do ethically sketchy things like Schimel does.



It’s not like we didn’t already know Schimel was a dim bulb, who only "earned" his promotion to AG because he was a political hack who threw former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen’s corruption case in Waukesha County. This cleared the way for Jensen to be one of the top money-funnelers to WisGOP candidates courtesy of the voucher lobby, and Schimel rode that help along with $1.5 million in "independent" ads from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and won election to the AG spot in November 2014.

But this is a different level of hackery and corruption, where Schimel is literally coordinating arguments with representatives for Scott Walker appointees to damage the prosecutor in a major corruption case involving Walker's administration. That's not really being an independent defender of the state’s laws (which is allegedly the job the taxpayers pay him to do). It should make anyone wonder where the line exists between the interests of Schimel’s Department of Justice and that of the right-wing oligarchs that seem to be the real shot-callers as to what the Wisconsin DOJ decides is an appropriate course of action (if there is any line at all). It’s not like this is an isolated incident, as in recent months Schimel has used his taxpayer-funded office to follow ALEC/Koch orders and sue the EPA for asking for cuts in power plant emissions, and play along with Governor Walker’s “hate the poor” games by suing the federal government for the right to make welfare recipients pee in a cup for benefits.

And it’s one thing to be a one-sided political hack in a job where you’re supposed to be fair. But for Schimel to basically outsource one of his job’s main duties to the same right-wing oligarch groups that got him elected is not only the mark of intellectual laziness, but also shows he and the Wisconsin DOJ isn’t even trying to represent all Wisconsinites in any doings.

Schimel and the Wisconsin DOJ have turned the office into an apparatus for money power that the people didn’t vote for. Maybe, just maybe, the DPW and related allies needs to send the following message loud and clear. “When you vote for any WisGOP legal “official”, be it a judge or a prosecutor, you are really voting for WMC, Koch Industries, and ALEC puppetmasters.” We didn’t hear that enough in the most recent Supreme Court race, and now this state will suffer the damage that’ll result from having the crooked and unqualified Rebecca Bradley polluting the bench.

And the shenanigans of Schimel, Bradley, and the other bought hacks on the State Supreme Court is exactly why we need to demand federal intervention in November’s elections, and to have the federal government be the investigator of WEDC misdoings. RW tool Schimel and the “WMC 5” cannot be trusted to fairly rule and carry out anything at this point. I just fear that waiting to kick these people out of power in 2017 and 2018 may still be too late.

Sorry Scotty- you don't get to cherry pick facts on UW cuts

Clearly feeling the heat after the UW Board of Regents refused to hear public testimony from UW campus chancellors about the effects of $250 million in state budget cuts, Gov Walker threw out this Tweet today, trying to make it look like times weren't so tough at the UW System.

The total annual operating budget for UW System is the largest ever. pic.twitter.com/m8vI3Uw2Hf

— Governor Walker (@GovWalker) April 11, 2016

And I'm sure Walker cheerleader Tom Kertscher will be by in a few days to Politi-fact this take as "mostly true," based on the fact that the UW System will spend $6.15 billion in 2015-16, which would be its highest "All Funds" amount.

But here's why Walker's tweet is so disgustingly dishonest. The reason that number is up has nothing to do with the UW being "wasteful" or exorbitant. It is a direct reflection of higher tuition (more on that in a second), higher fees on room and board and income from other business-like auxiliaries, and the UW System grabbing more Federal dollars and gifts for research and other purposes.

In fact, the only area where the UW System hasn't received a boost in funding is from state taxpayers, whose support of the UW has gone down by nearly $150 million in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.



"But Jake, I thought tuition was frozen under Walker!" Not so. The first 2 years of Walker's regime saw 5.5% tuition raises, and even though regular undergrad tuition has been frozen in the four years since then, that's not the case for specific "differential tuition" programs. Nor is it true for out-of-state and graduate students at many campuses, who have seen their tuition go up in recent years. This includes 5 of the 13 4-year schools raising these types of tuition for next year. So even though Walker and the hacks who front for him may talk a lot of game about "tuition freeze", the numbers show that this freeze isn't applying to everybody.

The increase in tuition and fees in light of the drop in GPR tax dollars means that students (and/or their families) are now paying nearly $500 million more for the UW than the general Wisconsin taxpayer, with the gap exploding in the most recent year.

GPR vs. Tuition/Fees
2010-11 GPR 51.5%, Tuition/Fees 48.5%
2012-13 GPR 47.1%, Tuition/Fees 52.9%
2014-15 GPR 46.6%, Tuition/Fees 53.4%
2015-16 GPR 40.3%, Tuition/Fees 59.7%

Another way to look at this is to take the top line of Walker's tweet, and then stack up the four categories to show the changes over the last 6 years. As you'll see, GPR continues to fall while the other three categories go up, and take a larger share of the total expenses.



And here's what even more disgusting and dishonest about Walker's lame attempt to diminish voter anger against the defunding of the UW. If Walker and WisGOP were allowing UW to do more to make up the difference in reduced funding by encouraging high-level faculty that grab large amounts of research dollars, or were opening the doors to more students to attend the university, then maybe you could see some sense in trading GPR dollars for federal dollars and tuition dollars.

But Walker/WisGOP/ALEC are doing the exact opposite- the diminishing of tenure protections won't get the best and brightest teachers and researchers to want to come here (or stay here), and the dismissive treatment of faculty by UW President/Walker flack Ray Cross and the Walker-stacked Board of Regents is driving even more talent away (go check Chuck Rybak's blog for more on that- complete with Cross bringing a "no whining" button if faculty dare complain about the defunding!). In addition, Walker and WisGOP refuse to pass legislation that would ease the burden of the student loans that students continue to have to take on, and will not free up dollars for infrastructure that would allow for increased enrollment that might mitigate some of these state aid cuts.

So that's why that tweet from Gov Walker set me off when I saw it today. It's such a crass and dishonest way to try to frame the issue and trick the rubes who don't understand the multiple funding streams that allow the UW to run. Walker/WisGOP/ALEC are intentionally defunding the best generator of talent this state has, all in an attempt to pass off the needed service of higher education to the profiteers that contribute to their campaigns. And even worse, it's not us hippie liberals in Madison or the urban blue-voters in Milwaukee that are most damaged (Madison could "go solo" from the state and probably do just fine because of its donor base and research capabilities, Milwaukee has large enrollment and sizable research tools). It is the 11 "comprehensive" four-year schools outside of Madison and Milwaukee that need the state aid to supplement tuition as the main funding sources for their operations, and are the ones who have overwhelmingly Wisconsin-based enrollees, often in areas of the state that need the access of a localized UW campus.

It's a backwards mentality when it comes to having Wisconsin compete in the 21st Century, but since Walker/WisGOP/ALEC care more about grabbing campaign dollars and political influence over improving the state's economic performance and quality of life, they couldn't care less. Instead, they're going to try to play more "divide and conquer" in their quest to turn Wisconsin into a colder version of Alabama. How's that been working for us outside of the inner circle?

John Oliver shows how money is speech....and how it makes Congress members talk

After watching this John Oliver piece on DC fundraising, it makes you think Congress is even more crooked, money-obsessed and out of touch with everyday reality than you may think it is. Foruntately (or unfortunately) I don't make enough money or give enough money to get hit up on the phone by politicians, but the occasional $10 I can scrape together does get me a whole lot of emails. I'm cool (enough) like that.
There's also a good interview with current Rep. and former DCCC chairman Steve Israel starting around 14:20, who is alternately pathetic and refreshingly blunt and honest about how the game is played.



And you wonder why our economic policies and issue discussions are slanted toward rich people and ignore the many needs of the 99%? And you wonder why Sanders and Trump have both received support in each party's presidential primary by pointing out how rigged our current political economic system is? What's scary is that the money is less important at the presidential level (except that you need a certain amount to be able to compete), but are likely a bigger factor the farther downticket you go, where the candidates are less known and ads and other propaganda can make more of a difference with voters.

But wait, I was told by political experts that people don't care about money in politics, and that campaigning on corruption doesn't move the voter's needle, so that's why many politicians don't campaign on it as a central issue. Are they right, or do they want that to be the truth because it justifies their existence and the way they do things? I truly don't know this answer.

So was Supreme Court race just turnout= Bradley?

This is a pretty good "poli-sci"-type article from the La Crosse Tribune that came out Thursday, in the wake of this week's Wisconsin presidential primary and Supreme Court race. It talks some about the results of the races, but spends a lot of time concentrating on turnout figures from throughout the state. Here's a good graphic showing how turnout varied throughout the state on April 5, with the lightest shades showing 30% turnout, to the darkest shades showing 60% turnout.



In addition, the La Crosse Tribune story allows us to see which party's presidential primaries were voted in for each county, and then we can translate those figures across for the Supreme Court race, to see if those numbers truly match up, and explain the outcome of the race (a common meme that has been bandied about). In La Crosse County, this pattern did seem to hold.

Despite some embarrassing revelations during the course of the campaign, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, a freshly minted Walker appointee, kept her seat with a 52 percent to 48 percent victory, outpolling state appeals court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg by 91,247 votes.

Statewide, about 94,000 more voters cast ballots in the Republican primary than in the Democratic primary, a number remarkably close to the margin of victory in the nominally nonpartisan high court race.

La Crosse County turned those numbers on their heads: 24,105 people cast ballots in the Democratic primary, 19,989 in the Republican primary. Kloppenburg was a big winner here, by a 55 to 45 percent margin.

So let's look at other key counties in the state and see if the pattern holds. A great thing about that La Crosse Tribune article is that it not only shows total turnout, but breaks down the turnout between the 2 parties, so we can determine the share of the primary votes that each party's race got. Let's start with the top Dem counties for share of the overall vote, then compare that to Kloppenburg's vote totals. I'm going to remove Menominee County from this analysis, as they had the lowest turnout in the state, and only accounted for 720 votes total in the Supreme Court race.

Top "Dem turnout" counties, April 2016 primary
Dane County 70.7%, Kloppenburg 72.2%
Milwaukee Co. 62.8%, Kloppenburg 55.3%
Ashland Co. 59.2%, Kloppenburg 62.7%
Bayfield Co. 56.9%, Kloppenburg 62.3%
Iowa County 56.3%, Kloppenburg 57.5%
La Crosse Co. 55.3%, Kloppenburg 55.1%
Douglas County 54.8%, Kloppenburg 54.8%
Eau Claire Co. 54.3%, Kloppenburg 55.6%

There's that gap in Milwaukee County that I've talked about before, where Kloppenburg underperformed the Dem turnout by 7.5%. Otherwise, Kloppenburg's vote share matched and sometimes exceeded the Dem turnout, including a huge number of votes in Dane County.

Now let's see if the reverse is true in Republican-leaning counties. I am going to remove Florence County for similar reasons that I removed Menominee County in the Dem list- they only accounted for 1,500 votes, and make for a very small sample size to draw from.

Top "GOP turnout" counties, April 2016 primary
Washington Co. 74.0%, Bradley 72.1%
Waukesha Co. 70.7%, Bradley 68.5%
Green Lake Co. 69.6%, Bradley 66.2%
Ozaukee County 67.7%, Bradley 64.9%
Taylor County 67.4%, Bradley 64.1%
Dodge County 65.1%, Bradley 62.2%
Oconto County 64.6%, Bradley 62.5%
Fond du Lac Co. 64.4%, Bradley 62.7%

So in the places that gave the highest share of its presidential votes to the GOP primary, Bradley was consistently underperforming by 2-3%. That may not seem like much, but that would have taken the race into recount territory, if not a close Kloppenburg win.

So maybe there was a lot of vote switching, where Dem counties went Bradley or GOP counties went Kloppenburg? No. There were only 6 of those counties that came close to hitting that criteria (and 2 of them were 50-50), and it was the opposite trend- more 50-50 and GOP counties voted Kloppenburg.

50-50 + GOP counties that voted Kloppenburg
Columbia Co. 51.0% GOP, Kloppenburg 52.1%
Richland Co. 51.1% GOP, Kloppenburg 52.4%
Jackson Co. 51.2% GOP, Kloppenburg 51.1%
Lafayette Co. 53.5% GOP, Kloppenburg 51.4%
Green County 50-50, Kloppenburg 56.7%

50-50 and Dem counties that voted Bradley
Buffalo Co. 50-50, Bradley 55.5%

So let's go back to my theory from a few days ago, which says Northeastern Wisconsin was the main reason Bradley won, and see what the patterns in that part of the state look like. Let's start with the three most-populous largest counties in that area (Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago), then look at the rest of the region.

Northeastern Wisconsin, April 2015 primary
Brown County 56.5% GOP, Bradley 58.0%
Outagamie Co. 56.3% GOP, Bradley 58.2%
Winnebago Co. 54.2% GOP, Bradley 56.2%

Door County 54.2% GOP, Bradley 52.5%
Manitowoc Co. 60.9% GOP, Bradley 62.8%
Kewaunee Co. 61.5% GOP, Bradley 62.6%
Calumet Co. 62.0% GOP, Bradley 63.6%
Marinette Co. 62.8% GOP, Bradley 60.6%
Shawano County 63.6% GOP, Bradley 64.8%
Oconto County 64.6% GOP, Bradley 62.5%

Here we go! Bradley overperformed in much of Northeast Wisconsin, especially the areas with the most people. This is where she won and Kloppenburg lost, and it means that there were likely some Dem/Bradley votes in these parts, or Dems not voting in the Supreme Court race, and that is a failure on the Klopppenburg/DPW side.

It begs the question- WHY? Is it a Catholic/religion thing? Is it a gun thing? Is it bad DPW branding? This is what needs to be worked on by the state party between now and November, not just for the presidential and U.S. Senate races, but also because that area has a winnable open House seat and some key swing Legislative races.

So thanks to the La Crosse Tribune for their in-depth article, because it really opens the door to further explaining how a fool like Bradley got voted onto the State Supreme Court. It wasn't as simple as "more GOPs turned out", but had more to do with a stronger performance by Bradley in the GB/Appleton media market, and Kloppenburg's underperformance in Milwaukee County.

Work-for-less didnt help economy, now is illegal. Put it away!

While it is likely that the paid-off WMC judges on the State Supreme Court will re-instate the law, allowing it to be appealed to the Feds, let's take a look at what's happened to Wisconsin's economy since (right-to) work-for-less went through the Legislature in February of last year.

First, let's start with manufacturing employment, since work-for-less supporters claim the lack of union bargaining power will encourage them to expand business and hire more people. Hasn't really worked out that way in Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin manufacturers were hiring plenty of workers in the year before (right-to) work-for-less took effect, and in the year it has been in effect, those gains have been partly eroded.

Manufacturing employment, Wisconsin
Feb 2014 460,900
Feb 2015 469,100 (+8,200)
Feb 2016 469,000 (-1,000)

Now some of this reflects the slowdown in manufacturing that has occurred in the last year throughout the country, as overall manufacturing employment has gone down by 24,000 since February 2015, and it's especially gotten bad since last Summer, with 45,000 jobs being shed in that sector since July. Wisconsin has been a notable part of that job loss in manufacturing, shedding 2,400 jobs in the first two months of 2016 (and more likely to follow when March's report comes out next week). If you wonder why Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump keep hitting at unrestricted trade as an issue? This definitely plays into it.

But Wisconsin's job losses in that sector also show that work-for-less didn't make Wisconsin immune from the problems facing the country, unlike what WMC and the WisGOP spokespeople on AM radio claim. And it's not like the rest of our economy is picking up the slack, as Wisconsin's overall rate of private sector job growth stayed well behind the strong growth in the rest of the country.

Private sector job growth, U.S and Wisconsin
Feb 2013-Feb 2014 U.S. +1.96%, Wis. +1.42%
Feb 2014-Feb 2015 U.S. +2.58%, Wis. +1.82%
Feb 2015-Feb 2016 U.S. +2.17%, Wis. +1.43%

So while I anticipate (right-to) work-for-less to be reinstated in Wisconsin in short-time- WMC and their money-laundering partners at WAR didn't put those judges on the bench for nothing, you know - maybe it shouldn't be. Not because of the workers' rights issues (even if the freeloading of non-union members on negotiated union benefits should be unconstitutional), but because IT DOESN'T WORK AS A POLICY IN WISCONSIN. Well, unless you're trying to bust unions for political advantage, which is indeed what all of these ALEC laws are truly about.

How did Bradley win? Look to the Northeast

Now that I've had nearly 48 hours to reflect on the sickening outcome in the Supreme Court race, where homophobic Walker appointee Rebecca Bradley defeated JoAnne Kloppenburg for a 10-year seat on the court. And in taking a look inside the numbers, here's what jumped out to me.

And let's start the analysis by going back to the results of the Feb 16 primary, where Bradley got a surprisingly-low 44.6% of the vote, and Kloppenburg nearly beat her outright. In addition, the 3rd-place Joe Donald endorsed Kloppenburg soon after the primary, which would seem to make Kloppenburg a slight favorite if everything else held (and this was before people were aware what an amoral homophobic train wreck Bradley was as a person).

The upshot of this was that Bradley needed to improve her vote share by at least 5.4% on her February primary performance to get over 50%. So let’s use that 5.4% increase as a benchmark that Bradley had to beat in order to win. So when I laid out each county’s results on February 16 and compared it to April 5’s unofficial results, I found some interesting geographic differences in the data.

First of all, it wasn’t the Milwaukee area that was Bradley’s key to victory. If anything, Bradley underperformed in the media market for Wisconsin’s largest city. Sure, the sheep in the Republican WOW Counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington) voted for her, but not much more than they did for Mitt Romney in 2012, when Romney lost the state by 7%.

Romney 2012 vs. Bradley 2016, WOW Counties
Waukesha- Romney 66.76%, Bradley 68.50%
Ozaukee- Romney 64.63%, Bradley 64.92%
Washington- Romney 69.55%, Bradley 72.06%

In fact, Bradley’s vote share went down in 2 of the 3 WOW Counties compared to the February primary (Waukesha and Ozaukee). Bradley didn't gain all that much in the rest of the Milwaukee media market either. Out of the 11 counties that go from Sheboygan-Fond du Lac to the state line, Bradley only beat her +5.4% benchmark in 3 of them - Jefferson (+5.79%), Kenosha (+5.93%) and Milwaukee (+6.38%). Yes, slightly overperforming in Milwaukee County (due to a mysteriously high amount of Dem primary voters that voted for her) likely didn’t put Bradley too far behind, but it still probably translate to a loss if repeated statewide. This likely helps to explain why early exit polls were projecting a Kloppenburg victory, because Bradley wasn’t improving in the largest GOP areas.

So how did Bradley end up with approximately 52.4% of the vote? Because of a huge swing to her in the Northeastern part of the state, as well as some areas that Kloppenburg still won, but weren’t the big margins she needed. The Green Bay/Appleton media market was extremely kind to Bradley, and should take the “credit” for her victory. This area saw Bradley boost her vote share by large amounts, well above the benchmarks, and included the areas with the largest population.

Bradley Feb vote share vs. April vote share
Door Co. +13.29%
Shawano +12.99%
Kewaunee +12.94%
Langlade +12.53%
Oconto Co.+11.34%
Marinette +10.55%
Brown Co. +10.40%
Manitowoc +10.30%
Outagamie +9.97%
Calumet +9.70%

You might want to keep this list in mind when planning Summer and Fall vacations. Just sayin’.

Another area that Bradley did better noticeably better compared to February was in South Central and South Western Wisconsin. This seems counter-intuitive, because Kloppenburg won 11 of 12 counties on and south of a line from Beloit from La Crosse (only Grant County voted for Bradley,and barely). But Bradley was held to less than 40% of the vote in many of these counties in February, so keeping these counties relatively close meant that not only did Bradley beat her +5.4% benchmark, but her huge gains in Northeast Wisconsin outpaced Kloppenburg’s wins in the other corner of the state.

Bradley gains in SW/SC Wis counties
Crawford +15.46%
Grant Co. +11.82%
Sauk Co. +10.87%
Rock Co. +10.38%
Lafayette +10.27%
La Crosse +10.26%

The Grant and La Crosse County gains are especially interesting, because UW campuses are located in both of those counties. You would expect young people to be repulsed by a homophobic fundie like Bradley, but these figures bear out a certain theory making the rounds. The theory says that college students voting may not have been as familiar with the Supreme Court race, and either didn’t vote in it, or voted Bradley because they didn't know the difference between the candidates (which makes some sense- did you pay attention to State Supreme Court races when you were 19?). This pattern repeated throughout the state, and in addition to the underperformance in Milwaukee County, indicate the largest non-rural failures for Dems and the Kloppenburg campaign in the Supreme Court race.

Notable gains by Bradley in counties with UW campuses
Portage Co. +11.94%
Grant Co. +11.82%
Eau Claire +11.77%
Brown Co. +10.40%
Winnebago +10.32%
La Crosse +10.26%
Dane Co. +8.49%

The Dane numbers do come with a caveat, as Bradley still got less than 28% of the vote in my home county, no different than Romney did when he was losing Wisconsin in 2012. But if students weren’t aware of the race, and failed to fill out the Court race, Kloppenburg would likely have gained even more.

But more than college voters’ ignorance (and not being taught by Dem and Kloppenburg to pay attention), a look at these county-wide stats shows that just like with Scott Walker’s elections in the 2010s, Northeast Wisconsin remains a key advantage for Republican candidates. It also shows that where the race was most heated and “local”, in Dane County and in the Milwaukee area, that Kloppenburg got the vote totals she needed to win. If I’m the Democrats in Wisconsin- Tuesday’s election makes it pretty obvious where the work needs to be done.

Which makes Outagamie County Exec Tom Nelson’s entrance into the race for the open 8th Congressional District a big indicator. Nelson is a popular 2-term at the local level, as well as a prior State Representative and the 2010 Dem nominee for Lieutenant Governor. He makes for an interested test case as to whether the Northeast’s slant to the GOP is simply a “lower-turnout, state election” reason (bad enough), or a more permanent shift that makes capturing the state tougher for the Blue Team. 