Dallet's big win even more impressive a day later

Wanted to get a few more thoughts in on last night's Supreme Court double-digit win for decency and integrity Rebecca Dallet, now that the numbers have mostly rolled in.

As much of a blowout loss as last night’s Supreme Court race was, if you dig further into the numbers (I’m using Wisconsinvote.org’s county info), it actually looks worse for the GOP, and it might explain why Scott Walker was melting down last night.

Yes, Dane County’s impressive turnout of more than 133,000 voters led to 82,500 of Dallet’s winning margin of 114,000 votes, but this is truly a statewide win for Dallet and the Dems and other non-GOPs who backed her. For example, while there was some talk about how the pro-GOP WOW Counties didn’t come out to vote like Dane County (Mark Belling was trying to sell this BS this afternoon), the 262 still made up a larger-than-normal part of the electorate in yesterdays election.

In fact, the WOW Counties' vote share was almost as large as it was in the GOP-leaning electorate of 2013, when Pat Roggensack was easily re-elected for the righties, in an election that had 140,000 fewer votes than yesterday.



You can also see that the City of Milwaukee had its smallest share of the electorate in any of these 6 races, at less than 5.8%. That’s usually a formula for GOP success statewide, but instead Screnock was drubbed by 12 points. And the reason is because he underperformed most Republicans in most parts of the state, including high-turnout Milwaukee suburbs.

In fact, the early sign that this would be a good night for Dallet and Dems was when Waukesha County dumped a bunch of votes early, but Screnock was only pulling 65% there. That was worse than Mitt Romney’s 66.7% in 2012 (when Obama beat Mittens by 7 statewide) and Screnock did much worse than Walker did in the burbs when Walker won by 6 in 2014.

WOW Counties + MKE Co burbs, Nov 2014 vs Apr 2018
Waukesha- Screnock won 64.5-35.5 (2018), Walker won 72.5-26.8 (2014) (+16.7 shift to Dem)

Washington- Screnock 69.3- 30.7, Walker 75.9-23.4 (+13.9 to Dem)
Ozaukee- Screnock 58.7-41.3, Walker 70.0-29.3 (+23.3 to Dem)
Mke Co. burbs- Dallet 58.1- 41.9, Walker 52.9-46.1 (+23.0 to Dem)

Look at that major shift in Ozaukee and the Milwaukee burbs! Look, I know we’re talking different electorates, but if even half of that shift sticks for November, Scott Walker will be getting his resume ready for his first real job. And GOP legislators whose districts include inner-ring suburbs, such as Koo-Koo Kooyenga and former Channel 4 weatherman Jim Ott, will find out their districts aren’t safe even with gerrymandering.

The other part that has to be frightening the hell out of Scotty and the rest of WisGOP is seeing how the rest of Wisconsin slanted hard toward Dallet vs what we had seen over the last 6 years. High-population counties such as Brown, Outagamie, Winnebago, and Marathon Counties all went for Dallet after voting for Trump and Walker by sizable margins.

Rebecca Dallet wins the #WisconsinSupremeCourt race by about 11%. Compared to 2016, the *only* county where she ran under both HRC and Feingold was Menominee. She did slightly worse than HRC in Milwaukee & Waukesha, but improved YUGELY everywhere else. pic.twitter.com/lmiH92zeDl

— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) April 4, 2018

If you then
don't you dont
love me deserve me
at my at my pic.twitter.com/CZNIFZ5Qn0

— Brendan Cohen (@B_W_Cohen) April 4, 2018

Those are countywide shifts that no GOP candidate can afford statewide. On the flip side, Dem-leaning mid-size Dem-leaning counties like Eau Claire, La Crosse and Rock all went for Dallet by margins between 23 and 34 points. It’s also a strong indicator of Dem enthusiasm in their traditional areas of strength in the state, something that has been badly lacking in the last few years.

The results might also be related to something Dallet hit on during the campaign.

Dallet often railed against rival Michael Screnock, a Sauk County judge, for the more than $408,000 the state GOP spent on his behalf in the campaign, a statewide ad buy from the Wisconsin’s largest business group and his support from the National Rifle Association.

“The message is certainly about the state not being for sale, that the voters are the ones who are going to decide who wins these races, not the big-money interests,” she said in an interview with WisPolitics.com.

Given that Scott Walker is the poster boy for Citizens United -era bought politicians who let the voters come in far behind their donors, it sure seems like Dems should hit that theme long and loud for the next 7 months, shouldn’t they?

EDIT- GOP gerrymandering guru Joe Handrick also noted that Dallet's win was more due to shifts in voting than any significant change in turnout patterns. Although I slightly disagree with Handrick, as Dane County grabbing another 1% of vote share is a big deal overall, it's the declining percentages for GOP candidates in all areas of the state that portends the Blue Wave.

The decline in percentage of the conservative #SCOWIS candidate last night was pretty much statewide. The decline in Dane was pretty much in line with the entire state. The numbers below are the percentages for the conservative candidate in 2011, 2016 and 2018. pic.twitter.com/cSPVRqnsED

— joe handrick (@joeminocqua) April 5, 2018