How Underly rolled in the Superintendent race

A couple of thoughts after last night's elections (numbers unofficial, but pretty much what we'll get).

First of all, turnout took a step down from the elevated totals in the last two contested non-presidential Spring elections (which were fierce Supreme Court races), but ended up ahead of the last 2 Superintendent races of 2013 and 2017.

And Dane County again set the pace for voter turnout, and turned the race into a 15-point blowout for Jill Underly.

In fact, Dane County cast 15,300 more votes than Milwaukee County, which has 400,000 more people than Dane. Us Madison-area hippies also nearly outvoted the pro-GOP WOW Counties in the Milwaukee suburbs.

Total votes cast, April 2021 Superintendent election
WOW Counties 123,036
Dane County 118,264
Milwaukee Co. 102,951

That's bad enough for Deb Kerr, but even worse is that she didn't gain that much from the WOW Counties, while Underly had a big margin in Milwaukee, and an 80-20 rout in high-turnout Dane County.

Total margin, April 2021 Superintendent election
WOW Counties Kerr +22,392
Milwaukee Co. Underly +39,911
Dane County +71,344

Combine that with Underly winning the slightly right-leaning BOW Counties (Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago), and making big gains outstate, and you have the blowout that resulted.

Here is a map that shows the shift from the 2020 election to the 2021 election

Every county except tiny Menominee showed a shift away from Biden and towards Underly. pic.twitter.com/EXy5LSw3jJ

— Aidan Pappas 🦑🧲 (@PappasAidan) April 7, 2021

Assembly Speaker Robbin' Vos and his GOP minions get major backing from school privatization freak/former US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and DeVos's front groups sent out 6 figures of annoying digital ads supporting Kerr right before the election. And another big statewide Dem win left Robbin' a bit salty.

Correctly stated that the teachers union owns the DPI; not the parents or the students or the taxpayers. Count me as someone who isn't going to support putting another nickel into this unaccountable state bureaucracy. https://t.co/OvTKZ24Qqg

— Robin Vos (@repvos) April 7, 2021

Settle down, Napoleon. Besides, all DPI has to do is take out money dedicated to your beloved voucher system. Enjoy explaining that to Betsy and Scott Jensen, kid.

Also, Wisconsin teachers >>>>>>>>> Betsy DeVos and Robbin' DeVos. And it wasn't just the big cities that felt that way yesterday.