Wis primary shows Trump effect, GOP split, and Dems' opportunities

A couple of quick reflections from last night's primary.

First of all, we had quite high turnout, especially since the Dem Senate race had all the drama taken out of it 10 days before the election. Unofficial results for Tuesday's primary show that nearly 693,000 Republicans voted in the governor's race and more than 501,000 Democrats voted in the Senate primary. Interest fell in that race won by Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes after his three top challengers dropped out two weeks ago.

Still, the 25.5% turnout was the best since 26.9% in 1982. Turnout in the 2018 primary, which featured a large field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates, was 23%. I don't view the difference in turnout by party to mean much, because I would imagine more than a few people chose to vote in the GOP race for Governor because that was where the contested action was, and voters who are "independent" (or claim they are to seem "above politics") tend to follow the heat.

And the result in the GOP primary for Governor is an amazing Rohrschacht test about the party, and whether they went along with the Scott Walker-endorsed Rebecca Kleefisch, or the Trump-endorsed Tim Michaels.

Lots of socioeconomic and educational...errr..differences between the pink counties and the dark red counties. And it continues a trend that we saw in 2018, where the Walker-establishment Republicans won with Leah Vukmir, but "outsider" Kevin Nicholson won most of the counties.

Crystal Ball: @JMilesColeman and me on the rural forces winning out in the WI-GOV R primary, the closer-than-expected MN-1 special, and Rs picking the more conservative option in blue state Senate primaries https://t.co/W2eoGlJTVY pic.twitter.com/G6N1KIDAmF

— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) August 10, 2022

And the GOP split broke wide open after the polls closed when arguably the most powerful Republican in state politics pulled off this blast after surviving his primary by less than 300 votes.

Said that the caucus will be meeting soon to take up whether Gableman will continue with his investigation into 2020

— Laura Schulte (@SchulteLaura) August 10, 2022

Boy, if only Robbin' could do something about that, and about Janel Brandtjen chairing the Assembly's Elections Committee...

And it got more ridiculous today, as Robbin' went back to weaseling about the Big Lie investigation that HE ordered and HE controls.

Speaker Robin Vos details the process of the Gableman investigation & when things changed from an investigation to a "crusade to please certain people in our party..."
Listen to the full interview with Speaker Vos on Wisconsin's Morning News: https://t.co/AYh3z7iG5s pic.twitter.com/hemjK7Q82K

— 620wtmj (@620wtmj) August 10, 2022

GIVE ME A F***ING BREAK! This was Vos trying to two-step by keeping the MAGA rubes stirred up about something that he knew was BS from day 1. And of all the people that could have been chosen to head up this sham, he chose a crooked dope like Gableman because....??

Now the GOPs have 3 old white male 3 pro-MAGA candidates at the top of their tickets for the most important races in the state (US Senator, Guv, and Derrick "Small-D" Van Orden in the 3rd Congressional District). And that candidate for Governor did worst in areas where Trump bled away the most voters in 2020.

Wisconsin UNOFFFICIAL votes.

The map of the vote margin by county, and of the shift in margin from 2016 to 2020.

A familiar map of red and blue counties. Only Sauk and Door flipped, R->D

Margin change notable that WOW and BOW (Fox Valley) both getting smaller Rep margins

1/n pic.twitter.com/osu47aczO1

— Charles Franklin (@PollsAndVotes) November 9, 2020

Between that and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, sure seems like Dems should be rocking the suburbs and appealing to decency and steadiness for the next 3 months, doesn't it? It also means that the barely-GOP State Senate districts in Appleton/Neenah/Menasha and Tosa/Brookfield/New Berlin/Stallis are definitely in play for Fall, GOP-held districts that include high-educated suburbs and college towns are in peril.

Lots more can be broken down in the future (there are some real treats that won GOP primaries last night), but the results seem to tell us a lot about how broken the state GOP is, and how different things are in TrumpWorld vs the other 2/3 of Wisconsinites. And while Tim Michels may have gotten the most votes to win the GOP nomination, he only got around 27% of the total votes in an election that only had 26% of voters turn out.

So good luck to Michels and other Trumpers in having that translate to a midterm win when turnout that is likely to be at least twice as much as we had yesterday. And a majority of them hate Trump.