The real sign from Supreme Court election - Wis Dems show up all the time now

Saw an interesting analysis about our state's elections recently. It came from Lakshya Jain and Armin Thomas at Split Ticket, who say Susan Crawford’s sizable win in the Supreme Court election 3 weeks ago wasn't all that surprising. And they say it comes down to one simple factor – Dems turn out in Wisconsin.

Our estimate is that the voters who voted in the 2025 Supreme Court election backed Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024. In other words, roughly 70% of Susan Crawford’s win margin was attributable to changes in who was voting, rather than changes in how people voted. While the persuasion she got would still have been enough to flip the state with a November 2024 electorate (which was Trump +1), the landslide victory largely came down to a big turnout advantage.

Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense — the voters who show up in off-cycle elections tend to be far more educated and engaged, which also means they’re more partisan and thus significantly less prone to persuasion. This generally gives Democrats an inherent coalition boost in special elections, because their voters (especially in whiter areas) are more educated and thus more likely to turn out. On top of that, the party also enjoys an intra-demographic advantage, as high-engagement Democrats turn out at higher rates than high-engagement Republicans do in every demographic category, per The New York Times.

The net result was a massive edge for Democrats, even in a race that had record-setting turnout for an April election. All across Wisconsin, whether in big cities or the tiniest rural villages, Democrats mostly did a much better job of showing up than Republicans did.

And the authors say the biggest change in who was turning out in that Supreme Court election happened in Western Wisconsin’s Driftless Region, which slid hard towards Republicans in the November 2024 election.

And which Wisconsin Congressman ends up being the biggest loser with that change in electorate? The guy who was already a GOP underperformer.

For example, Derrick Van Orden’s WI-03 is high on Democratic target lists. Much of the Republican base in this seat does not vote when Donald Trump is not on the ballot — though it was R +8 in 2024, our estimates suggest that Kamala Harris comfortably won the electorate that actually showed up in April 2025. A bluer electorate relative to 2024 would put him in the electoral crosshairs, especially considering he only won by 2% against Rebecca Cooke, who is gunning for a rematch against him….

While we certainly don’t expect an 8-point gap between the partisanships of the 2024 and 2026 electorates, we wouldn’t be surprised by a 4-5 point gap (placing 2026’s electorate at Harris +2 or +3). It’s important to remember that the 2022 electorate was probably Harris +1 by 2024 vote — considering how the realignment in engagement has only accelerated since then, and given that Democrats are now more enthusiastic to vote because they are out of power, we’d expect 2026 to be worse in turnout for the GOP.

So if WI-3 is going to have an near-even electorate in 2026, how is Small-D VO going to stay in office in that scenario? Especially when he will continue to make an ass of himself by doing things like trying to impeach judges for demanding that DOGE dweebs follow the law?

Elon Musk may have rewarded Van Orden by giving him a max donation for the upcoming election cycle. But as we saw 3 weeks ago, when people hate you in this state, all the money you throw out there is a negative for the candidate you prop up, not a positive.

I also noted in the wake of Crawford's election that there seemed to be a disapperance and/or change in the voting habits of the college bros that helped lift Trump to victory by less than 1% in this state in November. That didn't just show in sizable shifts towards Dems in college counties around La Crosse, Eau Claire, Stevens Point and Oshkosh, but it was especially obvious in the parts of Madison that were on and next to the UW-Madison campus, where there was a massive drop in the votes for the GOP-backed candidate in April vs a small decline in votes for the Dem-supported candidate.

The way Trump has been tanking, the GOPs are probably in line to lose anyway in 2026. But if the better-educated and better-aware Dem voters in Wisconsin continue to have off-year turnout advantages, that won’t just put Derrick Van Orden out of Congress, but also increases the chances that some other WisGOP Congress-slug like Bryan Steil or Tony Wied gets the boot in November 2026. And it makes flipping the State Legislature a strong possibility.

Maybe these Congress GOPs should do something other than cowering in a corner and blindly supporting a President who the majority Wisconsin voters won't be in support of in November 2026. Just a thought.