Wisconsin Megathread

[MasterJedi]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Lol

I bet he'll still be re-elected. #jaded

The Democrats will find the worst possible candidate to put up against him.

They'll try and run say Larson or a Burke clone or milquetoast Barca when they have plenty of solid candidates on the bench.

[MasterJedi]

"Why would we run Chris Abele when Mary Burke will win over woman and beat him again?"

Again? He never before.

Democrats best choice would probably be state senator Schilling from LaCrosse. No idea if she'll run though.

[MasterJedi]

"Why would we run Chris Abele when Mary Burke will win over woman and beat him again?"

Again? He never before.

Democrats best choice would probably be state senator Schilling from LaCrosse. No idea if she'll run though.

I was being ironic.

Also, since you're a Republican from Wisconsin, what's your opinion of Abele?

I like Abele, voted for him back in April. Socially liberal and fiscally moderate to conservative. Willing to work with anyone to get the job done. Big advocate of jobs and mental health. Has a strong backing and opposition from different labor unions and members of the black community.

Would give Walker a strong run and likely win if he could get the Dem nomination. Likely wouldn't be able to do it because he's a moderate and has strong opponents. He won in April by landsliding the suburbs and splitting Milwaukee (was 50/50 but he had a slight vote lead). Only lost Shorewood 55-45 (most liberal suburb).

I also don't think he's going to run though but I want him too, but again probably couldn't get the Dem nomination.

[MasterJedi]

I like Abele, voted for him back in April. Socially liberal and fiscally moderate to conservative. Willing to work with anyone to get the job done. Big advocate of jobs and mental health. Has a strong backing and opposition from different labor unions and members of the black community.

Would give Walker a strong run and likely win if he could get the Dem nomination. Likely wouldn't be able to do it because he's a moderate and has strong opponents. He won in April by landsliding the suburbs and splitting Milwaukee (was 50/50 but he had a slight vote lead). Only lost Shorewood 55-45 (most liberal suburb).

I also don't think he's going to run though but I want him too, but again probably couldn't get the Dem nomination.

Is there a person ideologically close to or a good ally of Feingold who might run on a ticket with Abele? For instance, Chris Larson endorsed Feingold pretty quickly IIRC.

While anything is possible Larson's whole campaign was centered round trying to make people believe that Abele was an evil Republican who didn't care about anyone but himself and the rich.

[MasterJedi]

The Capital Times: 7 Democrats who might challenge Scott Walker in 2018

- Former State Senator Tim Cullen (Represented Janesville and Beloit)
- State Senator Kathleen Vinehout (Represents Eau Claire and the Northern Dirftless Area)
- Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (Represents La Crosse and the Central Driftless Area)
- Representative Dana Wachs (Represents Eau Claire)
- Dane County Executive Joe Parisi (From the Eastside of Madison)
- U.S. Representative Ron Kind (WI-03, Represents the Western part of the state)
- Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy (From Madison)

As much as I love Parisi, I personally would prefer either Vinehout or Shilling. Democrats need to win the Western part of the state in order to win statewide and they would hopefully be able to carry it.

Of the city mayors, would Jim Schmitt, Dave Cieslewicz, or Tom Barrett be interested in running for Governor?

Jim Schmitt is a Republicna, Dave Cieslewicz hasn't been mayor since 2011 (and Soglin is way to old to run). Barrett won't run again and he's likely done as mayor after his term ends in 2020 as well.

[MasterJedi]

Some statewide tidbits from the new Marquette poll:

Should marijuana be legalized and regulated like alcohol? (Prior poll with a similar question was September 2014)

Yes 59% (+13)
No 39% (-12)

Scott Walker's approval rating:

38% approve (-1)
58% disapprove (+1)

Walker's approvals have yet to rebound since his presidential run.

Paul Ryan's favorability rating:

48% favorable (-1)
33% unfavorable (+1)

President Obama's approval rating:

51% approval (+/-0)
45% disapproval (+2)

I think it is increasingly likely walker doesn't run again. Good rec marijuana numbers, a advisory referendum on it would be fun.

2018 with Hillary as President in the midterms where Dem turnout will be way down. If he runs it's likely hard for him to lose.

[MasterJedi]

Some statewide tidbits from the new Marquette poll:

Should marijuana be legalized and regulated like alcohol? (Prior poll with a similar question was September 2014)

Yes 59% (+13)
No 39% (-12)

Scott Walker's approval rating:

38% approve (-1)
58% disapprove (+1)

Walker's approvals have yet to rebound since his presidential run.

Paul Ryan's favorability rating:

48% favorable (-1)
33% unfavorable (+1)

President Obama's approval rating:

51% approval (+/-0)
45% disapproval (+2)

I think it is increasingly likely walker doesn't run again. Good rec marijuana numbers, a advisory referendum on it would be fun.

2018 with Hillary as President in the midterms where Dem turnout will be way down. If he runs it's likely hard for him to lose.

I generally agree with this, but I think he would need to get is approvals back up to the mid-high 40's.

There are a lot of disaffected conservatives with Walker right now, the thing is they'll never vote for who the Dems put up.

[MasterJedi]

This race will line up with the Senate race. There won't be many Walker/Baldwin voters.

Absolutely. There is a 98% chance the same party wins both.

The GOP bench is so short I'm not quite sure about that. Duffy could beat Baldwin as Cieslewicz could beat Walker. Besides that, there's Paul Jadin, a handful of unambitious congressmen, Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, Attorney General Brad Schimel, Robin Vos, and Mary Lazich. The latter two are little known Assembly GOP leaders, while Schimel and Adamczyk only got elected in 2014.

The Democrats have Ron Kind, Peter Barca, Chris Larson, Tom Barett, Mark Pocan, Joe Parisi, Kathleen Falk, Tom Nelson, Chris Abele, and Jonathan Brostoff. Their bench is far, far deeper.

Kind and Barca are pretty Milquetoast as is Barrett who likely won't run again. No idea why you bring up Cieslewicz, he's basically a nobody now.

Schilling is the best bet in my opinion to take out Walker, Vinehout would also be a good choice. Other good choices are Abele and Nelson but I doubt either could win a nomination being socially liberal and somewhat fiscally conservative.

As for replacing Walker there's really no one spectacular. Vos probably wants to keep being Herr Vos, dictator of the assembly. Would be a crowded field.

[MasterJedi]

Walker has said he wouldn't run for a fourth term because "his wife would kill him".

[MasterJedi]

Shilling not running for Governor in 2018.

http://m.lacrossetribune.com/news/local/sen-jennifer-shilling-rules-out-run-for-governor-in/article_a92b4891-2392-58b7-a5e9-1ac15ff8cbe3.html

Not surprising after she barely won re-election, but I think she was the best chance to defeat Walker. Unless something changes in 2 years I don't think Walker can lose.

[MasterJedi]

^Grothman.. yeah, probably. Clarke? Nah. There aren't many Republicans who would get slaughtered in a midterm year in Wisconsin.

Clarke would probably lose in a midterm year by about 15 points (maybe 8-12 if it's a 2014-level Republican wave and he's facing a weak Democrat).  I could easily see him losing in a Presidential year by 18-20% if he's facing a strong Democratic candidate or it is a mildy Democratic-leaning cycle (ex: 2012-type environment).  I think the fact that we've have had two large, back-to-back Republican waves has caused some folks to mistake 2014 (or even 2010) style midterms as the norm.  Just as Republicans had a bonafide wave election in 2016 despite it being a Presidential year (and one that could easily be no more than a fluke).  Regardless of what happens in the Senate, given how reliant their house majority is on gerrymandering and how many Governorships are up, the Republicans should be terrified by the prospect of a potential 2018 Democratic wave.

Clarke wins because his primary is in February, runs as D and gets a lot of crossover support with no contested D primaries in the county at the same time. He also does get a fair amount of Black Dems to vote for him just because he's black. Just to clarify, the north side voted for the conservative over the actual liberal because they were black in the DA election and the conservative burbs voted for the liberal DA because she was unqualified. He has been squeaking by the primaries, someone needs to defeat him in 2020.

[MasterJedi]

Before the 2018 elections new state boundaries have to be redrawn so there will be more Dems in office soon. Unless the state Republicans get their way, they're suing in court that they should be allowed a chance to redraw the boundaries again (aka to make them just as bad in different ways).

It really is annoying though, anything that happens is still the Dems fault in the state even with full Republican control since 2010 and people really do buy it. No mention of the supposed surplus from 2012 that's completely gone now.

[MasterJedi]

So are Dems in Wisconsin just complacent losers? I'm at a loss for words.

This sounds like something that would happen in Alabama.

Hard to find candidates willing to throw themselves into the Priebus/Walker machine's way. The whole state Dem party looks and acts completely spineless. It's not going to take long before moderates/swing voters start getting used to voting R by default.

Looks like Wisconsin Democrats are becoming more and more like Florida Democrats.

The WI Dems have been between a rock and a hard place in the gubernatorial races because a majority of their base wanted to refight Act 10 (the union thing) but the swing voters were/are tired of it. Therefore they've had to either make everything about Act 10 (Barrett) or vapidly pretend it doesn't exist (Burke). If they do the former, they'd tick off swing voters and if they do the latter their base wouldn't be enthusiastic. Thus, the predicament.

Interesting. Explains a lot

From what I could tell the base seemed to love Burke, especially that she was a school board member.

[MasterJedi]

He's running for re-election, if he's successful he'll probably cut this and much more again but he's trying to make people think he cares about education.

[MasterJedi]

Who is going tm run for the democrats?

At this point? Literally no one. The strongest candidate barely won re-election to the state senate. Need to pray that Trump and Walker do more awful things for the state to piss enough people off or the Dems have no one.

[MasterJedi]

What about someone like Jonathan Brostoff or Marina Dimitrijevic at the top, with Chris Abele on the bottom? Brostoff represents Larson's faction, Dimitrijevic represents Gwen Moore and Tom Barrett, while Chris Abele is obviously appealing to moderates.

You don't want Queen Marina or anyone from the county board. Useless the entire lot of them.

[MasterJedi]

I imagine Evers will at least get to the second round and if I had my guess he'll probably win. I'll be out voting for him and the local school board race after work.

[MasterJedi]

Evers could get to 70%

At 35% in he's at 69% and has over a 70,000 vote lead. He must be demolishing in the cities and winning the burbs handily too.

[MasterJedi]

Evers and Holtz advance.  Evers had 60% even before Dane had been counted.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/tony-evers-lowell-holtz-advance-in-state-superintendent-race/article_b4a02654-0402-521a-91bf-c863d488c1be.html

Why do they waste money on a runoff when a candidate has 50%+?

Because turnout is nonexistent. Turnout in April will still be crap but you'll still get a lot more voters out then.

[MasterJedi]

Looking at the results at the county level, the traditional GOP East, Dem West pattern is very obvious. Evers dominated in Western Wisconsin, especially along the traditional Dem corridor between Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Dane counties.

The only real surprises are Douglas County, which Evers' won, but by much less than you would expect given all the surrounding counties, and Evers' over-performance in Outagamie, which he won with more than 70% - and as I mentioned earlier, Ozaukee seems to be peeling itself out of WOW, as Evers carried it. Holtz only "won" Washington and Waukesha counties... he even lost Florence.

My village which is in Milwaukee County and is usually 55-60% Republican was won by Evers by either 55% or 57%, can't remember exactly. He's pretty inoffensive and he's an incumbent so probably a big name recognition thing. Also Holtz and Humphries appear to try to destroy each other and illegal themselves out of the race.

[MasterJedi]

I made this for giggles... May have an error or two.

Red Evers, Blue Holtz.

That's a landslide in Wisconsin if I've ever seen one.

Kohl in 06, won every county.

[MasterJedi]

I made this for giggles... May have an error or two.

Red Evers, Blue Holtz.

That's a landslide in Wisconsin if I've ever seen one.

Kohl in 06, won every county.

That's the election I used as a template for this picture. Oddly, Evers had a higher vote share (70%) than Kohl did (67%). Evers ran 12 points ahead of Kohl in Dane County.

Again, the marginal turnout rates by county here is quite fascinating. In 06, there were about 33% more total votes in Milwaukee County than in Dane County, and Dane county only had about 22% more votes than Waukesha County. In 17, there were about 14% more votes cast in Dane County than in Milwaukee County... and more than 140% more than in Waukesha County.

The anti-Trump elite in Madison showed up... in droves.

I believe the turnout was 8.67% which is really, really pathetic. Weird results will happen.

[MasterJedi]

We wanted a Gubernatorial candidate? Well we have one now:

Bob Harlow, last ran for US House in California in the 18th District. 

https://ballotpedia.org/Bob_Harlow

One of his main points is a bullet train, which I do like:

http://thepointeruwsp.com/2017/02/03/bullet-train-proposal-races-for-voter-attention/

[MasterJedi]

Former State Senator Tim Cullen said he's running.

[MasterJedi]

Don't have time to grab the article right now (but it is going through all the local state news) is that Republicans are trying to stop local school referendums. They think the schools are funded enough as it is now. But remember, Act 10 was supposed to free up schools financially and then if they needed additional funding they could do so with referendums. But the magnitude of ones that are passing each year must be pretty embarrassing.