Wisconsin Megathread v3: GOP in MASSIVE DISARRAY

[ElectionsGuy]

Wow, Democrats drastically underperformed in the Milwaukee area to the point where Dane County being 79% Neubauer wasn't enough. It's worth noting that Dane County had more votes than Milwaukee despite having a little more than half of its population, and Waukesha County's margin over exceeded Milwaukee County's margin (in terms of votes). Neubauer doing on par in the rural western part of the state and underperforming a little in the rural eastern parts still didn't make up for it. The race resembled an election of traditional partisan turf (as is expected) with WOW and Milwaukee being more Republican, Dane County being the liberal bulwark, and rural Wisconsin being swingy and not as Republican.

Turnout was also much higher than last year's supreme court race, so Republicans were definitely more motivated to turn out this time than last year (when Screnock barely ran a campaign at all), whereas Democrats clearly had a turnout issue in Milwaukee. This appears to strengthen the claim that lower turnout tends to favor the "out" party during midterms and off-year elections, not necessarily one party all the time. This election has no sway on who will win at the presidential level in 2020, as the coalitions that come out for supreme court races in off-year elections in the spring are vastly different than general elections in the fall.

So why did he end up so close and possibly winning? Well, if you read the replies in this thread and the last one you'll have your answer. Liberals calling Hagedorn a homophobe and a bigot most resembles a losing strategy that they keep pursuing over and over again, referencing his history and past views on the issues. In reality, most people don't care about what some candidate did or said years ago, they care about how they're going to conduct themselves as a judge. In all the ads I saw, all that the Neubauer backed groups did was blast Hagedorn's anti-gay views and contributions. "Unfit" for the court, they said. Well, wasn't Trump "unfit" for the presidency. This had the unintended effect of riling up the base and making them more likely to vote. Talk radio in the Milwaukee area was 100% behind Hagedorn and practically stumped for him every day leading up to the election. While it was unexpected, looking back I'm not that surprised that this was so close, yet every single piece of evidence pointed to an easy Neubauer win. Liberals once again clenched defeat in the hands of victory.

[ElectionsGuy]

Wow. This is a horrific defeat. Here is the wikipedia article on this election. Absolutely terrible.

And yet Prosser did much better than Hagedorn in metro Milwaukee and much worse in driftless and rural western areas, even as Hagedorn overperformed in metro Milwaukee and underperformed in rural areas compared to recent presidential and congressional elections. These trends are still easily visible even in a much less nationalized dynamic.

[ElectionsGuy]

If you want to see the current conservative agenda in Wisconsin go look at the Fox 6 Milwaukee FB page and comments on the story about the state removing the words "mental retardation". It's totally not surprising at all but to boil it down it's "libtards" "Evers/liberals are retarded" and "are they offended".

Yes, the conservative agenda is what a few people write on a Facebook page.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/Tony4WI/status/1135008418002063363

*cringe*

[ElectionsGuy]

The primary for Supreme Court Justice is today, two of three candidates will advance to April 7th general election. Two liberals (Jill Korofsky, Ed Fallone), one conservative (Dan Kelly). Very likely Fallone will be defeated and it will go to a Kelly vs Korofsky race. I'll be looking to see what percentage of the vote Kelly gets vs Korofsky + Fallone. I'll be voting shortly

[ElectionsGuy]

Good night for Kelly, I would say. Of course, this one doesn't matter, the April election will (which will be tough for him). Kelly more or less matched Trump's % of the vote across Wisconsin, did better in metro Milwaukee and worse in Dane (as expected for any SC race). If Trump is smart, he'll do a rally the day before the election in outer Wisconsin (the 3rd or 7th district) to get turnout up.



Kelly: 352,860 (50.1%)
Liberals: 350,902 (49.9%)

[ElectionsGuy]

Before tonight, I would've rated the general election Likely Korofsky (assuming she would've advanced). Now, I would say Lean Korofsky, my preliminary prediction is 53-47. There's something not good about the fact that it's always a Madison liberal running against the conservative.

[ElectionsGuy]

Before tonight, I would've rated the general election Likely Korofsky (assuming she would've advanced). Now, I would say Lean Korofsky, my preliminary prediction is 53-47. There's something not good about the fact that it's always a Madison liberal running against the conservative.

Really depends on if the Democratic Primary is at all competative by early April. If it is, it's hard to see how Kelly could compete against at least 1,000,000 votes, probably more, that will be coming to Korofsky via the Democratic Primary.

The Dems will have high turnout, that's for sure. I'm just not sure how Republicans will turn out, and I expect at least some minor percentage of Rs to vote in the Dem primary for president but Kelly at the same time so they could be winning the primary turnout game 55/45 and still lose it. In addition, something else I found interesting was Dane + Milwaukee made up 29% of the vote in this primary, compared to 25% in last year's SC race and the presidential race in 2016. So liberals did turn out in higher numbers, but rural Wisconsin had pretty strong numbers for Kelly akin to Trump or even exceeding him in some cases. I think after Super Tuesday we'll get a decent idea of how Republicans will be turning out when they have other primaries to turn out for (other than the presidential race, such as Alabama) in comparison to Democrats. This should give us a clue to how Republicans will turn out on April 7th.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1245840177479725056?s=20

Like Clockwork

How does that make sense? Someone can get their ballot now, hold on to it until April 13th, then vote and send in their ballot 6 days after the day of the election?

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1245840177479725056?s=20

Like Clockwork

How does that make sense? Someone can get their ballot now, hold on to it until April 13th, then vote and send in their ballot 6 days after the day of the election?

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1246112106900045824?s=20

https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1245840177479725056?s=20

Like Clockwork

How does that make sense? Someone can get their ballot now, hold on to it until April 13th, then vote and send in their ballot 6 days after the day of the election?

Effectively this means that the "day of the election" is now April 13th.  It's just that in person voting is about a week earlier than that.  After that, you can only vote by mail.

Ok thank you.

[ElectionsGuy]

I know this is very unlikely but I would laugh so hard if the dems manage to pull it off.

It's not very unlikely. Karofsky can pull off a narrow win. What we saw in the February primary where Kelly got 50% was relatively high turnout in Dane/Milwaukee but very pro-Kelly margins in rural Wisconsin. Thus far the absentee turnout is high in WOW, but also decently high in Dane/Milwaukee, lower in much of northern and western Wisconsin. If the turnout patterns are just a little more favorable to Dems, Karofksy can win. Although I'm skeptical because I would think rural areas are more likely to vote in person than urban/suburban areas, so there are variables that we don't know yet. Thus far I think people here may be actually underestimating Karofsky's chances to win out of pessimism.

[ElectionsGuy]

^Encouraging, but Karofsky will probably need Dane turnout to be very high to offset high turnout in WOW, even if rural WI turnout is low.

There were more polling stations open in Dane, right?

Yes, well off liberal whites get 66 polling locations in Dane but poor blacks in Milwaukee get 5.

[ElectionsGuy]

If Karofsky wins by the skin of her teeth, you can thank Bernie Sanders for staying in until Wisconsin voted, despite how endlessly members of this forum nonstop demanded he drop out sooner.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/CautiousLefty/status/1247800837889351682

https://twitter.com/CautiousLefty/status/1247901803980582912

After reviewing this and the cases of COVID-19 by county in Wisconsin, I'm decently convinced that far less % requested absentee because fewer people are afraid of catching the virus, and didn't feel the need to vote at home. Maybe that's wrong, but most of these counties have positive cases in single digits or none at all. And I imagine you don't have polling places swamped with absurd poll/person ratios like you do in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Waukesha.

If I'm wrong and it correlates to the overall turnout %, Karofksy probably wins. If not, more likely Kelly.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://www.weau.com/content/news/Polls-closed-in-Wisconsin-spring-primary-569461491.html

City of Eau Claire: 47% turnout.
Eau Claire County: 34%.

In 2018, Evers won Wausau 52-47, for some context on the Wausau numbers.

So the city turned out heavily, but the rurals cratered.

Yeah, if that's the case for other northern counties...

The article reports 47% turnout in city of Eau Claire among registered voters, but in the county as a whole 34% of eligible voters. I don't think those are the same thing. Turnout would have to be only around 10% in the rest of Eau Claire county to get to the 34% number countywide. That is not only unlikely it is unreasonable if they are consistent metrics.

Regardless, it wouldn't be surprising to have higher turnout in Dem cities like Eau Claire for what was still a contested Dem primary.

[ElectionsGuy]

I don't know why elections people on Twitter are trying to project election results based on only absentee reporting and only E-day voting in places where Dems will run up margins like Milwaukee and Dane. We have no clue what the E-day proportion of the vote looks like in most counties in Wisconsin. I think it's a bad way of setting expectations and then being sorely disappointed later (because basically every election nerd is a liberal).

[ElectionsGuy]

Do we know what time they will start announcing results on Monday?

4pm

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/Kate_Riga24/status/1248735491073224710

Why is following the Supreme Court ruling "pushing as narrow a definition of an acceptable ballot". Regardless, not good. More controversy to challenge the integrity of the election.

[ElectionsGuy]

It's kinda looking like high turnout all around.

Not quite. See this post by walleye:

https://www.weau.com/content/news/Polls-closed-in-Wisconsin-spring-primary-569461491.html

City of Eau Claire: 47% turnout.
Eau Claire County: 34%.

In 2018, Evers won Wausau 52-47, for some context on the Wausau numbers.

Christ dude, I already pointed out those two figures are NOT the same.

[ElectionsGuy]

It's kinda looking like high turnout all around.

Yes, it's impressive when you consider the coronavirus and the botched attempt to extend voting. Wisconsinites really seem to pay attention, despite all the talk about voter suppression from Republicans that was going to severely limit turnout. Really the only voter suppression that came to surface was from dumbass mayors and elections officials like Green Bay's that turned down help for their TWO polling locations for a city of 100K.

[ElectionsGuy]

It's kinda looking like high turnout all around.

Yes, it's impressive when you consider the coronavirus and the botched attempt to extend voting. Wisconsinites really seem to pay attention, despite all the talk about voter suppression from Republicans that was going to severely limit turnout. Really the only voter suppression that came to surface was from dumbass mayors and elections officials like Green Bay's that turned down help for their TWO polling locations for a city of 100K.

LOL, you're such a tool.

Thanks for your substantive rebuttal.

[ElectionsGuy]

I don't know what reality I'm denying. People stood in line until 1AM due to the shortage of poll locations in lots of places. In some cases they were offered help and they turned it down.

But I would love to know how somebody from Greece knows more about the Wisconsin election than I do.

[ElectionsGuy]

I don't know what reality I'm denying. People stood in line until 1AM due to the shortage of poll locations in lots of places. In some cases they were offered help and they turned it down.

The reality that Republicans fought tooth and nail to make it as difficult as possible for people to vote.

I would actually agree with that but they didn't enact anything this time to limit the vote, as much as they might have wanted to, the courts just came in at the last minute. Local government is in charge of their polling locations and general election day operations.

My statement was a positive one, that people in Wisconsin still voted in large numbers in spite of the confusion in the days leading up of when the election was going to be held. It shows people follow the news and care about voting. Even among the voter suppression that existed, it showed that it's been very ineffective, especially among Democratic constituencies with decent turnout in Milwaukee.

See how I can have a conversation without insulting you. A 40-something-year-old man is apparently incapable of that.

[ElectionsGuy]

Here is the NYT results page.

I'm anxious. I want to see these results right now. It's really pointless to delay the results when everyone had voted by last Tuesday, even if the results would continue to trickle in until today or later.

Btw, does anyone know how this will come in, will it be giant vote dumps or a trickle in like usual?

[ElectionsGuy]

I've looked at enough data. Karofksy will very likely win, I think she'll end up with 53-54% when all said and done. Reporting is slow, so I'm not going to sit here and keep waiting. Some of the initial reporting looked ok for Kelly, but now it's slowly but surely getting worse for him.