Wisconsin Megathread v3: GOP in MASSIVE DISARRAY

[walleye26]

State Sen. Dave Hansen (D-SD30) retiring, potential GOP pickup as the district has been trending R.

https://www.wpr.org/green-bay-state-sen-dave-hansen-wont-seek-re-election

A GOP supermajority in the state Senate is within reach.  It’s possible they could pick this up (Dems won it 51.3-48.7 in 2016), as well as Patty Schachtner’s seat (SD10, she’s the Doug Jones of Wisconsin), and Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling’s seat (SD32, held onto her seat by 56 votes in 2016).

Question for you (or any of my other Badger-bros): I'm assuming there are no possible R->D flips to offset these potential losses, else they would have been won over in 2018?

The 2018 election was for the other half of the Senate seats.  The 2020 map was last up in 2016, where Dems had identified a few targets, but they ended up trending more towards Rs.  If there’s one offensive target this time around it would maybe be Patrick Testin’s seat in SD24, which he flipped in 2016.  However, if Dems were to flip this seat back, then I’m guessing they’re holding SDs 30 and 32 in the process.

Yeah, Testin’s seat could be a target. It covers Stevens Point and it’s suburbs, as well as another assembly district going southwest towards Tomah. Testin only won it by 4% in 2016, and with increased turnout at UWSP and the Point area in general and a slight leftward trend in the rest of his senate district he could be flipped.

[walleye26]

I voted at my polling place in Beaver Dam because I never got my absentee ballot. The whole place smelled like Lysol and workers were disinfecting every pen and station. Only 2 others were there when I voted.

[walleye26]

https://twitter.com/madisonwiclerk/status/1247818110524162049?s=21

This is better then I thought it would be in Madison, could get bit better too as the week progresses.

Hopefully it continues to rises. If Karofsky gets ~80% of the vote here and rural turnout is lower, she could maybe pull it off. Fingers crossed.

Does anybody know of the turnout number (50.3%) includes absentees sent out or the ones it’s received so far?

[walleye26]

According to an article I found on WEAU, as of 5pm yesterday turnout in the city of Eau Claire was 34.3% (including processed absentees)

[walleye26]

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.

[walleye26]

https://mobile.twitter.com/WisVoter/status/1247883118255591428

From Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel: MKE has now returned more absentees than last years SCOWIS race. Same is true in Kenosha, and Waukesha, Walworth, and Dane are close.

[walleye26]

What does 'WOW' stands for?

Those three counties are the base of WI’s GOP. They give like 70% of their vote to the GOP.

[walleye26]

Assuming Karofsky wins, (which who knows without seeing rural data) I’ll be banging my head into a wall because the Dems didn’t show up last year to prevent Hagedorn from winning the SCOWIS race. Dems could have had a SCOWIS majority had they not blown it last year.

[walleye26]

Two Lakeshore Milwaukee Villages did their own VBM, got really good return rates:

https://twitter.com/WisVoter/status/1248680544910499841?s=20

Isn't this one of the fastest D-trending areas of Wisconsin besides Dane?

Yes, because the lakeshore suburbs are more diverse and contain white liberals, as opposed to WOW

[walleye26]

Another thing I’m curious of is if there will be any trends towards Karofsky in Ozaukee or Waukesha Counties. Nonpartisan races tend to be more educated, and last year Neubauer got a bit over 37% in Ozaukee. If Karofsky gets 40% in Ozaukee, I think that would be interesting.

[walleye26]

As of Thursday night, according to Madison’s clerk, they had received 8,158 absentee ballots from city voters on April 8th and 9th.

[walleye26]

What site are you using? I’m on NYT and I only see FDL and Dane county.

[walleye26]

Where are the results coming from in Ozaukee? 37% looks good for Jill.

[walleye26]

Outagamie is 51-49 Kelly-if that holds Jill will win.

[walleye26]

the Racine numbers on the other hand genuinely do not look so hot for Karofsky.

Racine is super polarized. The western 2/3 of the county are similar to WOW and vote 75% R whole the city of Racine is heavily black and votes 70% D.

[walleye26]

What's up with Ashland? Kelly seems to be doing way better than he ought to

I was thinking the same. My guess is they are the townships in the southern half. The city of Ashland is heavily D (white working class) and there’s a lot of tribal members on the reservations in the northern half.

[walleye26]

70% in for St. Croix and Kelly only winning 51-49. Big if that holds.

[walleye26]

I know it’s only 1 precinct, but it looks odd to see Oconto blue.

[walleye26]

I can't believe Dems were denied a WISC majority because of that F-ing 6k vote, 0.5% margin loss in 2019,  what a travesty that was and SO avoidable.

If I were a Wisconsin Democrat that race would still annoy me to this day.

You have no idea the pain.

[walleye26]

Interesting thing I looked at. In 2016, 13,484 people voted in the Dem primary in Ozaukee County. In 2020, that number is 14,202 for Karofsky (15,104 this years Dem primary).

[walleye26]

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1249857416885342210

Why are the Ds losing the county that has Stevens Point in it?

I don't think Stevens Point proper is in yet.

Rural parts of Portage County are potato farms full of evangelicals. The city of Stevens Point (27,000) and it’s suburb Plover (12,000) are pretty blue. Portage County has about 70,000 people, around 40K in Points metro. Point also reports last usually.

[walleye26]

Racine-Kenosha split was 17.5 points today, which is quite interesting.

Kenosha's kinda stayed where she's been for a while politically, meanwhile Racine has been gradually sliding rightwards as WOW starts birthing exurbs in the west of the county.

Could Chicagoland begin influencing Kenosha in the future and generate a D trend there? It does border Lake County IL.

Yes. A coworker of mine grew up in Kenosha and told me that it’s cheaper in property taxes to live in Wisconsin and commute to Chicago. There’s a train in Kenosha, and Amazon has built up a lot along the freeway.

[walleye26]

Is Taylor County just the most conservative in the state or Kelly's hometown or what?   The margin kinda stands out in the map.

Northern WI is pretty rural, but Taylor County is REALLY rural. Most northern WI counties have a lot of lakes that draw retired Milwaukee/Chicago/Twin Cities liberals, but Taylor county doesn’t have this development because of the National Forest (and Taylor County has no big lakes). This prevents a liberal floor that other counties such as Oneida, Washburn, Iron, and Sawyer have. Unlike a lot of other Northern WI counties, there are no Reservations for the tribes. Lastly, Taylor for some reason is significantly more evangelical than surrounding counties. I don’t know why, but there are a fair amount of church retreats in rural Taylor County.

[walleye26]

Zeigler, Bradley, and Kelly are (/were) the three ardent conservatives on the court,  with Hagedorn being kind of an opportunist centrist and conservative otherwise, and Roggensack probably being the closest thing the court has to a swing vote (but still right of center)

It's really good that Kelly is gone and now Bradley and Zeigler are on their own.   A 4-3 split is actually a huge improvement over the previous 5-2.

So Hagedorn was sort of an Anthony Kennedy and Kelly was more of an Antonin Scalia?

Hagedorn is NOT centrist. Think of him more as Kavanaugh. He lost a lot of support after extremely homophobic remarks came back from a few years back where he compared homosexuality to beastility. Once if cams out, Hagedorn went all “I’m being persecuted for my faith” and won evangelicals by HUGE margins.

[walleye26]

Looks like Marsy's Law passed by a landslide.

Yes, very sad but expected when it sounds so nice and helpful but nobody really knew what it actually does.

Yep. I voted against it.

I voted against as well, but my goodness I was not expecting it. I’m surprised nobody ran any anti-Marsy’s Law ads.