Tag: Scott Walker

Senate:

• ND-Sen: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk will announce his formal entry into the Senate race to replace Kent Conrad tomorrow. Kalk, a Republican, raised a really lame $32K in Q1.

• NM-Sen, NM-03: Facing an already-crowded primary field and the prospect of giving up a safe House seat, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan said yesterday that he won’t seek the Democratic nod to replace Jeff Bingaman in the Senate.

• OH-Sen: I think we didn’t spot this mid-April poll from GOP pollster Wenzel Strategies until now… but definitely take it with something stronger than mere salt. For one thing, they’ve regularly done polls for WorldNetDaily (I mean, seriously?), and for another, they released a seriously weird-ass poll last cycle that purported to show Rep. Norm Dicks losing to a perennial candidate. (Dicks won by 16.)

But even if you didn’t know all that, you’d have to laugh at their absurd spin: They call Sherrod Brown’s favorables “dangerous” and his re-elects “disastrous”… even though his head-to-head margin is 49-36 over Ken Blackwell, 50-36 against Mary Taylor, and 48-33 paired with Josh Mandel. In a Republican poll! Anyhow, if you want to chase this one all the way down the rabbit hole, Wenzel also had a component testing the anti-union legislation called SB5, which will very likely appear on the ballot this fall (people want it repealed by a 51-38 spread).

Gubernatorial:

• WI-Gov: Another recall poll from another not-especially-prominent pollster. Republican polling firm Etheridge & Associates (based out of Tennessee) found 44% in favor of recalling Walker and 51% opposed. They also put Walker head-to-head with a real candidate (which is what would happen in a recall election) and found him tied with Russ Feingold at 48 apiece.

House:

• ND-AL: This is a very good report from Kristen Daum, who writes the “Flickertales” blog for the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. She nails freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg on two counts: First, last year Berg ran heavily on the theme that Earl Pomeroy was mostly relying on out-of-state money while he, Berg, was raking it in from North Dakotans. Well, with the Q1 reports in, Daum observes that about 80% of Berg’s campaign cash is now coming from interests outside of ND, including quite a bit from DC. Better still, Berg’s staff claimed he hasn’t held any fundraisers or solicited contributions… but the Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” website scrounged up a copy of an invite to high-dollar event held on Berg’s behalf by Eric Cantor and a couple of PACs. Whoops!

• NY-13: I’m not even going to summarize what’s at the link, except to say it’s a truly explosive story about GOP freshman Mike Grimm. Just click and read it.

• WI-01: Businessman Rob Zerban is already running against Rep. Paul Ryan, but The Fix suggests another possible Democratic name: state Sen. Chris Larson.

Grab Bag:

• Americans United: That Americans United for Change ad buy against four Republicans we mentioned yesterday apparent totals $35K. That’s at least in the ballpark of real money, and I’m very glad to see groups like AUFC and House Majority PAC start doing these thousand-papercuts sort of campaigns early.

• Polling & Demographics: Ben Smith has an interesting little exchange between a couple of pollsters with experience in working with the Latino community. One, André Pineda (who has polled for Obama, among others), says he thinks that pollsters who gather Hispanic samples by relying on surnames miss a lot of Hispanics who don’t have such names, typically because their families have lived in the US longer. These voters, says Pineda, lean more to the right than newer immigrants. But Matt Barreto of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race says that Pineda’s estimates are “way off base.” Barreto says only 5-10% of Hispanics do not have Hispanic surnames, whereas Pineda’s memo suggests that the number is far higher.

• Town Halls: Want to see if your member of Congress is having a town hall during this recess so that you can go and give them what for? MoveOn has a tool that lets you plug in your ZIP code and find town halls near you.

• Voter Suppression: Unsurprisingly, the Florida legislature is moving forward with a big election law bill that’s principally designed to suppress the Democratic vote, as always in the name of preventing VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111. Changes include shortening the early voting period, adding onerous restrictions on third-party groups which register voters, and preventing voters from changing their addresses at the poll (something which Florida has allowed for forty years). Republicans are also moving forward with bills that would eliminate payroll deductions for union dues, force unions to get each member’s permission before spending money on elections, and make it harder for trial lawyers to bring medical malpractice cases. In short, as one Democratic lawmaker put it, it’s the entire GOP wish list.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Florida: This is sorta interesting. One Florida lawmaker on the legislature’s redistricting committee is telling his fellow legislators not to talk to him about redistricting – at all. The new “Fair Districts” law says that districts can’t be drawn to favor or disfavor incumbents, so mapmakers are concerned that if their colleagues start telling them about how they’d like to see the lines crafted, that could later be used as evidence in court.

• Virginia: And so it goes: A week after saying he wouldn’t change a thing about his party’s map, Dem Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw now says of Gov. Bob McDonnell: “We are talking to him. We are trying to meet all of his concerns.” I can’t see how this is going to end well for Democrats, who now seem to face a choice between a crappy gerrymander in the Senate and a court-drawn map… and I guess would prefer the former, based on Saslaw’s hints. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Republicans are apparently pretty pissed at McDonnell for vetoing their plans, supposedly with almost no warning, but there’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. For one, the article says that the legislature doesn’t have enough votes to over-ride McDonnell’s veto, but that’s simply not true. If House Republicans really wanted their map badly enough, they could have prevailed on their counterparts in the Senate to vote for the package deal, ensuring it was safe from McDonnell’s veto pen.

For the governor’s part, he’s also full of shit. His spokesman said that he would have preferred the House and Senate maps had been sent to the governor in separate bills, but jeez, this is classic “born yesterday” crap. There’s no way the Senate would have given away its one piece of leverage like that. Still, it does sound like the Republican anger at McDonnell is quite real (and not just limited to redistricting), which means a serious derail is not impossible. So maybe there’s still a way for Saslaw to snatch something other than defeat from the jaws of… defeat.

• Utah: The state will apparently make redistricting software available to citizens on its website, but the linked article isn’t very clear where that will happen. Any ideas?

Senate:

• ME-Sen: It’s stuff like this which have me convinced that Olympia Snowe is definitely not out of the woods. Her fellow Maine senator, Susan Collins, said she won’t support Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget plan, which seems to put the screws to Snowe. It’s a pretty classic problem: If she sides with Ryan, she damages her standing with normal people, and if she sides with Collins, she’ll enrage the teabaggers. It may not matter in the end, but it doesn’t help – and with Collins speaking out, that makes it a lot harder for Snowe to simply avoid the question.

• NV-Sen: Gov. Brian Sandoval says he’ll tap a replacement for John Ensign by the time Ensign resigns in early May, though apparently some Republicans would prefer he name someone other than Dean Heller. That would let the GOP avoid a potential gong-show in NV-02, but Jon Ralston says that a Heller appointment is already a “done deal.”

• OH-Sen: It sounds like Ken Blackwell wants to decide whether he’ll seek the GOP nomination some time in May, after his new book comes out.

• TX-Sen: Robert Paul, son of Ron and brother of Rand (son of Byford, brother of Al!), says he won’t run for Senate this cycle, but says he could possibly run for office at some point in the future.

Gubernatorial:

• IN-Gov: Rep. Mike Pence, whom everyone seems convinced will run for governor, raised a pretty meh $283K in Q1. And yes, he can transfer that money over for a gubernatorial race, so it’s not unimportant. I can’t really imagine Pence declining this chance to seek the statehouse – he won’t have an open-seat opportunity again for quite some time. However, he is in the top rung of GOP leadership in Congress, so maybe he’s just feeling ambivalent. UPDATE: Can’t believe I forgot this, but staypositive reminds me that Pence is no longer a member of the GOP leadership… which makes his sucky fundraising stand out all the more.

• LA-Gov: Uh, well, this certainly takes the cake for first quarter fundraising. Wealthy businessman John Georges wrote his campaign committee a ten million dollar check (in the form of a loan), to be used for an unspecified statewide office. I’m filing this under “LA-Gov” because he ran as an indie for that job in 2007. No word yet if he’ll run again, or if he’ll do so as a Dem, but if he does, at least his cash would give Bobby Jindal a little heartburn.

• NH-Gov: Dem state Rep. Jim Splaine, writing over at Blue Hampshire, takes a broad look at the playing field for next year’s gubernatorial race. He wants Gov. John Lynch to run again, but if he doesn’t, Splaine offers a ton of other possibilities. One name that stands out is former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand, who ran for NH-Sen in 2008 before stepping aside for Jeanne Shaheen. Marchand’s been talked about as a possible challenger to 1st CD Rep. Frank Guinta, but he’s talked with Splaine about his ambitions, and it sounds like he’s more interesting in a gubernatorial bid.

Also, if you want to keep your finger on the progressive pulse in the Granite State, BH has started running straw polls for next year’s key races. Marchand wasn’t included in their gov test, but Mark Connolly (whom we mentioned here the other day) led the way with 31% of the vote.

House:

• AZ-08, AZ-Sen: The Arizona Republic has a lengthy profile on Gabrielle Giffords and her recovery and rehabilitation, which is worth reading in full. Also, her husband, astronaut Mark Kelley, said that Giffords has been cleared to attend the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour this Friday. Kelly will command this mission, Endeavour’s last.

• NY-13: According to the New York Observer, a new potential Dem name to take on Rep. Mike Grimm has emerged: Robert Diamond, a Navy veteran and investment banker. Diamond has roots on Staten Island, but Brooklyn-based blogger Colin Campbell dug up a donation to the DNC which shows that Diamond lived on the Upper East Side as recently as last year. Not sure how great a fit that is culturally… but in any case, Diamond didn’t return a call to the Observer seeking comment, so who knows how real this is.

• NY-22: Our thoughts go out to upstate Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who was just diagnosed with colon cancer. Fortunately, his doctors say that his cancer is curable and they expect a full recovery. Hinchey is 72.

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul was just endorsed by EMILY’s List. The special election is just a month away, May 24th.

• OR-01: State Rep. Brad Witt has been upgraded from “rumor level” to “considering level.” Blue Oregon mentioned the other day that he was a possible contender to challenge Rep. David Wu in the Dem primary; now, according to Jeff Mapes in the Oregonian, some of his advisors are saying he’s definitely interested. He’d be the second Democrat (well, other than Wu himself) to get into the race – Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian is already running, setting up a battle of the Brads. There are also still several other people in the more nebulous stages of candidacy, so I hope that we don’t (as some have suggested in comments) wind up with David Wu turning into the Dem version of Dan Burton and winning the primary with a bare plurality.

Other Races:

• KY-St. House: It’s not the biggest news in the world, but it’s unusual enough to merit a quick note: Kentucky state Rep. Wade Hurt is switching parties… from Republican to Democrat. Hurt won office last year under unusual circumstances when his Democratic opponent was declared ineligible to run because he filed improper paperwork. (Believe it or not, Dem Jeffrey Donohue needed all of two signatures on his nominating petition, but managed to screw up one of them.) Dems were not permitted to replace Donohue, so Hurt won the ancestrally Democratic 37th district by default. Hurt claimed he wasn’t switching out of self-preservation and says he received no inducements, but the district is 62 D, 29 R by registration, and even in Dixiecrat territory, that still means something. (UPDATE: Johnny L-T reminds me that the district is in Louisville, so not really Dixiecrat territory – which makes these registration numbers all the more dangerous for a Republican.)

• WI Recall, WI-Gov: I’m usually not a big fan of polls from colleges with short track records, but YMMV with this St. Norbert poll testing recall numbers. They find Scott Walker at 48% “keep” and 47% “remove.” They also tested state Senate Republicans and Democrats, with Wisconsinites saying “keep” for the GOP by a 53-35 margin and “keep” for the Dems, 57-33. Mind you, this was a statewide poll, and it also had a super-long field date, April 5 through April 18.

Grab Bag:

• House Majority PAC: Greg Giroux breaks down the independent expenditure reports from the House Majority PAC’s Medicare-related attack on ten House Republicans. Turns out that unlike the DCCC’s “tuppence a bag” efforts, it’s a legit buy, ringing up at $116K. Click the link for the full breakdowns.

• Americans United: Speaking of which, the progressive group Americans United for Change is targeting four GOPers over the Ryan vote: Ryan himself, as well as Sean Duffy and Chip Cravaack (both also on the HMP’s list – see item just above), and, most interestingly, Steve King. TPM calls the buy “significant,” but also notes that it’s for five figures… so we could be taking anywhere from $10K to $99K here. Americans United is also doing robocalls in a bunch of districts.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: It sounds like attempts to go back to the drawing board and produce a compromise map in Colorado have failed (why am I not surprised?). Democrats say they’ll introduce a new map of their own next week, but I can’t possibly imagine it will be appealing to Republicans (and vice-versa for anything the GOP might do). Unless the GOP decides it’s more scared of what a court might draw, then we’ll stay locked in a stalemate. And I say the GOP because they’re the ones who have the most to lose – Colorado is already pretty close to a Republican gerrymander by accident (the last map was court-drawn, too), which you can see because the new GOP proposals seek to change it only minimally. (Ironically, Republicans originally hated the map, and tried to pull off a mid-decade re-redistricting that got tossed by the courts.) In any event, the writeup at the link is quite detailed and worth a read if you’re interested in drilling down on this one some more.

• Missouri: Things have really fallen apart in Missouri, with the state House Speaker openly lambasting his counterparts in the Senate for a lack of “leadership.” The Senate adjourned on Friday without reaching any kind of agreement with the House, which means lawmakers have all but missed a deadline which would allow them to send a map to Gov. Jay Nixon before the end of the legislative session. Now, even if they do finish a map soon, if Nixon vetoes, any chance at an over-ride won’t take place until the fall.

• Mississippi: Oral arguments were heard in the lawsuit over Mississippi’s redistricting impasse, with Dem AG Jim Hood making the interesting argument that elections should be held this fall using maps that passed by each body of the state lege but weren’t voted on by the other (nor, of course, signed into law). Hood also argued against the judges drawing their own maps, and against the idea of holding elections this fall under the old lines and new ones next year with new maps (as happened in 1991/92). Republicans, predictably, took the opposite view.

• Timelines: Ballotpedia has a good list of timetables for each state to start and complete its redistricting process (though many are pretty flexible and some states have no specific deadlines).

On April 5th, 2011 Wisconsin held an election to choose a Wisconsin Supreme Court nominee. The supposedly non-partisan election turned into a referendum on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s controversial policies against unions. Mr. Walker’s new law will probably be headed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and since the Supreme Court is elected by the voters Democrats saw one last chance to defeat his law.

The frontrunner was the incumbent justice, Republican David Prosser. The Democratic favorite was relatively unknown JoAnne Kloppenburg. The two candidates essentially tied each other, although Mr. Prosser has taken the lead following the discovery of 14,315 votes in a strongly Republican city.

Here are the results of the election:

More below.

For a supposedly non-partisan election, the counties that Mr. Prosser won were almost identical to the counties that Republicans win in close races. There was essentially no difference.

A good illustration of this similarity is provided by comparing the results to those of the 2004 presidential election in Wisconsin. In that election Senator John Kerry beat President George W. Bush by less than 12,000 votes:

It is pretty clear that this non-partisan election became a very partisan battle between Democrats and Republicans.

Nevertheless, there were several differences between this election and the 2004 presidential election.

Here is a map of how Mr. Prosser did compared to Mr. Bush:

In most places Mr. Prosser is on the defence. He improves in his areas of strength by less than Ms. Kloppenburg does in her areas of strength. More Bush counties move leftward; fewer Kerry counties move rightward.

The great exception, however, is Milwaukee. In that Democratic stronghold Mr. Prosser improved by double-digits over Mr. Bush. Ms. Kloppenburg almost makes up the difference through a massive improvement in Madison (Dane County), the other Democratic stronghold, along with a respectable performance outside Milwaukee and its suburbs. But she doesn’t quite make it.

Here is a good illustration of the importance of Milwaukee:

As one can see, the two great reservoirs of Democratic votes belong in Madison and Milwaukee. Ms. Kloppenberg got all the votes she needed and more in Madison; she got far fewer than hoped for in Milwaukee.

Much of Mr. Prosser’s improvement was due to poor minority turn-out.

Milwaukee is the type of Democratic stronghold based off support from poor minorities (Madison is based off wealthy white liberals and college students). Unfortunately for Ms. Kloppenberg, minority turn-out is generally low in off-year elections such as these.

Another example of this pattern is in Menominee County, a Native American reservation that usually goes strongly Democratic. In 2011 Menominee County voted Democratic as usual (along with Milwaukee), but low turn-out enabled Mr. Prosser to strongly improve on Mr. Bush’s 2004 performance.

All in all, this election provides an interesting example of a Democratic vote depending heavily upon white liberals and the white working class (descendants of non-German European immigrants), and far less upon minorities.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Yesterday, Scott Walker blamed David Prosser’s apparent loss on Madison and, to a lesser extent, Milwaukee. He said that he was confident that the recall elections would be okay for his party because, in his words, “Those Senate recall elections both on the Democrat and Republican side are not being held in Madison and not being held in Milwaukee. They’re being held in other parts of the state”. This is pretty disingenuous; the elections aren’t being held in Waukesha, either, and Kloppenburg carried 30 counties in addition to Dane county (Madison) and Milwaukee county. But let’s indulge Walker’s fantasy for a moment. Imagine that Wisconsin were to split into two separate states. Dane and Milwaukee counties form the new Democratic People’s Republic of Fake Wisconsin, or just Fake Wisconsin for short (don’t forget to buy the official state underwear). The rest of the state then forms the state of Real Wisconsin (like Real Virginia, only with more cheese). There might be legal issues arising from having a state that is composed of two non-contiguous parts, but technically I don’t think that the constitution requires states to be composed of contiguous territory. Leaving aside the legal issues, though, it turns out this proposal might not be as good for the GOP as Scott Walker thinks it would be.

In the 2008 election, Obama still would have gotten 52.5% of the vote in Real Wisconsin. He would also have carried the state of Fake Wisconsin with 70.3%. The Fake Wisconsin secession would have added two electoral votes to Obama’s total, as Fake Wisconsin would have two electoral votes in addition to the two it would steal from Real Wisconsin. In 2004, taking out Milwaukee and Dane only leaves Kerry with 45.6% of the vote in Real Wisconsin. But Kerry would have carried Fake Wisconsin with 63.9% of the vote. Kerry would have lost Real Wisconsin’s six eight electoral votes but kept Fake Wisconsin’s four, leaving him down a total of two. Under this scenario, if Kerry had won Ohio he still would have become President. These two elections give Real Wisconsin a Cook PVI of approximately R+2, or in other words the same as Virginia or Florida. Even without Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin is still basically a swing state. Fake Wisconsin, on the other hand, would have a PVI of D+17, or four points more Democratic than Vermont, currently the most Democratic state in the union.

Not only would the secession of Dane and Milwaukee not benefit the GOP in presidential elections, it would decidedly hurt them  in the senate. Fake Wisconsin would now have two senators in addition to the two senators from Real Wisconsin. It’s basically guaranteed that Fake Wisconsin’s senators would be Democrats (probably Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, as both of them live within the boundaries of the new state), while Real Wisconsin could easily elect one or two Democratic senators as well. Ron Johnson lives in Real Wisconsin, so he would remain a senator, at least until 2016. But the other senate seat of Real Wisconsin would be open, and one of the strongest potential Democratic senate candidates, Rep Ron Kind, would have a good chance of winning it in 2012. The best the GOP could hope to do is break even among senators from the former Badger State, and likely the Democrats would come out with one or two more senators.

Of course, the biggest reason that splitting Milwaukee and Dane from Wisconsin wouldn’t be good for Walker is that Walker would be a resident of Fake Wisconsin. Even back in the days when he could win an election for county executive in Milwaukee, Walker still probably couldn’t win the governorship of Fake Wisconsin, as governor’s elections are more partisan than county executive elections, not to mention the fact that he would have to deal with Dane county as well. I suppose Walker could move to the suburban counties and run for the governorship of Real Wisconsin. Maybe he could make sure that his house remained an enclave of Real Wisconsin, or change the laws so that anyone named Scott Walker doesn’t have to be a resident of Real Wisconsin to be governor. This is his dream world, after all.

All things considered, it seems that the secession of Fake Wisconsin from Real Wisconsin would probably be a good thing for Democrats. This idea may be the one thing Scott Walker and I agree on.

3:18am (David): Back to Eastern time here. (Nice try, Jeff.) I think we’ve done absolutely all we can do. I don’t think we’re going to see any more votes come in tonight, so it’s time for a ganja break for the SSP crew. Tune in tomorrow!

2:02am: All of Dane County is reporting, having shown a 4.61% swing away from Prosser and turnout at 2.77x the first round. (This includes Middleton…which quite nicely gave KloJo more than a 1,000 vote margin).

1:48am: (jeffmd here. CENTRAL TIME WILL DESTROY YOU!) Here’s where we’re at: there are, per the AP, 34 precincts outstanding.  However, Dunn County has all precincts reporting on it website, and it helps KloJo close to a 356 vote deficit.  Crawford and Dane counties are completed reported.

So precinct wise, here’s what’s left:

6 in Ashland

1 in Jefferson

1 in Juneau

12 in Milwaukee

8 in Sauk

1 in Taylor

Jefferson and Taylor are telling us that their last precincts won’t be reporting until tomorrow.

Lake Mills town in Jefferson County gave Prosser 56.1% in the first round, and we’ve seen a 9.32% swing away from him tonight.

Maplehurst in Taylor County gave Prosser 42.9% of the vote in the first round, and we’ve seen a 5.4% swing towards him tonight.  Overall, I’m guessing that Jefferson and Taylor will overall be about a wash.  All the other counties listed favored KloJo tonight.

2:40am: My chart’s got more significant digits than Picasso got paint!

2:24am: New chart – KloJo won these counties by 62-38 so far tonight:

2:21am (DavidNYC): Prosser’s lead down to 585 votes. 34 precincts left.

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Fresh new thread. (How did I get here?)

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

2:02am: 3,575 of 3,630 precincts, Klop behind 726,325 to 728,203. And sorry for any confusion about the timestamps – Jeff insisted on using something called “Central” time, but I’m here to restore Eastern time to its rightful glory.

1:45am: 7 more precincts just came in, and Kloppenburg is now behind 1,898 votes.

1:40am: It’s so close that I’m not sure this is meaningful, but our model now predicts a KloJo win by 50.04% to 49.96%.

1:31am: Per that table just below, I count about 97 outstanding precincts, in counties that Kloppenburg has won by an average of 60% so far tonight.

1:24am: DavidNYC here – taking over the con from Jeff, who has done heroic work tonight. Not counting absentees, etc., this is where I’m seeing outstanding precincts:

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My nails now are quite bloody.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

12:05am: Move along, move along, like I know you do.

12:05am: Prosser is now up by about 2,200 votes.  With most of the precincts in Dem-leaning territory…but these precincts have to be substantive, and not empty, as we’ve seen plenty tonight.

12:01am: Eau Claire County may not give us as much of a boost as expected – most of the city of Eau Claire is reporting, with 11 of the 21 outstanding being from the city.

11:56pm: Looking at Marathon County, there could be good news left for KloJo – most of the outstanding precincts appear to be in the City of Wausau, which should help her recover her lead, or at least be empty (which is better than the 54-46 margin Prosser has there thus far).

11:53pm: Bad advance news from Racine County, which based on the County website is fully reporting and has KloJo losing by 6K votes, not 3k.  This moves the needle to 4.90%.

11:46pm: Waukesha is now entirely reporting, with the last 68 precincts being all empty.  The needle stands at 4.98% away from Prosser…or a 182 vote Prosser lead when all is said and done.

11:42pm: The Las Vegas Mayoral runoff spot has been called for Chris G, evidently.

11:40pm: We’re at 94.6%. It comes down to something as simple as this: how much of Waukesha and Ozaukee are actually reporting? Just think, if Waukesha is indeed all reporting, that brings us to a final projected margin of 175 votes for Prosser.

11:33pm: FUCK. A bunch of Dane precincts just reported, with no votes. This likely owes to the various tendrils of the city of Madison that have their own precincts…but no residents.  This moves the needle to 3.87%…count me pessimistic.

11:26pm: Waupaca County just reported in bulk, showing a 7% swing to KloJo as has been characteristic of the Fox Valley/northeastern Wisconsin. The needle’s at 4.45%…where’s still just a little bit short of where we need to be.

11:23pm: I’ve been neglecting Las Vegas…where the Clark County is not showing any results for me.  But, Carolyn Goodman is out in front, with Chris G and Larry Brown separated by 30 votes!

11:15pm: 90.4% reporting now, and KloJo is clinging to a 4K vote lead.  The wildcard is still the Milwaukee burbs, which are lagging at 65% reporting…but who knows what’s actually reported.

11:11pm: Looking at FDL County, KloJo’s swings in the Fox Valley continue to be apparent: after having given Prosser 72% in the first round, FDL only gave him 61% this time around….a big improvement.

11:07pm: Before Professor Jeff gets into precincting procedures, it could be relevant that Wisconsin draws election precincts (which it refers to as “wards”), and that many of these precincts left could be empty.  I’ll also note that very few MKE precincts are empty…and that the empty ones Milwaukee precincts are actually part of Waukesha (2) and Ozaukee (1).

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The sucker in me likes being optimistic.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

11:06pm: Keep it moving, folks.

11:01pm: This will come down to the Milwaukee suburbs…and depending on how many precincts are actually counted. Based on this last set, the swing away from Prosser is 4.9%….which is getting VERY close to what we need.  Turnout in the Dem strongholds isn’t particularly outstanding – 2.2x in MKE and 3.3x in Madison, slightly behind the 3.6x statewide.

10:52pm: A big batch of Milwaukee precincts…with votes, and a swing to KloJo, no less. This last batch brings the swing in MKE county from 9.28 to 11.78%. The swing away from Prosser is now 4.66%…which is getting close to the neighborhood of what is needed.

10:47pm: A huge batch of MKE suburban precincts….but no more votes.  Waukesha jumped from 52 to 119 and Ozaukee from 16 to 26.  This change alone brings the swing away from Prosser to 3.87%.

10:38pm: No progress yet from the MKE suburbs, but a cursory review of county websites would suggest that at least half are in and not the 27% reported.  Also interesting is that nothing has reported yet from Fond du Lac County, which could be a good source of swing toward KloJo.  The rest of the Fox Valley + Green Bay (defined to be Outagamie, Winnebago, Calumet, and Brown counties) has swung 7.3% away from Prosser.

10:32pm: 68% in now, and Prosser is about 2.27% underperforming his primary performance (which is calculated using a weighted average).  Turnout differentials are not particularly helping us – across the state, it’s about 3.9x the primary total, but only 2.2x in Milwaukee and 3.1x in Madison. (However, this includes the absurd Waukesha/Ozaukee/Washington results [Ozaushingsha County?], where turnout based on these numbers is 8.4x the primary).

10:24pm: KloJo is back in the lead, thanks to a Madison vote dump.  We’re still looking for some insight into the MKE suburban numbers, which seems overly inflated.

10:21pm: A similar effect is being seen in Washington County, where the current precinct numbers suggesting 73% of the population voting.

10:17pm: Nominally, the MKE suburbs are only 27% reporting. …but, the numbers right now would suggest 311K votes from Waukesha, or 80% of the total population. It would also suggest 60K votes from Ozaukee – 71% of the total population.  This should signal some overestimating of the effect of the Milwaukee burbs.

10:16pm: That last update wasn’t great for KloJo, who’s now 10,000 down; Prosser is only 2.27% underperforming now.

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Let’s keep going…

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

10:13pm: Thread trois.

10:10pm: A few more votes from Madison have trickled in, bringing KloJo back into the lead. However, the swing is still only 2.84%, less than what we need.

10:01pm: At the halfway mark now, and Prosser is now underperforming by about 3.5%. That number needs to clear 5% for KloJo to win.  The Milwaukee burbs, however, are still the laggards here, at 23% reporting.  However, the number of votes in Waukesha seems a little out of wack, as taking them at face value suggest that turnout is 8 times higher today than in the primary.

9:56pm: With 65% reporting for Milwaukee County Exec, Chris Abele is leading 61-39.  I think we can chalk this one up for Team Blue.

9:48pm: With 42% reporting now, Prosser’s assembled a 52-48 lead, or 19,000 votes.  “Outstate” – if there is one – is reporting and not being the friendliest to KloJo. Potential areas of improvement include the college towns in La Crosse/Eau Claire/Stevens Point and Madison. Despite their repugnant redness, the Milwaukee burbs are swinging 8.36% towards KloJo – more than what’s needed.

9:39pm: Back to Chicago for a second, a few incumbents lost tonight: Bernie Stone and John Rice for sure, and possibly Fredrenna Lyle in the 6th.  The Republicans might be going 0-for-50, with both would be GOPers losing, by 260 votes in the 41st and by 31 votes in the 45th. [And Sharon Denise Dixon in the 24th. No love for Rhymefest though, who loses to incumbent Wilie Cochran.]

9:29pm: Things continue to move slightly in KloJo’s favor, with Prosser doing 3.2% worse than before.  Hopefully, the trend continues.  Prosser is underperforming in all areas except Dane County – which is explained by the fact that Madison has yet to report.

9:22pm: Prosser’s doing 2.4% worse than in the primary. However, the MKE suburbs’s are only 8%…which leaves plenty of room for him to pad his lead, sadly.

9:17pm: Chris Abele continues to crush for MKE County Exec, now 61-39 with 28% in.

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It’s a progressive party.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

9:15pm: Follow the party here.

9:10pm: More of Milwaukee’s reported now, which is enough improvement such that Prosser’s now 1.5% below his primary performance.  KloJo will still need more to win this though.

9:06pm: According to Journal-Sentinel, Chris Abele now has a 60-40 lead over Jeff Stone with 10% reporting. Hopefully, this means we can expect some swings towards KloJo in Milwaukee County.

9:01pm: More results now – 12% in. Prosser’s underperforming everywhere…except Milwaukee County, Dane County, and the not contiguous “College Towns”, comprised of Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Portage counties.  Hopefully, this will change.

8:56pm: Clarendon County has reported in South Carolina, and the Dem is now leading 52-47.

8:45pm: More of Wisconsin in now, and Prosser is now slightly underperforming (-0.23%). KloJo has a 202-vote lead, but the disgustingly Republican Milwaukee burbs haven’t reported just yet. (Keep in mind, Waukesha + Ozaukee + Washington gave Bush a larger margin than Milwaukee gave Kerry).

8:40pm: With our first Milwaukee County precincts, Jeff Stone is up by 1%. Prosser at par with his primary performance now (+0.06%).

8:34pm: Kenosha County is going 64-36 for Prosser, but it’s also quite heavily polarized. With the last dump, Prosser is doing 1% better than in the primary, about 6% over what he needs overall.

8:30pm: 2.5% reporting now, with Prosser doing about 2% better than in the primary (assuming uniform counties). It’s still early – this is plenty likely to change.  We need Prosser to do about 5% worse for KloJo to win.

8:19pm: Ten precincts in now (does this mean I have to stop using just my fingers to count?). Prosser’s doing about 5% better than he did in the primary, but turnout in Dane County is 2x.

8:13pm: Hey, one precinct in Dane County (Madison)!  Kloppenburg’s at 60%.  Turnout in this one precinct is 2.5x what the average Dane County precinct was in the primary. (The flipside is that Prosser is doing 8.6% better in this one precinct than he did throughout Dane County in the first round.)

8:02pm: In South Carolina, heavily Dem HD-64 currently has a Republican lead of 5 votes, but only one of two counties has reported. (And I’m guessing not the Dem one, either.)

7:51pm: Checking out these Chicago results real quick – Rahm’s picks aren’t doing too well in the 24th and 25th wards.  Crusty old jackass Bernard Stone is losing quite handily in the 50th, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith (co-writer of Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks”) is holding incumbent Willie Cochran to 53% in the 20th.

Once again, Central Time shall prevail!

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And so it is, 15 minutes to takeoff.

On the docket:

• The marquee event, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between the conservative-leaning incumbent David Prosser and Dem-leaning JoAnne Kloppenburg.
  

• Milwaukee County Executive, which Scott Walker kindly left open between Walker crony Jeff Stone and  Dem Chris Abele.
  

• The first test of Mayor Emanuel’s clout, with numerous City Council runoffs in Chicago, which Rahm hasn’t been shy to wade in.
  

• Various local offices throughout Las Vegas and Clark County.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County