Some good news from the dairy state.
Hooray! Maybe the Wisconsin Supreme Court can get the legislature to draw fair districts now.
Annnnd her opponent gives a hilariously prissy and contemptible concession speech:
The Age of Law is over. The Time of the Janet has come.
I guess as long as he’s being a whiny sociopathic creep during his concession speech, that’s fine.
A win by 10 points seems like a really big deal.
Yeah, almost like people really supported pro choice in the state, and this vote was basically a referendum on that.
Additionally, the wisdom of running a judge that previously lost an election was a bit suspect.
My opponent was so unworthy I had no choice but to get crushed by them in the election.
And yet they gave Republicans a supermajority in the State Senate.
So glad I moved away from Midwest Gilead.
By “they” you mean the district where that election was run. That was not a statewide election.
Additionally… they already had a senate super-majority, as the seat was up, because a Republican retired.
To get a veto-proof super majority, they need 2 more seats beyond that one.
The supreme court will likely be able to fix the extreme gerrymandering, or at least attempt to, and the super-majority will go away.
Not nearly as bad as you might think. This seat was held by a Republican for 30 years until her retirement forced this election. This district, which encompasses the hitherto bright red Milwaukee suburb of Mequon and much of hitherto bright red Washington County, has been a Republican fortress. But, as of this morning, the Republican was winning by barely a 1,000 votes. The warning signs are flashing for Dairy State Republicans. They’ve lost the last two state Supreme Court races, turning the court liberal for the first time in 15 years and they lost the governor’s race last fall. If the court undoes their gerrymandering, they could find themselves in deep trouble.
I believe the GOP in Wisconsin can win a supermajority with 46% of the vote. The state is that gerrymandered.
Great context, thanks!
Wow, Daniel Kelly, yer a wee cunt, aren’t ya? My god. Whatever happened to dignity in this whole political thing? I mean even the ghost of Nixon says “god damn” at crap like this.
There’s no room for dignity when you the libs to pwn.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Daniel Kelly also worked on trying to subvert our presidential electors in the 2020 election, is known for favoring ignoring conflicts of interest while himself making questionable decisions about them, already was appointed to our supreme court as a replacement but lost the seat in an older election, is rather pro-business (as you’d expect), and is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s law school (just like his primary opponent from the conservative side). I’m very disappointed that even ~45% of the voters went for him, but I guess that’s all the money and small-mindedness speaking.
Sadly, the state also strongly voted to amend the constitution to make the cash bail system worse, depending on how badly the legislature decides to interpret the wording. People here in general are pro-choice when the issue’s not obfuscated, but not all that progressive despite the state’s ostensible history.
Quite literally Dan Kelly was never capable of winning a state supreme court election, and was one of the many ghouls that Scott Walker let out of the GOP crypt.
They attempted to push a “Dan Kelly is for the rule of law!” message, that the ultra liberals were going to create a lawless and godless hellscape. Same shit they ran against Mandela Barnes, but it didn’t work this time.
Identity politics doesn’t really work in Wisconsin, it can certainly win you an election, but it isn’t the only thing you can bring to the table and expect to win, particularly when the opponent is a very mild mannered middle aged white woman. You can parrot GOP Fox News talking points all day, but you need more than that to win in WI.
Part of what also hurt Dan Kelly, I suspect, is that he basically refused to state his stance or affiliation to a particular party, or talk about how he would rule on certain cases. Janet Protasiewicz was extremely calm and straightforward in her answers, which WI voters eat up.
Look at Tammy Baldwin, WI, a state that the GOP has gerrymandered into the stone age, she still basically has no real threat to her seat. Someone who is pro abortion rights, pro lgbtq rights, the first openly gay senator, and very much the “evil liberal” the GOP tries to push as the boogeyman. But she wins, every time.
Why? Because she is boring, white, and goes to the state fairs. Trying to stick the DC elite liberal title on her just doesn’t work, because every election year she tours the state dairy farms and rural areas like crazy. She is genuine and passionate about WI, and that is hard to fight against.
The greatest tragedy of WI still was losing Russ Feingold, one of the best Senators in a generation. At least we got Tammy B. to replace Herb Kohl.
WI voters are boring. The most boring candidate always wins. Simplest way to put it.
Yeah, that’s probably the right way to think about it.
Fucking absolutely! The state’s choice of Johnson over Feingold was depressing and a great loss. I suppose Johnson’s superficial inoffensive blandness (as opposed to his true offensiveness and blandness) along with your other points goes a long ways towards explaining the voters’ choice there.
Well, there’s no gerrymander for US Senate seats. They are statewide races. Gerrymandering can suppress a statewide majority across congressional or legislative districts, but the majority will still be heard in statewide races. There is no doubt that, as you say, she does a great job of connecting with Wisconsin voters, but she’s helped a lot by the apparent fact that the median voter in Wisconsin is slightly left of center.
Having lived among Republicans for much (too much) of my life, I’d say that 45% is pretty much on par with the percentage of regstered voters in the state who are Republican. From my experience they wiil vote for anyone or anything who identifies as Republican and appeals to reason be damned. The good news, as exemplified by yesterday’s results, is that the MAGAs’ control of the party is pushing away the independents and the undecideds.