The first round of the Wisconsin recall elections was held today, and there's good news.
You probably recall that the Wisconsin Republican Party organized a bunch of fake
democrats to run in the primary leading up to the recall election. It was estimated that running the fake Democrats, which the Republicans didn't even bother to pretend that they weren't behind it, were going to cost the state more than $400,000.
That's right–the party that was supposedly trying to save the state money by screwing state employees out of their pensions and collective bargaining rights–is making the state throw money away.
The result, possibly inevitable, came out today. All six fake Democrats were defeated, leaving the real Democrats to move forward to the general election on August 9.
One step closer to replacing those union-busting scumbags.
IMO, with the dozens of races screaming for progressives attention, this is where it needs to be – winning back these seats will send a real clear message.
I took a long look at this Wisconsin legislature races a while back, which is worth checking out if you want to know more about the electoral dynamics of the races. But I wanted to paste over one chart from that article: these are the district index scores for the state senate. The six Republicans racing recalls are highlighted in gray.
Other than Dan Kapanke’s seat, which should be an easy flip, this is going to be a real uphill battle. The shift in union voter support made this hill a little easier to climb, but this is still Republican territory that we’re trying to take back these Senate seats in. Particularly concerning for me was Moore’s performance in the 10th, where she only beat her fake Dem challenger by 10%, in a seat that has a slide Republican cushion to begin with. Democrats seemed to perform strong elsewhere, and I’m sure that was with a little bit of funny business on behalf of Walker-supporters, but if we’re going to win the 10th district something is going to have to change between now and election day.