Posted on 11/10/2021 11:15:53 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. — A historic Republican gubernatorial win in Virginia on Tuesday could forecast a tough election for Wisconsin’s governor next fall.
It’s clearly “a shot across the bow,” former longtime Wisconsin Republican strategist Brandon Scholz said.
Virginia’s gubernatorial history since the early 2000s trends deeper blue then Wisconsin’s own. Four out of their last five governors dating back to 2002 (including incumbent Ralph Northam and just-defeated former governor Terry McAuliffe); Wisconsin has had two Republicans out of four governors since 2001.
Like Wisconsin, Virginia voted for President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. Unlike Wisconsin, Virginia remained blue in 2016; both states voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
“We always knew this was gonna be a tough election cycle,” chair for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Ben Wikler, said. Historically, midterm elections at a national level aren’t easy for any party who lost the White House in a previous general election.
Now, with Virginia’s off-year election results flipping the state towards Republican Glenn Youngkin for governor, Wisconsin Republicans can taste a GOP gubernatorial victory in 2022 for themselves.
“When we think about last night and what it potentially foreshadows, we can look over a decade ago and see what happened in those same states in a similar scenario,” former Wisconsin GOP chairman Andrew Hitt explained.
He’s talking about 2009 and 2010, when Republican Chris Christie won blue New Jersey’s race by about four points and Republican Bob McDonnell similarly swept blue Virginia. The story of 2010 and the Tea Party wave is well known: U.S. House Republicans picked up more than 60 seats, and Wisconsin’s legislature and governor’s mansion both flipped red–staying that way for a decade before Gov. Tony Evers ousted Gov. Scott Walker by barely a percentage point in 2018.
Now, he points to President Donald Trump’s 2020 losses in historically Republican suburbs in Wisconsin–and Youngkin’s Virginia suburban gains on Tuesday–as a key for 2022.
“Those are temporary shifts,” he said. In 2020, Trump lost major ground to Biden in Milwaukee’s deeply red suburb counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. “I think Virginia foreshadows that for us.”
The latest Marquette Law School poll, released Wednesday, had results similarly projecting a tough gubernatorial election for Gov. Evers next fall. It found 40% of registered voters polled said they would vote to reelect Gov. Evers, while 53% said they would vote for someone else and 6% didn’t know or wouldn’t say.
“I think you could call this a grumpy electorate,” Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette Law School poll, said.
For Wisconsin Democrats, school board recall failure a sign of hope
While Republican performances in last night’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey struck fear for Democrats across the nation looking into next year’s midterms, the attempted Mequon-Thiensville recall of four school board members that failed amid massive turnout Tuesday night was the real measuring stick for Democratic strategists in Wisconsin.
The recall attempt attracted national attention as a bellwether for race-based education concerns (although organizers cited a far wider array of concerns, including academic performance). That issue is spreading as a major political theme nationwide, under a battle cry against critical race theory (CRT) in schools. Most K-12 schools don’t teach the legal theory by definition, but Republicans have come to use the term when referring to many race or history-centered education theories.
“When extremism was on the ballot, it was defeated pretty soundly,” Wisconsin Democratic strategist Melissa Baldauff said. The former deputy chief of staff to Tony Evers said the recall results should be one of the most important in terms of calculating next year’s races. “People trust Gov Evers to do the right thing.”
Frontrunner GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch championed the recall, which WisDems chair Ben Wikler said indicates an outcome next year anything but favorable. “Voters rejected that kind of radical politics in the Badger state, and not in a particularly Democratic-leaning portion of the state,” he pointed out.
But it was similar education issues and outcry against CRT in schools that likely cost McAuliffe the election, Scholz explained.
“Virginia’s governor made a big mistake on his education platform in suggesting that parents don’t have a role in their kids’ educations,” Scholz said. “That to me is probably one of the biggest mortal wounds he took in that campaign.”
Local versus national politics
It’s an old phrase, but it still applies: all politics are local, Scholz said.
It was Youngkin’s focus on issues that mattered to Virginians versus McAuliffe’s emphasis on national politics and Biden’s agenda that swung the pendulum in Youngkin’s favor, Republicans said.
“It’s really important to focus on kitchen table issues,” Hitt said. “Youngkin talked specifically to them about their life and how they were gonna make their lives better, whether it was school or taxes, bringing charter schools, getting rid of the grocery tax–he really brought it down to a personal level for them.”
“Even though it’s a statewide race for governor, you gotta take care of business at home,” Scholz said. Democrats can no longer win races like they did in 2020–by running against Trump. That didn’t work on Tuesday in Virginia or New Jersey, he said. Towards the end of the race, he noted, even McAuliffe pulled Biden imagery from his campaign.
But it’s a local focus on how Gov. Evers has worked for Wisconsin that Democrats say will be his winning message next fall.
“He ran in 2018 on education, roads, and healthcare,” Baldauff said. “That’s been his priority in office and it’s going to remain his priority in his second term in office.”
At the same time, they point to Biden’s national agenda–the Build Back Better Act–and what it will do for Wisconsinites at both a state and local level. Get that passed, and Democrats can rest easier in 2022. Ultimately, however, there’s no race in Wisconsin that would be easy for Democrats to begin with: their strategy, Wikler says, involves boots on the ground.
This weekend, that means kicking off their One Year to Win plan. They plan to organize, knock on doors, and phonebank in efforts to reach 100,000 voters through Saturday and Sunday. That’s twice as large as a goal as a similar kickoff in 2019.
“The number one lesson from, frankly, the last decade or two in Wisconsin politics is to never take a day off,” Wikler said. “The biggest mistake the Democrats could make would be to take anything for granted…Don’t mourn: organize.”
Go, Rebecca! :)
https://rebeccaforgovernor.com
There almost a full year between now and the 2022 elections.
Given the Biden agenda, the country might not even be here by then.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best! :)
Kleefisch the one?
Even before she entered the race, Evers polling had him at 50% against a paper bag full of dog poop. :)
Rebecca Kleefisch (our former Lt. Governor under Scott Walker) has a good amount of money and tons of ammo against Evers. He’s been a train wreck. Evers has been somewhat neutered by Wisconsin holding both the House and Assembly (Senate), but the riots he let rage in both Madistan and Kenosha are NOT going to go away.
State Street (That GREAT Street!) in Madistan lost 62 businesses! SIXTY-TWO. They’re not coming back, either. He’s STILL got Dane County under mandatory masking - just extended it AGAIN.
It’s madness.
The Dems in other states will look at the Democrat mistakes in VA and make adjustments, for example McAuliffe saying parents don’t have a right to tell schools what to teach. They’ll carefully avoid being linked to CRT if it and similar things are being taught in their states. It might end up resembling what they say about abortion: “I disapprove of CRT...but I would not interfere with what schools decide is appropriate for them”. It’ll be BS of course, but the media will help them as they always do.
She’s favored. She was our Lt. Governor under Scott Walker.
She is being challenged, though. Jonathan Wichmann and Bill McCoshen have recently entered; I know little about either. There are some wishing for Sean Duffy to get into the race, too.
As always, it’ll be interesting!
They never do on their core principles.
CRT is one of their core principles.
Keep Duffy in reserve to face Sinator Bulldyke.
That’s a shame. I went to Madison once on a business trip and stayed downtown. One of the nicest downtowns I’ve seen - nice to walk down, very nice restaurants for dinner, etc. Guess they are gone now.
I can remember when State Street was THE place to shop.
Yost’s for nice clothes.
The Yarn Bar for materials to knit a sweater.
The Theater where I saw Johnny Cash LIVE. Nosebleed seat, but still was there.
Lots of real estate where it is now empty.
State Street connected the Capitol Buildings with the University.
I would love to see Tammy ousted. That is a great idea; Duffy would be formidable. She’s just a placeholder; just there to vote with the Socialist Democrat crowd. The ONLY time she does ANYTHING for our state is when someone rats her out - as in her dropping the ball on the opiate/VA Hospital problem we had in our state.
She got a lot of mileage then out of going on TV and telling everyone, in her breathless little-girl voice, ‘how much she CARES!’ Barf.
Like all Socialist Democrats, she HATES the military, so she ignores us for the most part.
She only ‘sees’ you if you’re gay or elderly. If you’re gay AND have somehow made it to elderly status, you’re golden!
*Rolleyes*
I agree they don’t change their core principles. But, they are going to pretend to. Their line on CRT toward the end of the VA Gov. race was that CRT doesn’t exist in the education system. Their media partners were echoing it.
We lived in Sun Prairie in the 70’s, and Mom would drop us off at East Town Mall and we’d grab the bus up to State Street and the Capitol on a Saturday.
I had SO many favorite places to go, and even just wandering around the Capitol Building and looking at all of the art and statues and the museum there was really special. I would always buy a big bunch of flowers for Mom at the Farmer’s Market - she still loves Gladiolus.
I remember Yost’s - bought a Prom Dress there one year. I also had a leather coat (dark burgundy in color, full length!) from Carmen’s. Remember them?
Can’t remember the cheap taco shack we always loved, but those were the best soft-shell chicken tacos ever! ;) I seem to remember a shop that was all hats that had ‘Feather’ in the name. Loved that - and there was a shop with nothing but yummy-smelling body lotions and perfumes and they would mix your own special scent for you.
And, of course, when I got older, and before I left for the Army, the bars were the best. So. Much. Fun. (We could legally drink at 18 back then.) And you didn’t feel the least little bit afraid; everyone was basically DECENT back then.
And tailgating for UW Badger Football Games was a blast - we still do that from time to time. :)
Ping to Post #14.
My ex was a big ‘computer guy’ back in the day, and one of his accounts was for the Yellow Pages. And THOSE people had BIG MONEY back in the day when they were the only game in town for advertising and customers finding your business.
The owners always invited us for some reason, and they would pay for all the food, booze, fun and frivolity we could pack into a weekend at ‘The Concourse’ which may be the hotel you’re thinking of. It’s the only one that is still in the State Street area. They current ‘mayor’ of Madistan is just this awful, fat lesbian loser. At least under card-carrying Socialist Mayor Paul Soglin the trains ran on time, LOL!
SOME of our ‘landmarks’ escaped firebombing August before last. But, what happens NEXT time under the uber-cr@ppy ‘leadership’ our state currently has?
UGH! The Capitol occupation/destruction was bad enough, then the State Street Riots! Then Kenosha! I swear ALL of these hippy-dippy Socialist-run college towns BEG to be thrown back into the era of civil unrest! If it ain’t happening, they gin up reasons to MAKE it happen! Grrrr!
Voters are not as stupid as the Dems think they are.
Their line on CRT toward the end of the VA Gov. race was that CRT doesn't exist in the education system. Their media partners were echoing it.
And how'd that work out?
They lost to a guy that nobody had heard of even 6 months ago, had a name recognition of only 2 % at the start of the race, and had never been in politics before.
On top of that they lost the Lt Gov race, lost the state AG race and lost control of the state congress too.
A total massacre of the Dems.
It didn’t work out for them because McAuliffe made unforced errors, like saying parents don’t have any right to tell schools what to teach. They won’t
make that mistake again. Which was my original point.
Yes they will. They are pushing the same nonsense as we speak.
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