Wisconsin Senate Recall-a-palooza: 2012 Edition

[Torie]

Here is some more chatter about the recall elections for you.

[Torie]

Anyway, why are these recall elections held during summer/vacation time and not in November ?

The Dems were impatient.

Never was there a more meaningless election. The Pubbies got their wish list enacted into law, and after their gerrymander, will get back control of the Senate in short order (Jan 2013) even if they lose 3 seats tonight.

[Torie]

The 14 out of 15 precincts left in Waukesha are hyper GOP, and yes, the one reported (in Butler) is a tiny precinct. I know from my Wisconsin mapping.  Menonomee Falls is the hometown of Sessenbrener (sp), and very, very red, redder than the county as a whole. Game over.

[Torie]

52/48 Darling...

Because Waukesha did its vote dump. Supposedly 17 precincts still out. So yes, it might be tight.

[Torie]

I wouldn't call this turkey cooked, but I'd say she's about done.  And it will be in Darling's favor.

Darling bounced up again, up now by 3,100 votes at 53%.  The Dem percentages in the north shore suburbs of Milwaukee county vary some, so whether it is skin tight, or Darling winning by about 1,500, depends on where the Milwaukee county precincts that have been counted came from.

How many precincts are out in Milwaukee County?  Is it only 10?  If so, that means one in Waukesha, and 4 still out in Ozaukee. And that makes it a very tall order for the Dem.

[Torie]

BREAKING: Wisconsin Democratic Party has accused Nickolaus of "tampering" with votes.

Milwaukee county now has more uncounted precincts than Waukesha. Vote fraud in Milwaukee!  Do you take this stuff seriously Lief?  

By the way, Darling's performance matches the one she had in 2008 - everywhere. There are no anomalies.

One more precinct came in (15 still out, including the one in Waukesha), and Darling's margin increase t0 3,800.

[Torie]

If we assume the remaining precincts in Millwaukee County vote with proportionally the same number of votes and the same margin as the Millwaukee County precincts as a whole, this should give Pasch an additional 2613 vote margin. But Darling is up by 3108 and there are 4 precincts still out in Waukesha and Ozaukee Counties. I'd say at the moment by this set of assumptions, the best we can do without specific information about which precincts are out, I think Darling will likely win.

Of course, I have no idea where in Millwaukee County these precincts are and that changes everything.

They are more GOP than the county as a whole - upper middle class north shore suburbs where the elite used to live, and many still live, that used to be GOP, but went Dem (think Montco county in PA), but are not as Dem as the county as a whole yet. There might be more votes per precinct however than the county as a whole. They currently by the way are in Sessenbrener's CD, but were dumped in the redistricting since they were the most Dem available territory around in which the Milwaukee CD could expand.  

[Torie]

BREAKING: Wisconsin Democratic Party has accused Nickolaus of "tampering" with votes.

Milwaukee county now has more uncounted precincts than Waukesha. Vote fraud in Milwaukee!  Do you take this stuff seriously Lief?  

I just report the stuff, my good friend. I leave it up to the dear reader to decide the veracity of any claims I make or claims of third parties I report.

OK.  Given who you are, I was not sure what your posture was.

[Torie]

If we assume the remaining precincts in Millwaukee County vote with proportionally the same number of votes and the same margin as the Millwaukee County precincts as a whole, this should give Pasch an additional 2613 vote margin. But Darling is up by 3108 and there are 4 precincts still out in Waukesha and Ozaukee Counties. I'd say at the moment by this set of assumptions, the best we can do without specific information about which precincts are out, I think Darling will likely win.

Of course, I have no idea where in Millwaukee County these precincts are and that changes everything.

They are more GOP than the county as a whole - upper middle class north shore suburbs where the elite used to live, and many still live, that used to by GOP, but went Dem, but are not as Dem as the county as a whole yet. There might be more votes per precinct however than the county as a whole.

I meant the other 39 Millwaukee County precincts in the senate district that have already reported, not the entire county.

Oh, OK. Given that - game over. There is not that much variation in the north shore suburbs in turnout, and I am just hearing on the radio now that the Milwaukee County precincts still out are more GOP friendly than the ones that have been counted. I wish I knew which burbs have reported.

[Torie]

Rumor has it that Pasch only made up 1,000 votes from the rest of Milwaukee.

And still 1 precinct left Waukesha, 2 in Ozaukee. 12 are uncounted in Milwaukee, which allegedly only generated a 1,000 margin for the Dem. How one knows that I don't know.

[Torie]

It's sort of funny because I am watching this on MSNBC and they are really hammering at Waukesha County for not reporting results when 12/15 remaining precincts are from Millwaukee County and only one is from Waukesha.

As someone who is capable of looking at actual numbers it's sort of painful to watch.

They probably don't know that, and are just repeating the Dem talking points. And they certainly don't know how to detect anomalies. In any event, it may be around a 3,000 vote margin, and that would mean that the voters in Waukesha really voted close to even, but then had their votes changed by the clerk or something to the normal 2-1 GOP margin. Pathetic talking heads.  Pathetic.

[Torie]

It's sort of funny because I am watching this on MSNBC and they are really hammering at Waukesha County for not reporting results when 12/15 remaining precincts are from Millwaukee County and only one is from Waukesha.

As someone who is capable of looking at actual numbers it's sort of painful to watch.

They are just a bit behind. But the truth is, Milwaukee was ahead of the rest of the district most of the night.

The interesting thing is, I have a suspicion, Nikolaus has been overuled. She has said she is not reporting by town on the night of the election, but there is reporting by precinct, in fact. But there is no link to this from her website (at least, originally there was not). And most of the precincts were reported right after she said it will take another hour. Funny.

My link I put up 45 minutes ago is from her website actually. So there goes that theory!   On the other hand, I can't find anything from Milwaukee County. Very suspicious!  

[Torie]

The two precincts out in Ozaukee are from "Mechwan," a GOP town. So says Darling herself. Darling says she is waiting for a concession call from her opponent before declaring victory.

[Torie]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a loss for the Democrats in this race effectively ends their chance of taking the majority, correct?

Correct.

[Torie]

I just got in from my own successful election to Vice Chairman of the Philadelphia Young Republicans. I can't wait to turn on my MSNBC recording!

Congratulations!

[Torie]

They spent about two hours talking about how Nikolaus "found" 14,000 votes in the supreme court election but never even mentioned once that the initial count had zero votes in the city of Brookfield. To me that seems like a critical piece of information.

You think?

[Torie]

The two precincts out in Ozaukee are from "Mechwan," a GOP town. So says Darling herself. Darling says she is waiting for a concession call from her opponent before declaring victory.

That is good for Darling as Miquon voted 3.8% better for McCain than the portion of Ozaukee County in this senate district did overall, though only a marginal difference.

What was the McCain margin?

[Torie]

One more precinct came in, and Darling now up by 4,600 votes. It was the last precinct from Waukesha - 1351(R) to 605 (D).

[Torie]

The best place I have to compare to right now is the Washington County part of the senate seat because it's the only one where we have all of the precincts and McCain won it 64.9-33.8.

Darling won it 73-27.

This time in Waukesha, it was Darling 9,449 to 4,767.  Somebody said she carried the county by 5,000 last time, so on a much lower turnout presumably (was it), her percentage should be up there too.

[Torie]

...now all of Waukesha is in. McCain won the part in this senate seat 59.2-39.4

Darling won it 66-34.

So what was the McCain percentage in the Milwaukee County part of the district?  With that, we will know about all we need to know.

[Torie]

Obama carried the Millwaukee County portion 65.2-33.7, not much different from the numbers in this election at all.

Now, with a 5,013 vote lead for Darling (and my projection of ~2600 additional margin for Pasch in Millwaukee County), the remaining precincts would need to either be much larger than average or waaaayyyy for Democratic than the ones reported for Pasch to win. I believe this is over barring something crazy happening.

That fits in with the comment/rumor from the Darling campaign that the remaining precincts in Milwaukee County are more GOP than what has been counted, since Darling has run ahead of McCain everywhere else by another 5% or so. So if that rumor is true, it won't be very close really a margin, perhaps by about 4,000 votes or so as a guess.

[Torie]

Not on this issue, in this state, and when there was a realistic chance of taking down five candidates.

These are all districts Republicans managed to win in 2008, which was a good year for Democrats. All spin aside, Democrats gained overall.

2 Republican Senators recalled is a pretty good win, recalls are not a feat that is achieved with simplicity, so hard work paid off. Kapanke was far to the right of his district & Hopper was embattled by scandal. To not knock off both of them would have been a complete failure for the Democrats.

And we all know that even those circumstances can sometimes not guarantee a win. Both are good wins.

I guess everyone is happy then. Congratulations! 

[Torie]

Probably the most Dem town in the district in Milwaukee County, Shorewood, has all been counted by the way. Pasch got 73% of the vote. And it is bigger than most of the villages.

[Torie]

Darling won by 54% by the way, by 5,400 votes. Those remaining precincts in Milwaukee county were about a wash.  We would have known the result last night about 11 pm central time or thereabouts if only we had known where those missing precincts were from. Milwaukee county election reporting sucks.  

I assume the GOP gerrymander will shut the Dems out for a decade in the Wisconsin legislature. The state is so polarized that gerrymandering has a lot of traction.  I know some of Darling's "problem" towns are being dumped into a Dem sink district.

[Torie]

Haha, oh wow.  Not even Walker's bragging.

Walker got what he wanted, so he can tack moderate now. The heavy lifting is done.

Yes BRTD, waves can break a gerrymander. I don't see a Dem one in the making for some time myself.  One requirement for it IMO given the current political environment will be a Pubbie president in office who becomes unpopular. I don't see it happening while Obama is in office. I suspect about half the voters or close to it want him leashed.

Yes, this is the legislature, but stuff flows down ballot these days almost seamlessly. State politics has been nationalized, and states are dealing with what are really national issues. JMO.