Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Right wing attempts to suppress votes for a liberal leaning supreme court judge failed.
Jill Karofsky beat Daniel Kelly, whom then-Gov. Scott Walker (R) appointed to the state’s high court in 2016. Trump endorsed Kelly and on Election Day urged Wisconsin voters “to get out and vote NOW” for the justice.
With 90 percent of returns counted, Karofsky led Kelly by more than 100,000 votes, about seven percentage points.
Scott L. Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader in the Wisconsin Senate, told reporters last year that Kelly would have a “better chance” of winning a new term with lower turnout — a statement that fueled accusations from Democrats as to why Republicans wanted to go forward with last week’s elections.
But heavy mail-in balloting may have upended assumptions about relative advantage; according to statistics issued Monday by the state Elections Commission, nearly 1.1 million Wisconsinites cast ballots that way, nearly as many as total turnout in last year’s Supreme Court race — and more than the total turnout in the court races in each of the previous two years.
Republicans can no longer count on voter purges to maintain their rule and sneak Trump into another term as a minority president. Not in Wisconsin.
Republicans entered the election with a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court, meaning that a Democratic victory still leaves liberals in the minority until 2023, the next time a conservative justice will face voters.
But an ongoing legal battle over a voter roll purge raised the stakes of this year’s election, with implications for November. Kelly recused himself, and conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn sided with voting rights groups to halt the purge. That left the court deadlocked 3-3 and gave Democrats a shot at stopping the purge, one of their top priorities ahead of the 2020 election.
And I haven't looked but I'll say it anyway. Biden won the Wisconsin Democratic Primary too. The real news is that Milwaukie, which was the largest target for Republicans to suppress Democratic voters had a larger than normal turnout while rural areas had less than normal turnout. Perhaps their strategy backfired on them.
Jill Karofsky beat Daniel Kelly, whom then-Gov. Scott Walker (R) appointed to the state’s high court in 2016. Trump endorsed Kelly and on Election Day urged Wisconsin voters “to get out and vote NOW” for the justice.
With 90 percent of returns counted, Karofsky led Kelly by more than 100,000 votes, about seven percentage points.
Scott L. Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader in the Wisconsin Senate, told reporters last year that Kelly would have a “better chance” of winning a new term with lower turnout — a statement that fueled accusations from Democrats as to why Republicans wanted to go forward with last week’s elections.
But heavy mail-in balloting may have upended assumptions about relative advantage; according to statistics issued Monday by the state Elections Commission, nearly 1.1 million Wisconsinites cast ballots that way, nearly as many as total turnout in last year’s Supreme Court race — and more than the total turnout in the court races in each of the previous two years.
Republicans can no longer count on voter purges to maintain their rule and sneak Trump into another term as a minority president. Not in Wisconsin.
Republicans entered the election with a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court, meaning that a Democratic victory still leaves liberals in the minority until 2023, the next time a conservative justice will face voters.
But an ongoing legal battle over a voter roll purge raised the stakes of this year’s election, with implications for November. Kelly recused himself, and conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn sided with voting rights groups to halt the purge. That left the court deadlocked 3-3 and gave Democrats a shot at stopping the purge, one of their top priorities ahead of the 2020 election.
And I haven't looked but I'll say it anyway. Biden won the Wisconsin Democratic Primary too. The real news is that Milwaukie, which was the largest target for Republicans to suppress Democratic voters had a larger than normal turnout while rural areas had less than normal turnout. Perhaps their strategy backfired on them.
