Why should you care about the results of a Wisconsin Supreme Court race? Read on. It’s rare to get great news in 2020.
High court races in the Badger State have been fiercely contested in recent years, with partisan emotions running high, with razor-thin margins on election day. They’re also barometers of voter enthusiasm, or lack thereof, in a crucial presidential swing state. Keep that in mind as you proceed.
The judicial election last Tuesday – conducted in the midst of the pandemic, at the Republican party’s insistence (natch) – was expected to be a cinch win for Daniel Kelly, the incumbent right-wing judge who was seeking a 10-year term. After all, most of the polling places in Democratic-heavy Milwaukee had been closed because of the pandemic, which seemed to portend a depressed turnout for the progressive judicial candidate, Jill Karofsky.
Which is exactly what the Republicans wanted. Donald Trump’s party lawyers even made it more difficult for people to cast mail ballots. The GOP had things rigged to perfection, with eleventh-hour help from the conservative U.S. Supreme Court. Trump himself weighed in, tweeting his love for Daniel Kelly three times (“Wisconsin, get out and vote NOW.”)
Well, the results were finally announced last night:
Karofsky, the progressive, slaughtered Trump’s incumbent by 10.6 percentage points.
In this closely polarized era, statewide races in Wisconsin are typically decided by a mere 30,000 votes. Karofsky won by more than 160,000. The GOP’s craven attempt to leverage the pandemic for partisan gain backfired disastrously. Milwaukee’s voters queued with their masks for hours at five polling stations – down from 180 – clearly determined, even during a hailstorm, to risk illness or death just for the opportunity to oust a Trump conservative.
That’s very inspiring. And it potentially bodes well for Democrats in November. Trump won Wisconsin, one of the pivotal ’16 states, by only 22,000 votes. The stunning progressive turnout in last night’s election – robust not only in Milwaukee, but in three suburban Milwaukee counties that are normally solid Republican turf – signals that Joe Biden will be strongly in play when Trump is back on the ballot. Nothing is certain, of course, but, at minimum, the judicial election is irrefutable proof that Wisconsin Democrats have built a strong get-out-the-vote operation that can withstand the usual GOP vote-suppression trickery.
Indeed, Wisconsin has slowly gotten bluer since Trump’s ’16 triumph. The GOP was jolted by the results of a special state Senate race in a rural red district in January ’18. The Republican who’d vacated the seat had previously won it by a margin of 26 points, and had held it for 17 years. Trump had won the district’s presidential vote by 17 points. But when the special election votes were tallied, the Democratic candidate swept it by nearly 10 points. The long-serving conservative governor, Scott Walker, tweeted his alarm: “A wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin.”
Then, in April ’18, there was an election to fill an open seat on the state Supreme Court. Walker, still worried and reading the tea leaves, warned his followers that “we are at risk of a blue wave in Wisconsin…We need conservatives to take action and stop a blue wave.” But alas, Walker’s candidate – who was also the National Rifle Association’s candidate (natch) – was eviscerated by anti-Trump progressive Rebecca Dallet. She won the statewide race by 12 points; it was the first time in 23 years that a progressive had won an open seat on the high court. Dallet did it by rolling up huge margins in Trump–Walker territory.
Then, in June ’18, in a special state House election, another Republican district flipped blue. But all those races were merely the appetizer. The main course was served in November ’18, with Scott Walker’s head on the platter. The eight-year governor and conservative poster boy was ousted by Democratic challenger Tony (“I beat cancer and I can beat Scott Walker”) Evers.
Given all their recent setbacks, it’s no wonder the Republicans tried to rig the latest judicial election by insisting it be held in the midst of a pandemic. No tactic is too low, not even one that imperils public health. Kudos to the voters who delivered a victory for justice and democracy. Joe Biden can build on that for November.