Please, support the recall effort by contributing $5 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Democratic state Senate Committee.
Recall petition organizers in Wisconsin will file their signatures today against Dan Kapanke, the most vulnerable of all the eight Republican state Senators:
La Crosse area Democrats say they will file petitions today with enough signatures to trigger a recall election of Sen. Dan Kapanke, one of eight Senate Republicans targeted over votes to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers. If approved, it would be just the fifth recall election of a Wisconsin legislator.
Recall organizer Pat Scheller said volunteers have gathered more than the 15,588 signatures needed and that they plan to take them to Madison after a noon rally today at La Crosse City Hall.
Kapanke represents a district that President Obama won with 61% of the vote in 2008. Our Daily Kos / PPP poll shows him trailing a generic Democrat by a whopping 55%-41%. An earlier MoveOn / Survey USA poll showed Kapanke trailing a generic opponent by an even worse 57%-41% margin.
Kapanke is in a lot of trouble. He is also not alone. Last week, recall petition organizers against Republican state Senator Randy Hopper announced they had enough signatures, too:
Efforts to recall Republican State Senator Randy Hopper from Fon du Lac have reached another milestone, as organizers issue a call for volunteers to turn in any remaining petitions to be counted. Organizer Scott Dillman says he's sure they have enough signatures to trigger the recall, but he can't give exact figures yet. He says, processing all the information they've collected so far will take a week.
Hopper, a freshman who only won his seat by 163 votes, trails a generic Democrat 49%-44% in our polling. In the MoveOn / Survey USA polling, he trails 54%-43%. Both polls were taken before the scandal about Hopper's mistress receiving a state job with a 35% raise exploded. Since Monday morning, our ad highlighting the scandal has over 2,500,000 page views in Randy Hopper's district, even though his district has only about 175,000 residents.
Even though the deadline is May 2nd, organizers in a few other recall districts either already have, or will soon pass, the number of signatures required to file recall petitions. As such, we will soon be entering the election phase of the recall campaign. Please, support the recall effort by contributing $5 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Democratic state Senate Committee. The recall elections themselves won't take place for at least another 10 weeks, and likely longer, but we must be relentless in our pressure against Wisconsin Republicans.
For more discussion, please see the rec list diary by nik.