Wisconsin Republicans went through with it:
State election officials have finalized the list of candidates who are challenging six Republican state senators in recall elections this summer.
The Government Accountability Board said Friday it had received the necessary paperwork from 12 challengers. None of the nomination papers was challenged, so the GAB has now locked in the election dates.
All six races will start with a Democratic primary on July 12. According to the final paperwork, each primary will include one Democratic candidate and a "fake" Democrat, part of a Republican strategy that forces Democrats to spend more resources per race.
In response, Wisconsin Democrats have dropped their plan to run "placeholder" candidates alongside both the real Democrats and the fake Democrats. Democrats were worried that Republicans would only run fake Dems in some of the recalls, resulting voter confusion that would benefit Republicans. However, with Republicans filing fake Dems in all six elections, that is no longer a concern:
Democrats decried the tactic, then worried that Republicans might take their strategy a step further by forcing primaries in only some of the races. That would cause some general elections to be delayed but not others, leading to varied election dates and possible voter confusion.
So Democrats planned to run "placeholders" — Democratic candidates with no intention of winning — simply to ensure that all six primaries were held and, as a result, that all recall elections were on the same day. They had lined up placeholders in three of the six races.
However, after Republicans did enter fake Democratic candidates in all six of the races, Democrats said they no longer needed placeholders.
With this latest development, the calendar for the recall elections may finally be set. The Democratic primaries will take place on July 12, and the Republican primaries on July 19. The general election involving the six Republican incumbents will take place on August 9, and the general elections involving that three Democratic incumbents will take place on August 16.