Special Election Day is here in Wisconsin! Democrat Patty Schachtner is facing off with Freedom Caucus wannabe Assembly Rep Adam Jarchow. This is historically quite a red district, but the combination of a weirdly-timed special election and the growing resistance movement make it a possible Dem pickup tonight. To that end, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, county parties, allied groups, and tons of volunteers have put an unprecedented effort into getting out the vote. We’ll see tonight whether that paid off, and perhaps get a taste of what to expect in the big midterm elections coming up in November.
Tonight, I’ll be trying to play a very, very watered-down version of Steve Kornacki, and will try to get results up here quicker than other media outlets. I wanted to provide a bit of background on the District (map here), but I see theskyfromme has already done a better job than I could have. Seriously, go check out that diary.
Very, very briefly here’s what to watch for… Jarchow is going to win Polk County; if he wins it by 5,700 votes like Trump did, that’s it. Dems need to keep his margin here under 2,000. Schachtner is going to win the college towns of River Falls and Menomonie (conveniently, Scott Walker scheduled this election during winter break) and this is where she needs to run up the score to offset Polk County. Then it’s all going to come down to St Croix County, which is the most populous part of the district. St Croix County certainly leans red, but it’s also where Schachtner serves as Medical Examiner (an elected position). St Croix County is at least partly a suburb of the Twin Cities, and if these turn out to be similar to the much-ballyhooed Virginia Suburbs, Jarchow’s allegiance to Trump might not play well.
Polls close at 8pm Central, and results will start trickling out shortly thereafter.
Since frantically refreshing county clerk webpages to get the latest results is my usual election night ritual anyways, I’m trying to do a slightly more polished version here so you can follow along. Below you’ll see a chart with vote totals for each candidate. I also came up with a target vote margin for each municipality in the district (based on 2016 presidential, 2017 spring election, and the primary for this race). The upper-right will show Schachtner’s performance vs these targets. (e.g., if Polk County is the first to report, Schachtner could be losing overall but still ahead of her target if she keeps it close.)
If you want to follow along in the Google Sheet, here’s a link.
Not sure if the embedded chart will auto-update on this page. If it’s been quiet for a while, refresh this page. Here we go…
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018 · 2:15:37 AM +00:00
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lufthase
And we’re off! Town of Menomonie and Village of Clayton are in and Schachtner is up 273 to 175. Not bad at all. It looks like the chart above is not updating. I’m still seeing zeros. Let me know in the comments if you see the live chart
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018 · 2:48:52 AM +00:00
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lufthase
Burnett County almost all reported. Schachtner’s losing that county by 202 votes, but that’s actually good news! I had projected she could lose that county by about 375 and still win overall. New total: Jarchow 1,808 to Schachtner 1,623
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018 · 3:26:49 AM +00:00
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lufthase
POP THE CHAMPAGNE!!
With all of St Croix in, Schachtner is up 10,218 to 7,726. I see Polk County just dumped all their results and Jarchow only won the county by 250. He needed to run up the score in Polk and he didn’t
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018 · 3:34:59 AM +00:00
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lufthase
99% and Schachtner has a commanding lead of 12,198 to 9,836. Schachtner and the Democratic party and all her volunteers deserve a huge pat on the back! They won in town and burgs Dems haven’t had a prayer in a long time. This is proof the massive GOTV effort worked, and the #BlueWave gets stronger...
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018 · 3:54:30 AM +00:00
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lufthase
FINAL SCORE: Schachtner 12,250 (54.6%) to Jarchow 9,908 (44.2%)
Just take a look at what Democrats accomplished in these counties compared to Nov 2016…
|
CLINTON |
SCHACHTNER |
NET CHANGE |
BURNETT |
31% |
41% |
+10% |
DUNN |
50% |
68% |
+18% |
PIERCE |
54% |
73% |
+19% |
POLK |
36% |
48% |
+12% |
ST CROIX |
40% |
56% |
+15% |