I did just a quick review of the election returns from Wisconsin’s nightmare of an election a week ago, and compared the data to that of the 2016 primary, which also included a state Supreme Court Race. Here’s how the numbers looked:
2020 Presidential: 1,551,712 people voted in the presidential primaries of both parties. We have an open primary, so you don’t have to be a registered party member to vote. About 60% cast votes in the Democratic race, and 40% in the Republican race. Biden won with almost 63%, compared to Sanders’ about 32%. Trump, of course, won nearly all of the Republican votes, with only 1.8% going to “uncommitted” delegates. Since the Dem race was more undecided until pretty recently, I don’t find it too surprising that a lot of Repubs wouldn’t bother with that race.
2016 Presidential: 2,105,027 people voted in the presidential primaries of both parties. So we see that actual counted votes in 2020 were down about 26% from 2016; no surprise given the debacle we experienced. Back then, Bernie was our winner with 56% compared to HRC at 43%. For the Repubs, Cruz took the big prize here with 48%, while Trump weighed in at 35% and Kasich took 14%. That year, about 52% of votes were in the Republican race, while about 48% were cast for Democratic candidates. Both sides were pretty competitive at the time, so again no surprise.
I find the state Supreme Court race pretty interesting, in that it appears a higher percentage of voters bothered to cast votes in that race when compared to 2016.
2020 State Supreme Court: of the 1.5 million+ voters who cast votes in the presidential primary, this year only 3,207 did not cast a vote in the Court race, so that’s only 0.21% who omitted the Court contest from their ballots.
2016 State Supreme Court: of the 2.1 million+ voters who cast votes in that primary, 147,080 did not vote in the Court race; that’s 6.9%!
My hopeful take-away is that voters in our state are coming to a greater understanding that these court races matter. And I admit to taking some satisfaction in being able to say, “take that, Republicans!” after they forced the vote under such horrific circumstances.
My local paper referred to this as a “particularly bad night for Republicans” and said the following:
The GOP-controlled Legislature, led by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, has been trying since 2018 to tilt this election to favor Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. In recent weeks, Republican leaders and the conservative-controlled Supreme Court blocked efforts to delay the election or extend early voting.
None of it mattered.
As for me, I voted absentee, and have requested absentee ballots for all remaining elections of this calendar year. I’m not taking any chances. I’m sure we’re not finished analyzing this race; I think this will be studied for years to come, but I’m adding my amateur analysis. Make of it what you will.
