Here’s the latest news today out of Wisconsin:
Click here for the full results.
By the way, the AP has a great story out about how Independent voters in Wisconsin have been souring on the GOP:
In interviews with more than a dozen independent voters here over two days last week, many were rethinking their support of the GOP this fall.
Steve Gray, a self-described Republican-leaning independent “but never a Trump fan," opposed the June court decision, because he backs abortion rights. But the 61-year-old school maintenance manager also resented what he saw as an unwelcome political power play by out-of-power Republicans.
“Trump stacked the Supreme Court. We all knew he wanted to overturn Roe,” said Gray, of small-town Rio, where Trump won by two votes in 2020. “That decision was a partisan hand grenade Trump threw into this election.”
The court decision “upended the physics of midterm elections," said Jesse Stinebring, a pollster advising several Democratic campaigns.
It gave voters the rare opportunity to judge a policy advance backed by the minority party, distracting them from a pure up-or-down vote on majority Democrats, he said.
“The backlash from a political perspective isn’t directed at the traditional party in power, but is actually reframed in terms of this Republican control of the Supreme Court," Stinebring said.
The decision made Dilaine Noel's vote automatic.
The 29-year-old data analytics director for a Madison-area business said she had never affiliated with either party.
Despite her grievances about Democrats' warring moderate and liberal wings, her support for abortion rights gave her no choice than to vote for the party's candidates this fall.
“By default, I have to move in that direction," said Noel, from small-town Poynette in the Wisconsin River valley. “I'm being forced to."
Mary Percifield is a lifelong independent voter who says the abortion decision motivated her to vote Democratic because she worries the court might overturn other rights.
“A right has been taken away from us," the 68-year-old customer service representative from Pardeeville, said. “I question if a woman's right to vote will be taken away. A woman's right for birth control."
Independent voters who lean neither Democrat nor Republican nationally preferred Biden over Trump, 52% to 37% in 2020, and preferred Democrats over Republicans in U.S. House races by a similar margin in the 2018 midterms, according to AP VoteCast. Independents who lean neither Democrat nor Republican made up 5% of the 2020 electorate and 12% in 2018.
Independents had moved toward Republicans by early this year, seeking answers on the economy, said Republican pollster David Winston, a senior adviser to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. But they have drifted back toward Democrats as efforts by GOP leaders to focus on the economy have clashed with Republican attacks on the Justice Department and Trump's continuing complaints about the 2020 election.
Health and Democracy are on the ballot next year and we need to keep Wisconsin Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Mandela Barnes (D. WI) and his fellow Wisconsin Democrats campaigns:
Wisconsin Democratic Party
Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC
Tony Evers for Governor
Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate
Brad Pfaff for Congress
Josh Kaul for Attorney General
Doug La Follete for Secretary of State
Aaron Richardson for Treasurer