The historic and expensive state Senate recall elections are over, for now. In the July issue of Wisconsin Real Estate Magazine, we raised the following question: Would the Kloppenburg–Prosser state Supreme Court election accurately predict the outcome in the nine August recall elections?
The answer is “yes” in five districts (Cowles, Darling, Olsen, Wirch and Kapanke), and “no” in four districts (Harsdorf, Hoplerin, Hopper and Hansen). In the April 2011 Supreme Court race, Prosser carried six of the nine recall districts (Cowles, Darling, Holperin, Olsen, Hopper and Hansen), came close to winning in two districts (Harsdorf and Wirch), and lost one district (Kapanke) by a large margin. On the right are the side-by-side results in the Kloppenburg–Prosser Supreme Court race and the nine Senate recall elections.
The Model
Prosser, the conservative candidate, received the majority of votes in the red counties, and the blue counties were carried by Kloppenburg, the liberal candidate.
Recall Highlights
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a campaign spending watchdog organization, estimated that total spending in the nine state Senate districts fell in the $35 - $40 million range. Even if these numbers are on the high side, campaign spending by the candidates and third parties shattered every record that ever existed, and then some. For example, prior to this year’s race between Republican Alberta Darling and Democrat Sandy Pasch in the 8th Senate District, the old spending record in a state Senate race was $3 million. By comparison, the Darling–Pasch contest was estimated to cost in excess of $8 million. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign estimated spending in all 115 state legislative races in 2010 at nearly $19 million. Recall spending was nearly double this figure.
Wisconsin recall voter turnout reached nearly 90 percent of November 2010 levels. With all the votes counted in the nine state Senate recall districts, voters turned out to vote at historic levels for mid-August elections. In eight of the nine recall districts, voters turned out in greater numbers than they did for the record-setting state Supreme Court race in April. The only district where the recall vote was lower than the Supreme Court race with 4,282 fewer voters was the race between Democrat Dave Hansen and Republican David Vanderleest in the 30th Senate seat in Green Bay. The Hansen–Vanderleest race was a non-competitive race for a variety of reasons.
Using the April Supreme Court race as the turnout model for the nine recall districts, it’s clear that the unions and Democrats had their work cut out for them. Six of the nine recall districts were fought in “red” districts carried by Prosser in the April Supreme Court election. This made the task of Democrats picking up three Senate seats and flipping the majority difficult in spite of the massive amount of campaign spending and incredible get-out-the-vote drive.
In the ongoing political wars that began in February with the collective bargaining issue, Round One (Supreme Court election) was won by Republicans/conservatives. Round Two (Senate recall elections) saw Democrats gain seats, but Republicans were the ultimate victors since they remain in the majority in the Senate. Round Three, the possible recall election against Gov. Walker, is yet to come. It looks like voters of all political persuasions may have to endure recall elections for a long time to come. Stay tuned.
Joe Murray is Director of Political and Governmental Affairs for the WRA.