The political world was shocked by the strong Democratic performance in Tuesday's Wisconsin special elections. Scott Walker is worried, calling the results a “a wake-up call for Republicans in Wisconsin.” Paul Ryan is alarmed, saying "I think we should pay attention to it."
State Republicans are right to be worried. If the elections held during the past year are any indication, Democrats should do quite well in 2018. Combined with normally poor midterm results for the party occupying the White House, next November might well be a Democratic tidal wave.
We must fire Scott Walker this year. But that is not enough. In order to undo all of the anti-worker, anti-choice, anti-environment, anti-education damage inflicted on our state since 2011, we must also regain a majority in the legislature.
One question on the minds of many progressive Wisconsinites is, will we do well enough to regain a majority in the State Assembly? Do we have a any hope of surmounting the grossly gerrymandered districts imposed on Wisconsin by the GOP? How big of a voter swing do we need to take-back our state government? Let's consider this.
Of course, if the US Supreme Court orders Wisconsin to re-draw fair district maps, all bets are off. But we can't count on justice to prevail. We may have to play the crooked cards we were dealt.
Of the 99 Wisconsin Assembly elections of 2016, 28 were in districts that are packed so tightly with Democrats that there was no sacrificial Republican candidate. Most of these districts are in Madison, Racine, and Milwaukee-urban areas that the GOP neither cares about nor politically contests. These 28 seats are pretty safe Democratic territory.
In 2016, a pretty good year for Wisconsin Republicans, seven Democrats won against declared Republican candidates. These seven districts are probably also safe for the Dems in the coming big blue wave of 2018.
That gives the Democrats 35 seats on the way to a 50 seat majority. There were 21 Assembly races in 2016 that were in districts so red that no Democrat challenged. Most of these deep crimson areas will likely remain in Republican hands. Despite the fact that many great Democratic candidates are stepping-up to contest these seats in November, let's be realistic about our chances.
So, in order to pick-up the additional 15 seats on the way to an Assembly majority, let's consider the 43 seats currently in GOP hands, in which Democrats did field a 2016 candidate. These 43 districts were all carefully crafted during the 2011 partisan gerrymander. At least 24 of them yielded a GOP majority in the tight 57%-63% range in 2016. In only four of the contested precision-engineered districts did the Democrats garner more than 43% of the 2016 vote.
A shift of 2% of voters in each these 43 contested districts gains Democrats no additional seats. A shift of 5% of voters in each district gains us only two seats. Even with a seismic 10% shift of voters from red to blue, the Dems only gain 11 seats. Still, no majority.
A 11% shift almost gets us there, with a 14 seat gain. The tipping point comes at a 12% shift of voters. With such a large shift from red to blue, Democrats gain 21 seats, yielding a comfortable majority in the Assembly.
But is that even possible? Could we see a 12% shift of voters from red to blue in these districts, awarding Democrats a new Assembly majority? Tuesday's election told us that it is possible. Let's look at the District 10 State Senate race. The Democratic candidate, Patty Schachtner, convincingly won with 54.5% of the vote. This is a district in which former GOP State Senator Sheila Harsdorf's Democratic opponent gained only 36.8% of the vote in 2016. That is a Democratic shift of 17.7%.
But that wasn't the only place where Wisconsin Democrats outperformed this week. District 58 Assembly candidate, Dennis Degenhardt, garnered 43.4% of the vote in deep-red Washington County. We have no good comparison of Tuesday's results with past Assembly races, since Dennis is the first Democratic candidate there since the 2011 redistricting. Hillary only received 28.4% of the district vote in 2016. So, the Democratic Assembly candidate created a shift of 15% of voters to the Democratic column.
Granted, this week's votes were special elections to fill vacancies. There was only one race on each ballot. The voter turn-out was anemic. For example, the turn-out in SD 10 was a measly 24.9% of the vote total for the same seat in 2016. The campaigns with the greatest enthusiasm outperformed. The challenge for November will be to generate the same sort of red-to-blue shifts in a high-profile election headlined by US Senate and gubernatorial races.
This week's special elections showed that it is possible to generate the 12% red-to-blue voter shifts required to regain the majority in the State Assembly. With continued voter rejection of awful policies by the President, Congress, and state GOP politicians, we just might see a long-overdue shift in state political power next fall. We just might see a Democratic majority in the Assembly.
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