Will Wisconsin Voters Muster What It Takes To Rid Their State Of Scott Walker?

In 2010, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker beat Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 1,128,941 (52%) to 1,004,303 (47%) to become governor of Wisconsin. In Milwaukee County, where-- for obvious reasons, the two men are best know, Barrett won by a landslide-- 209,932 (62%) to 128,612 (38%)-- and in the state's seat of government, Dane County, it was an even bigger landslide against Walker-- 149,699 (68%) to 68,238 (31%). By May the rest of the state had gotten to know Governor 1% as well as the voters in Milwaukee and Dane counties-- and there was a very widespread feeling of buyers' remorse. PPP reported that most Wisconsin voters would have voted against Walker if they knew now about him what they didn't know last November.

Scott Walker's popularity has continued to decline over the last three months and Wisconsin voters now say they would vote to recall him if there was an election today. They also say they would pick either Russ Feingold or Tom Barrett over Walker in a head to head match up.

43% of voters now approve of the job Walker is doing to 54% who disapprove. When PPP polled the state in late February it was 46% of voters approving to 52% disapproval. Walker's numbers now are virtually identical to where they were before with Democrats and Republicans but with independents he's seen his popularity continue to decline from a 45/53 approval spread to a 40/56 one.

Voters split evenly in February at 48% on the question of recalling Walker but now the needle has moved towards bare majority support for removing him early from office. 50% say they would support a recall to 47% who are opposed. That Walker's disapproval is 54% but the support for recall is only 50% shows there are still some voters who dislike him but wouldn't go so far as to support removing him from office, but there aren't many.

Although voters are pretty evenly divided on whether they would support a recall there's less doubt about who they would vote for if there actually was a recall election. They say they would pick Feingold over Walker by a 52-42 margin and Barrett over him by a 50-43 spread. In both of those match ups Democrats are more committed to replacing Walker than Republicans are to keeping him, and independents go on the side of swapping him out for Feingold or Barrett as well.

It's impossible to say whether Democrats will be able to sustain this strong anti-Walker sentiment all the way through the time a recall election would actually be held. But it bodes well for them that as Wisconsin has left the headlines, at least nationally, Walker's numbers have just continued to get worse at home. And they have two potential replacements in Feingold (51/38 favorability) and Barrett (41/34) who are pretty well known and decently well liked on a statewide basis.

The way these numbers are shaking out in Wisconsin reflects what we're seeing a lot of places. Independents are moving back toward the Democrats after being strongly supportive of Republicans last year. And Democrats are more unified than Republicans in many places right now, a contrast to last year where a decent number of Democratic voters supported Republicans with almost voters coming back in the other direction.

And this week the recall against Scott was launched. The Wisconsin Democratic Party posted the comprehensive background information on Scott Walker’s record that has made this recall effort so popular across the state:

• Deception
• Corruption
• Cronyism
• Power Grabs
• Incompetence
• Jobs Failures
• Hypocrisy
• Women's Issues
• Education
• Health Care
• Ag/Environment

Walker is an integral part of the Koch Empire assault on the institutions of American democracy. Remember, Walker was in his Capitol office when he asked "David Koch" to drop ads supporting his union busting. So not only is it illegal coordination, he did it with state resources. The account of his corrupt practices examines part of that sleaziness and, that alone is more than enough reason to remove Walker from office. Remember the phone call?

Amidst growing protests in the days following the introduction of his union-busting budget repair bill, Scott Walker's administration limited entrance to the Capitol and shut down the Legislative hotline, denying thousands of citizens easy, convenient and effective ways to communicate with their elected officials.

At the same time that Scott Walker and his Republican cronies were ignoring the people of Wisconsin, Walker found the time to take a phone call from whom he thought was David Koch, a wealthy out-of-state financier of conservative causes who made contributions to Walker's gubernatorial campaign totaling $43,000. In 2010, David Koch also gave a $1 million contribution to the Republican Governors Association, which spent $3.4 million on television ads in support of Walker's campaign.

Some of the revelations of Walker's call with the phony Koch brother, on state time and using state resources, are as follows:

• That he had consulted with staff members, including Cabinet officials, to consider "planting" troublemakers to incite violence in the peaceful crowds, deciding not to only because as "that would scare the public into thinking that maybe the governor has to settle to avoid all of these problems." This coordinated activity constitutes a conspiracy to recklessly endanger public safety.

• That he had the Attorney General's office "looking into" strategies to force the Democratic senators to return from Illinois, where they fled to deny a quorum and prevent the passage of Walker's bill. This constitutes a misuse of the independently elected office of the Attorney General for primarily political motivations.

• That he would send out 5,000-6,000 layoff notices to public sector employees in an attempt to "ratchet up" pressure on the Democratic Senators. This use of threat against, and intimidation of, public sector employees for political purposes constitutes an abuse of power.

• Walker requested that "Koch" run ads in Republican swing districts, which constitutes illegal third party coordination.

This is a good new ad from the Wisconsin Democratic Party:



So far the organizers of the Walker recall have gotten over 50,000 signatures-- in just the first 48 hours, a nice start towards the 540,000 needed by January 17. One of the sources of so much of the inspirational organizing energy for the movement in Wisconsin comes from state Senator Chris Larson. As always, he's very optimistic. "The energy is growing throughout Wisconsin as people look to take our state back," he told me late last night. "Walker may have the ability to raise unlimited amounts of money to run misleading ads but he doesn't have the people. He can't fight the fact that the more people know about who Scott Walker really is, the more they want to recall him. There is no greater organizer to recall Scott Walker from office than Scott Walker and his regressive policies."