Huge Swing Away From Republicans In Wisconsin Yesterday

Tuesday's big loser in Wisconsin-- Scott Walker

Once enough of the votes were counted in Wisconsin for Scott Walker to understand what was happening Tuesday night, the Koch Brothers-created governor warned that the state was looking at a blue wave in November. Liberal Democrat Rebecca Dallet crushed his hand-picked right wing Republican Michael Screnock 555,196 (56%) to 440,235 (44%) for the open Republican Supreme Court seat. It was a miserable night for the GOP-- and not just in liberal bastions like Madison and Milwaukee. Below are the counties where Dallet did exceptionally well and the bolded counties indicate where Trump had victories in 2016:

• Dane- 81%
• Ashland-67%
• La Crosse- 67%
• Milwaukee- 66%
• Iowa- 66%
• Bayfield- 65%
• Eau Claire- 64%
• Douglas- 63%
• Menominee- 63%
• Portage- 62%
• Green 62%
• Door- 62%
• Rock- 61%
• Crawford- 58%
• Winnebago- 57%
• Kenosha- 57%
• Vernon- 57%
• Columbia- 56%
• Sauk- 56%
• Outagamie- 56%
• Jackson- 56%
• Trempealeau- 56%
• Lafayette- 55%
• Dunn- 55%
• Grant 55%
• Brown- 55%
• Pierce- 54%
• Richland- 54%
• Outagamie- 56%
• Oneida- 53%
• Wood- 52%
• Lincoln- 51%
• Pepin- 51%
• Chippewa- 51%
• St Croix- 50%
• Manitowoc- 50%
• Marathon- 50%
• Wood- 52%

The swing away from Trump was enormous. Not a single county that had voted for Hillary voted for Screnock. But two dozen Trump counties voted for Dallet! That's what Walker was talking about when he said "blue wave." Look, for example, at Door County, the peninsula northwest of Green Bay. Walker has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent a special election on the Door Peninsula (Senate District 1) to fill Republican Frank Lasee's seat. But he was overruled by the courts and the special election is scheduled for June 12. In 2016, Door County picked Bernie over Hillary 6,243 (57.9%) to 4,501 (41.8%)-- and on the same day Trump's 2,948 votes was a very poor showing, a harbinger of how Bernie is going to take him apart in 2020. In November Trump still managed to beat Hillary in Door County 8,584 (49.3%) to 8,026 (46.1%). Voters seem to have expressed quite a bit of buyers' remorse Tuesday, giving Dallet a massive 62-38% win. That kind of swing is the definition of a tsunami... and the end of plenty of Republican political careers.

This gives Democrats hope that state Rep. Dana Wachs could replace Walker in November and that Tammy Baldwin will beat Kevin Nicholson in the Senate race. And great Lt. Governor candidate, Mandela Barnes, is likely to beat Rebecca Kleefisch. There are also 3 Republican congressional seats in jeopardy of flipping blue as long as the DCCC doesn't interfere and screw thing top, as they usually do in Wisconsin:

• WI-01- Democrat Randy Bryce is likely to beat Paul Ryan
• WI-06- Democrat Dan Kohl has a good shot to beat Glenn Grothman
• WI-07- Democrat Kyle Frenette has a good chance of beating Sean Duffy

Politicians Who Back The NRA-- Whether Trump And His Republicans Or The DCCC-- Are In For A Bad Time

How much of that was paid in rubles?

Why did Trump's approval ratings fall back to their lowest point ever? Corollary: why are establishment Democrats never seen by most voters as anything better than the lesser of two evils?

Congressional Republicans started getting hopeful that Trump's disapproval numbers had bottomed out and were even starting to turn around. A sucker like Kevin Cramer is giving up his safe North Dakota House seat to try running for the Senate. Now that it's apparent that Trump's toxicity is going to hurt GOP candidates, it's too late for him to change gears again. Yesterday's CNN poll had dismal news for the GOP. Trump's approval is back down to 35%, after it had climbed to 40% after the State of the Union address. It fell to its lowest ever among Republicans-- just 80% approval of their illegitimate "president." His approval among independents is at 35%, a political death sentence. So why is Trump back in the toilet? CNN pointed out that "While the poll was in the field, much of the President's public agenda focused on gun laws, an area where the poll finds Trump earns mostly negative reviews. Just a third of Americans approve of his handling of gun policy, 54% disapprove and another 12% say they have yet to make up their minds. Those who live in gun-owning households give him higher ratings than others: 52% in gun households approve of his work on gun policy; it's 17% among all others."

Tommy Christopher, writing for ShareBlue published a savage interpretation of the Trump ratings collapse, blaming it primarily on his contemptible and jerky, puppet-like reaction to the Parkland massacre.

His initial reaction to the killing of 17 people at a Florida high school was to go into hiding. He then blamed the students and tried to exploit the tragedy for his own benefit.

While grieving loved ones laid one of the slain students to rest, Trump golfed just a few miles away. And his aides called the tragedy a “relief” from the administration’s many scandals.

But even given time to consider his next steps, Trump’s response has only gotten worse.

He used empathy cliff notes at a “listening session” with survivors of gun violence. And he responded by obsessing about arming up to 40 percent of our teachers.

That led to a plunge in Trump’s approval, along with a surge in support for gun control.

...70 percent of Americans expressed overwhelming support for “stricter gun control laws.” That’s the highest percentage since 1993, and fifteen points higher than in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

And 57 percent said they would support a “ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of rifles capable of semiautomatic fire, such as the AR-15.” That goes much further than the assault weapons ban that Republicans allowed to expire in 2004... Trump and the Republicans are standing with the NRA for now. But Trump’s cratering approval numbers prove just how out-of-touch that stance is with the nation.

As we saw yesterday, while corporations are protecting their bottom lines by disassociating from the NRA, tone-deaf politicians (from both parties) are going into extinction mode. The imbeciles at the DCCC are refusing to jettison their most outspoken NRA allies-- like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)-- and will feel the consequences at the ballot box in November.

NRA-Dem Jeff Van Drew didn't want to run but the DCCC talked him into it