As Wisconsin Goes, So Goes The November Election?

Are Republicans still hoping for coattails?

If there was no cheating and fraud, I'd take the bet that Wisconsin gives Biden its 10 electoral votes as part of an anti-Trump electoral college landslide. But even with the cheating and fraud the GOP depends on for electoral victories, Wisconsin could still pull it out for the U.S.A. In 2016 Bernie won the presidential primary in Wisconsin. Hillary was so furious she ignored the state during the general election-- and lost Wisconsin to Trump. Democratic base voter support lagged and Trump won, 1,409,467 (47.9%) votes to Hillary's 1,382,210 (46.9%). It was the first time since 1984-- Reagan's reelection-- that the Democrats lost the state in a presidential election. Hillary won just 13 counties of Wisconsin's 72.

During Wisconsin's COVID-Primary last week, which Republicans tried to sabotage, progressive Democrat Jill Karofsky beat incumbent right-winger (an appointee of former Governor Scott Walker) Daniel Kelly, who was vigorously endorsed by both Trump and Pence, by a hefty 10 points.

Karofsky took more than double the number of counties that Hillary had. and beat Hillary's share of the vote everywhere. These are the counties Karofsky won that Hillary lost-- in other words, TRUMP COUNTIES-- with the percentage of votes Karofsky won compared the the percentage Hillary won:

• Door- 58.78% (Hillary- 46.1%)
• Brown- 52.14% (Hillary- 41.9%)
• Outagamie- 52.20% (Hillary- 40.1%)
• Winnebago- 54.22% (Hillary- 43.1%)
• Dunn- 51.95% (Hillary- 41.0%)
• Pierce- 54.33% (Hillary- 39.7%)
• Trempealeau- 54.29% (Hillary- 41.6%)
• Jackson- 54.34% (Hillary- 41.5%)
• Vernon- 58.00% (Hillary- 44.7%)
• Crawford- 57.73% (Hillary- 44.6%)
• Richland- 57.11% (Hillary- 44.9%)
• Grant- 56.69% (Hillary- 41.8%)
• Lafayette- 53.64% (Hillary- 43.9%)
• Columbia- 57.10% (Hillary- 46.2%)
• Kenosha- 56.86 (Hillary- 47.2%)

Even in the biggest Democratic strongholds in the state, Karofsky outpolled Hillary:

• Dane- 81.43% (Hillary- 71.4%)
• Milwaukee- 67.46% (Hillary- 66.4%)

Republicans can't win statewide in Wisconsin without a handful of big suburban counties that Trump won in 2016. Although Kelly won those counties two weeks ago, he won them by marked smaller margins. The Milwaukee suburbs didn't save Kelly. In notorious Waukesha County, Trump took 145,519 votes in 2016 but Kelly only managed to get 86,776. Ozaukee County gave Trump 30,458 votes but just 18,055 to Kelly. Same story next door in Washington County, where Trump won 51,729 votes but Kelly pulled just 30,655. Fond du Lac gave Trump 31,044 votes but Kelly just 14,754. Marathon County saw Trump amass 39,010 votes but Kelly just 19,027. Trump's big 46,620 vote in Racine shrunk down to just 25,819 votes in Racine.

Republicans cannot win in Wisconsin with that kind of turnout in their big counties. Their plan to scare away Democrats by making them vote during the pandemic instead scared away Republican suburbanites who stayed away from the polls. It backfired on them. Karofsky won a ten year term. What will this mean for the national 6 months? We turned to Harvey Wasserman to find out:




Heroic Angry Wisconsin Badger Voters Show the Rest of the Nation How to Dump Trump
-by Harvey Wasserman

This week’s astonishing people’s victory in Wisconsin has shattered the myth of an unbeatable Trump dictatorship.

A gerrymandered legislature and the Trumpite US Supreme Court failed to steal an election they were heavily favored to win.

The big upset victory put liberal challenger Jill Korofsky on to the Wisconsin’s supreme court. It has upended all the assumptions about November 2020.

It means people power can beat dirty tricks even when perpetrated by a gerrymandered legislature and a corrupt US Supreme Court.

Let’s count the ways:

• In 2016 Wisconsin’s vicious labor-hating Gov. Scott Walker used a wide range of dirty tricks to turn Wisconsin for Donald Trump. Green attorney Robert Fitrakis found questionable voting machine software and other problems that made the official vote count highly dubious. (Bob was told by a ranking Trump insider that Walker stole at least five elections).

• But as in Michigan and Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton-- who won nationwide by nearly three million popular votes-- refused to support legal challenges that might’ve kept Trump out of the White House.

• In 2018 Wisconsin voters threw Walker out of their governor’s mansion.

• Democrats also won the popular Assembly vote count by 1.3 million votes versus 1.1 million. But the Republicans got 63 gerrymandered seats versus 36 for the Dems; in the Senate it’s 18-15.

• That GOP Legislature refused to postpone the April 6 primary despite knowing it would threaten the health and franchise of thousands of Wisconsin citizens. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to postpone the vote, or to extend the deadline for mailed-in ballots even though many were received too late to make the initial deadline.

• On April 6 only five voting stations were functioning in Milwaukee where usually there would be 180. 

• The attempted putsch by the Legislature and Court forced thousands of Badgers to vote while being exposed to the Coronavirus. Some may ultimately die for having done it.

Amidst the mess, the GOP was expected to hold a key seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The far-right incumbent, Dan Kelly, was endorsed by Trump, loudly and often. No sitting Wisconsin supreme court justice had been ousted since 2008… and before that since since 1967.

But more than a million Badgers requested absentee ballots. Angered by the legislature’s attempt to deny them the vote, many walked their ballots into polling stations. (Many also arrived in the mail without a postmark, leaving them open to challenge).

Results were not posted until April 13. They show the liberal Korofsky (the race is officially non-partisan) with an apparent margin exceeding 100,000 votes. Kelly has conceded. Trumpite Republicans may challenge the outcome, but the margin is expected to hold. “God,” one Badger told me commenting on the unusually warm spring temperatures on election day, “wanted us to win this election.”

For the nation as a whole, the message is clear: when voters fight for their ballots, and are willing to walk them in, and to show up at the polls, and to guarantee the votes are counted, and to call or write others to confirm that they are registered and know how to make sure their votes are counted…then even a rigged election can be turned.

This shocking victory shows how YOU can dump the Trump Dictatorship: Fight like hell for Vote by Mail; make sure you get an early ballot; make sure you help your Dump-Trump neighbors get theirs; work to safeguard the voter registration rolls; follow up with those who may not be registered and may have been purged; follow up with those who are due a ballot but didn’t get one; become a poll worker; make sure the voting stations function properly; make sure the vote count is closely watched;  if you don’t live in one yourself, call into swing states to help guarantee all the above.

Trumpite cultists want to abolish the vote for anyone who isn’t a Trumpite, especially non-millionaires of youth and color.

But the heroic angry Badgers have shown that despite its fascist power, the Trump dictatorship can be dumped.