How can Wi. win for Tammy and Obama but not the state legislature?

[midnight]

Republicans won two key races to take control of the state Senate, leaving them with a 17-15 majority that will likely grow to 18-15 after a special election in the heavily Republican 33rd district in the Brookfield area next month. The GOP also will retain control of the state Assembly, helping Gov. Scott Walker with his 2013-15 budget plan.

In the northern 12th Senate District, Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Hazelhurst won the seat that had been held by Democrat Jim Holperin. And in the 18th District, Republican Rick Gudex appears to have eked out a narrow win over Dem state Sen. Jessica King of Oshkosh, according to unofficial returns. King took office last year by defeating Republican Randy Hopper in a recall election.

In another closely watched race, state Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, fended off Republican John Macco to win re-election in the 30th District.

The GOP caucus is set to increase to 18 seats after December's special election in the heavily Republican 33rd state Senate district.


http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=283798

I was so happy to see the state of Wisconsin map on huffington go from pink to blue last night-but when I read these four paragraphs, I wonder what a statistician would say..

[valerief]

1. My thoughts exactly. Something is fishy. nt

[AAO]

18. I vote straight Dem every time! Why wouldn't everyone?

[HereSince1628]

19. But, there wasn't straight party voting on the WI ballot.

You had to make a mark for each elected office.

[AAO]

20. True. Just mean I only vote dem.

[Scuba]

2. Hard to believe Glenn Grothmann won here with 69% of the vote. That means a lot of women ....

... voted for the man who said they don't deserve equal pay and that single mothers are child abusers.

[lutefisk]

3. Isn't this because of the redistricting?

Optimize districts for the Republican candidates and draw boundaries that concentrate areas that historically vote for Democrats together to "localize" and neutralize the effect of Democratic voters.

[hue]

4. Excellent point--definitely one of the major factors at work here.

[Goblinmonger]

5. Yep. 100%

They drew the lines and got the result they wanted.

[summerschild]

6. Has Kathy Nickolaus been cloned?

This smells bad.

The Wisconsin GOP has a history of tampering with election results and Walker and crew have benefited.

The Kochs are heavily invested in Walker and the GOP.

The Wisconsin people deserve an honest election. I hope they demand a recount.

[sybylla]

8. WTF?

Do you really think if they had the power to fuck with the elections, they would have only fucked with the state legislative races?

[sybylla]

7. Redistricting. Pure and simple.

That along with the fact that there is a segment of our state population that are low-information voters and the Democratic party is the only entity trying to do anything about it. Conservative press is pervasive nearly everywhere outside of Madison and Milwaukee.

The result is too many districts full of voters who don't know about Tralgo, who don't see the steep cuts to education as a problem (yet), who don't see regular reports on the negative jobs numbers of Wanker's administration nor understand the meaning of the WEDC bullshit that came to light in the last month. Neither have they connected the GOPpie putzes they just re-elected who rubberstamped that shit to the problem, if they figured out we have one yet.

At this moment, I'm hoping with an all GOP state legislature and Wanker in charge, they go for the nukular option. Take us down and do it fast. So that maybe in 2014 we have a chance to fucking do something about it before too many people have to suffer.

[yourout]

9. +1....they have gerrymandered the hell out of us.

This is going to be very difficult to overcome.

[postulater]

10. That's it. They set themselves up for the next ten years.

[MessiahRp]

15. Tell me this because maybe I am missing something...

In 2000 when we tried to redistrict our maps and their maps got chucked out by the court over the partisan nature of the redistricting and eventually a 3 judge panel drew the maps up in the courts. This time around there have been more lawsuits than ever about the unfair nature of the new maps. How is it that the courts haven't taken the redrawing of the maps back into their own hands and issued an injunction preventing these new maps from being used in the 2012 elections?

They were able to use these maps to cheat again and that's damaging the state as a whole.

[sybylla]

16. I don't get that myself.

I figured that's exactly what would happen with these crap maps when they got to the courts. Is it that they've had another ten years to screw with the judicial system? Or is it that with the Republicans in charge, leaving no money to the minority side to fund redistricting fights, the Dems were too weak to win?

BTW, nice to see you posting. It's been awhile.

[MessiahRp]

17. Same here. :)

DU can be a toxic place at times, especially when a Democrat is in charge. I feel a lot of the Bushbot vibe from this place. It's like once we're in charge the protectionism over "our guy" makes some of us incapable of seeing the forest for the trees and anybody who questions the policies of "our guy" is swarmed and attacked with some pretty traitorous sounding labels.

I voted for Obama, twice. I'd like to think that earns me the right to critique his choices in office. And here at DU, such critique is angrily blitzed and often. So I have stayed away a lot more recently.

But I miss talking to you and the WI peeps.

[Jimbo S]

11. Redistricting; Jim Doyle factor

To the winner goes the spoils. They had control in 2010, so they got to draw the lines. I believe a Dem State Senator from West Allis was re-districted out and didn't run, replaced by a GOP.

The general public see Scott Walker has the savoir of the state budget. That's political capital that will carry Walker and the state Republicans for some time.

[Big Tent]

12. Caucus Endorsement Structure

Some of this is redistricting but some of this has to deal with the fact that we did not contest the state legislature the way we did during the recalls. After the Walker recall all the focus on state politics left. Obama won but that had more to do with Obama than anything we did unique here in Wisconsin. Baldwin won too against Tommy and she ran a great campaign too. Democrats did manage to do well in the Presidential and Senate races around the country this year no matter the state.

If you look at Minnesota the DFL rocked out with their state legislative races and we should have been able to have similar results in Wisconsin even with redistricting. We have to build our democratic brand up. Everyone in Minnesota knows who the DFL is and the platform they stand for. In Wisconsin most partisan democrats have no idea who the DPW is or what it stands for.

A caucus -endorsement process of the party for each election starting at the voting district level is what I believe makes the 2 state parties the most different. Remember that the endorsement is not binding, look at Mark Dayton who stayed in the race and won the primary and he has a great relationship with the DFL. The caucus is a great party building exercise that helps at the local, spring supreme court, assembly/state senate and congressional level. The cost of holding a caucus is minimal. Putting Democratic activists in a room face to face with each other at the local level is a powerful dynamic.

[yourout]

13. Here is how Gerrymandered we are.

Here are the results for the following.

US Congress.
Dem votes:1,443,190 - Seats Won:3
Republican votes:1,399,871 - Seats Won:5

43K more votes and 2 less seats.


Wisconsin State Senate Seats
Dem votes:475,695 - Seats Won:5
Republican votes:452,631 - Seats Won:6

23K more votes and 1 less seat.

[lutefisk]

14. That sucks

So we're sort of a blue state that's gerrymandered to look like a red state.
Nice.