October 16, 2024
WISCONSIN IS A MUST-WIN FOR BOTH TRUMP, HARRIS
Wisconsin is a scenic wonderland, filled with vacation homes, water resorts, Door County, camp grounds, Lake Geneva, astounding winter skiing and endless Octoberfests.
It’s also the home of the Green Bay Packers and many Milwaukee-area breweries that used to brew undrinkable, water-diluted slop as Schlitz and Hamm’s before they were sold off to big conglomerates. It was a whole lot of barley, oats and grains mixed with a whole lot of water.
I recall in my misbegotten youth back in the ‘70s that I had to chug a whole case of that bilge just to get a buzz. I could get the same effect from a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine, which cost $1.10 back then; it was like drinking Kool-Aid or Tang with a shot of Johnny Walker. But, to the point of this column, Wisconsin is politically schizophrenic and completely ideologically polarized.
To be schizoid means to have an enduring and collective division of thought, a cleavage of opinion. Wisconsin, which has just 10 electoral votes (EVs), is completely polarized, with the electorate completely schizoid. Trump won by 22,753 votes in 2016 and lost by 20,682 votes in 2020. Wisconsin has a Democratic governor, Tony Evers, who won initially in 2018 and was re-elected with 51 percent in 2022, But the state also has a lopsided legislature which is 21R-11D in the Senate and 64R-35D in the House. Whatever Evers wants he does not get, and he vetoes whatever far-right non-sense the Republican majorities pass.
The state’s congressional delegation is 6R-2D, with Republicans having flipped the southwest (Eau Claire, LaCrosse) 3rd District in 2022. The winner was Derrick Van Orden (R), an ex-Navy SEAL. That may not last much longer. The Democrats won a state Supreme Court majority in 2023 and Democratic lawsuits are already pending challenging the Republicans’ alleged “partisan” remap of congressional and state legislative districts. So what else is new? The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has already ruled that redistricting is a state issue, to be determined by respective state legislatures, and that it only becomes a federal issue if it violates federal law, like the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which prohibits racial gerrymandering and dilution.
Republicans won the NC Supreme Court in 2022 and then “revisited” the 2021 remap, which was imposed by a federal court for 2022 only. The NC delegation, now 7R-7D, will grow to at least 10R-4D because the Court approved the Republicans’ map. “Partisanship” was deemed irrelevant by the federal courts. Democrats are replicating this in Wisconsin. They want to unpack a bunch of Democrats from the Dane County (Madison) 2nd District and Milwaukee 4th District and create a new Democratic-leaning district from parts of the Republican 3rd and 1st (Racine, Janesville) districts. That will probably happen.
But that will then be overturned by SCOTUS on a technicality. The Constitution mandates a congressional reapportionment every decade, but not every year of every decade as power shifts.
Wisconsin’s U.S. senators couldn’t be more different. In the current national political environment every state except ME, WI, OH, WV (which will change this year as a Republican wins Joe Manchin’s seat) and MT (where 18-year Democrat Jon Tester is on track to lose) has two senators who are of the same party as the 2020 presidential winner. That includes GA.
The senior WI senator is Republican Ron Johnson, a quirky conservative who was first elected in 2010 in an upset, defeating liberal 18-year incumbent Russ Feingold (D) by 105,041 votes; he then defeated Feingold again in a 2016 rematch by 98,766 votes. In a very competitive 2022 contest Johnson defeated Mandela Barnes the state’s lieutenant governor, by 26,118 votes. Johnson, age 69, will be retiring in 2028.
The junior WI senator is liberal Tammy Baldwin from Madison, who was first elected in 2012 over ex-governor (1986-2002) Tommy Thompson (R). She won in 2018 with 55 percent and has worked to broaden her base by focusing on issues such as those relevant to dairy farmers. But she has a very tough race this year against wealthy Republican businessman Eric Hovde. Recent polling shows Hovde closing the gap. Recent polling has Baldwin up by 50/46 and 48/47.
The senate race is linked to Trump-Harris. WI is a key component to any strategy by Trump or Harris to win the presidency. Trump won WI in 2016 and lost in 2020. Polling to date has shown the race essentially tied, with a 10/14 Harvard-Harris poll putting it at 51-49 and a 10/14 Morning Consult at 50/46.
It should be noted that WI has always had a “progressive” political coloration. Its most famous politician is Robert La Follette, who was governor 1905-08- and U.S. senator 1908-25. La Follette was a fanatical “reformist” on social and ethical issues but a staunch fiscal conservative. He supported Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose “Progressive” presidential campaign in 1912 and he himself ran for president in 1924 on a “progressive” ticket, getting 16.6 percent against Calvin Coolidge (R). But La Follette remained a Republican, which was the key to survival in WI, which had a totally prostrate Democratic Party.
La Follette died in 1925 and was succeeded by his son, Robert Jr., who served 1925-47. And then Wisconsin’s “progressivism” took a monumental post-WWII hit. Joe McCarthy, who later proved to be a monumental clown, drunk and liar, beat La Follette Jr. in the 1946 Republican senate primary. The other WI senator was Alexander Wiley (R), a liberal Republican elected in 1938.
McCarthyism, meaning the post-WWII Red Scare, transformed WI politics, making the Democrats the Leftist party. McCarthy famously claimed that Dean Acheson’s State department was filled with a bunch of communists, a claim never proven. Today that would be “misinformation.” McCarthy won in 1952 but was a political pariah when he died in 1957. His successor was William Proxmire, a quixotic and quirky Democrat who served 31 years until 1988. He was renowned for giving out an annual “Golden Fleece” award for the federal boondoggle which most fleeced the taxpayers. Although a conventional liberal, WI voters loved him.
The other senate seat (Wiley’s) was won by a Democrat in 1962, 1968 and 1974, a Republican in 1980 and 1986, and by Russ Feingold (D) in 1992, who got beat by Ron Johnson in 2010. Herb Kohl, founder of the Big Box Kohl’s chain and multi-millionaire succeeded Proxmire and was a non-descript senator. So for 18 years WI had two liberal Jewish senators.
Up until 1966 WI governors served a 2-year term, and the office has bounced back-and-forth since then. The current governor, Tony Evers (D), age 73, will retire in 2026 and there will be an identity succession battle between Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and attorney general Josh Kaul. Ex-governor Scott Walker (R) may run.
If Hovde wins it will mean that Trump won WI, and Trump wins the presidency. As goes WI so goes MI (15 EVs) and PA (19 EVs). And a Hovde win will also mean the Trump tide was sufficient enough to boost Republican senate candidates to victory in MI, PA and maybe NV, but probably not in AZ and MD (more about that in next week’s column). And a Republican Senate of 55R-45D or 56R-44D will withstand any 2026 anti-Trump pushback and have a profound impact on the American judiciary. And, of course, there will be no impeachments.
Watch Wisconsin.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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