Democrats Favored in Final Recalls - But Don't Hold Your Breath

This time last week, everyone was getting their hopes up over the possibility of a big night for Wisconsin Democrats in the first round of recall elections. While Democrats scored two important victories, it ultimately was not enough to satisfy the inflated expectations that had spread within the progressive community, and left many, myself included, suggesting alternate routes that Wisconsin Democrats should take if they want to successfully remove Governor Scott Walker from power. While it is too early to tell if any wholesale strategy changes are going to happen, tomorrow night will provide an excellent opportunity for Democrats to see how much their base was shaken by the losses last week, as two Democratic state senators will face recall challenges tomorrow night. We will be here liveblogging the results as they come in, same as last week, but before you head into the election night fray, here are some things you need to know about the two seats up for grabs.



The Districts
The 12th District is going to be the real showdown tomorrow night. Senator Jim Holperin was representing the most Republican district held by a Democrat until Jessica King's win last week, and he didn't do it in a landslide either; Holperin's 2008 campaign for an open state senate seat prevailed with only 51% of the vote. To put his district into further perspective, Holperin's seat is split between Sean Duffy's 7th Congressional District and Reid Ribble's 8th Congressional District, two seats that flipped in favor of Republicans last cycle.

Holperin doesn't have some of the advantages one would typically like to see in a race like this one. His Senate race in 2008 was his only campaign for elected office in the past 20 years, having served in the state assembly back in the early 80's. While he held an appointed position in former Governor Jim Doyle's administration, I would challenge any of my readers to name their state's respective Tourism Secretary of the top of their head.

What Holperin doesn't bring in electoral background he does make up for in support. He's earned the endorsement of the NRA in this recall, backing that is really vital in a seat like this that is more than capable of electing a conservative. Another thing in his favor is his opponent, Kim Simac, who is of the firebreathing variety. While her message has been effective in getting the Republican base to do the legwork needed on this recall, I'm not sure how well that language is going to play when it comes to converting people who voted for Holperin last time around to change colors and kick him out. Using the raw 50/50 data from the LDI model, this race would have a slight Republican advantage, but to calculate the projections for these two races, we are also adding the average swing we observed last week - 3% in the Democrats favor - to the model. The result is that the LDI is projecting this race out to a nearly 50-50 tossup, and I'd say intuitively, that seems about fair - there is really no way to project how people in the district have reacted to last week's results.

The 22nd District won't get as much time, simply because it really doesn't need it. The district, represented by Senator Robert Wirsch, is substantially more democratic than his colleagues, and he appears to face a lower-tier challenger. The LDI projection model is pointing to a 55-45 victory for him, but I wouldn't be surprised if that figure ends up being low - we may be looking at a result closer to what happened in the 30th district general, where Senator Dave Hansen really beat up on Republican challenger David VanderLeest and took two-thirds of the vote.

Today, Daily Kos Elections released the results of polls done by PPP this weekend that show double-digit margins for both Democratic candidates, and with their record in the recalls thus far, I would be inclined to trust their numbers. That said, my intuition is that they have located the high water mark for Sen. Holperin, where as Sen. Wirsch may have room to expand that lead.

We will be back tomorrow night, cranking up the LDI projection engine and hopefully watching two Democratic senators coast to victory to close off the Wisconsin summer recalls in style.