Why We Won in Wisconsin

Last night's liveblog was wildly successful for the Legislative District Index - while we blew by our single-day page views record, the real first version of the LDI projection model was surprisingly on target. Consider the 10:48 update, which I have reposted below: at this early stage of the night, we had called all six races correctly, and other than the 18th, where a computation error in the model was inflating Democratic numbers, we were within 3% of the margin of victory. I'll be making a few changes to improve the model prior to next Tuesday's results, but as a projection model, I was incredibly impressed with the LDI's performance.



However, the real story I want to tell is about what happened last night at the polls in Wisconsin. I don't think there is any question that the narrative forming last night and solidified today is that Democrats "came up short". Given what has been talked about, I don't think that is an unfair label to put on last night. The real problem is that when you look at the actual numbers, last night was incredibly successful.

Expectations were managed horribly for last night's recall elections, and for that matter, the entire anti-Walker electoral movement. A state supreme court election should have never been allowed to become a referendum on Walker - Democrats had to split energy and focus on a race that was not as important as the legislatives races last night. On top of that, the notion that we were going to really stick it to Republicans tonight and pick up four, five, or all six of these seats had no grounding in reality, but became way too commonplace among people on the left.

Consider the following - Senator-elect Jessica King will represent the most conservative Senate district held by a Democrat in the state of Wisconsin - a district that she came up short in during the 2008 wave, in an off-year special election. That is a huge achievement. Had we won the other seats that were up in the recall, nearly a third of the Wisconsin Senate Democratic Caucus would have come from districts that are typically safe for Republicans. There isn't a state where Democrats regularly win seats like these.



The other important takeaway from the above chart should be the Republicans listed above those who were on the ballot last night. Those are the Senators whose seats we could have flipped. If we take the D+3% shift we measured last night, and apply it to those races, we would have won four of those seven races - and that is without considering that in more moderate districts, the Republican base might not have been large enough to combat the Democratic surge. But we did not get to flip those seats last night because we lost in 2010. State legislative elections are an inigma - some people talk about them like they are the hardest things to fight against the current in, others think they are the easiest seats to flip. If you took 25% of the money, energy, and effort that was spent on these recalls, and focused it into those 2010 State Senate races, my guess is tonight we would be talking about a Democratic-controlled Senate - we may have never even needed the recall elections to get there.

The point I am trying to hammer home is that these races are critically important, and it seems that Republicans have been much better at nationally at maintaining focus on state legislatures and building their bench to be prepared the moment that the national mood sours on their opponents. Democrats need to create vehicles that can respond just as quickly in the other direction, so that we can continue to have state piloting the progressive policies of tomorrow.

If Democrats are considering pushing on with the recall strategy, I would offer this suggestion: forget about Scott Walker - a losing recall campaign will only embolden him, and quite frankly I don't see how he would lose in such a contest - wait until he's up for re-election, and punish him them. Instead, circulate petitions in the 5th, 17th, 21st, and 23rd districts. These are seats Democrats will be competitive in without any sort of outside push, and if they can maintain just the slightest bit of outside momentum (which, I would tend to believe that continued Koch support to Wisconsin Republicans is sure to do), they'll be able to be twice as competitive as they were tonight, and successfully grab control from the Senate Republicans.

But Democrats have a big enough task on the table already - defending their two Senate seats that are up for recall next week. Robert Wirsch in the 22nd district shouldn't be in any real risk - his district is closest to Kapanke's, without having the incumbency advantage on the Republican side. Jim Holperin, however, represents a districts that is only slightly less conservative than the Republican block challenged last night, and has a challenger in Kim Simac whose politics are regressive enough that a victory could really sap all the energy out of this movement. Don't lose faith - hit the phones, drive out if you can, and make sure the summer recalls end on our terms.