LDI Liveblog: Wisconsin Senate Recalls, Round 2

Welcome to tonight's Legislative District Index liveblog. We've been spending all week fine-tuning the LDI projection machine since it's debut performance last week, and we are excited to kick off our second election night liveblog. Tonight, Democrats have to go on the defensive in the 12th & 22nd Wisconsin Senate districts, where Republicans mounted recall efforts in response to the recalls brought against six Republican state senators. This isn't the first Democratic recall election - Sen. Dave Hansen easily bested his Republican opponent David VanderLeest a few weeks ago, but tonight's elections figure to be much tighter than that contest.

I previewed the two races in greater depth yesterday, but as a brief highlight, Democrats are fairly heavily favored to maintain control of the 22nd district, which is marginally Democratic, but nowhere near as Republican as the districts that Democrats just narrowly lost last week. The 12th district figures to be the real marquee contest, as polling has showed Democratic incumbent Jim Holperin with anywhere from a 2% to 14% edge of his tea-flavored challenger.

Tonight's elections cannot change control of the chamber, but what they certainly could do is provide a messaging boost to either side. Republicans tried to claim a huge victory last week despite losing two seats - striking out tonight might force them to eat their words a bit more, and propel Democrats whose inflated expectations were popped last week when they failed to flip the chamber. On the other hand, a Republican victory might be the nail in the coffin of the recall saga. Regardless of the outcome, we will be here all night giving you the best information, and hopefully providing you with some good news.

9:00 PM


Here are tonight's first projections - the model is working off the assumption that the shift we're going to see towards Democrats will be the same as last week - of course, as precincts come in, we'll see those numbers move.

9:23 PM
With only one precinct in, it appears a little early to draw any conclusions... and by that I mean literally one precinct is totally worthless to base decisions off on.

9:38 PM
We've now got a handful of precincts in, appears rural at this point. Don't read too much into the 22nd - it is still early, and with so much of the district in just one county, there aren't too many data point for the district to work with at this stage. In the 12th however, early news appears to be good - while it hasn't made a dent in the projection yet, numbers are improving thus far for Sen. Holperin at the kind of level he would need to claim victory.


9:45 PM
More numbers coming in from the 12th district, and thus far all the movement has been positive - in every county that is reporting, Sen. Holperin is performing at the level he needs to in order to win, and that is reflected in the movement of the LDI projection. Meanwhile, projections are still off in the 22nd district, where the conservative portions of Kenosha that have reported are preventing the system to give accurate data yet - another 10 precincts and it should be dialed in much closer.


9:57 PM
People are talking on Twitter about the 22nd having been called by the Associated Press - I haven't seen that yet, but I'll update the information the moment I know more. The LDI is seeing progress in the 22nd, where things are moving back towards where they are expected to be, but in the 12th, Marathon and Marientte are not where Sen. Holperin needs them to be, and that movement is reflected in the slight change in projections.


10:04 PM
For the first time tonight, the LDI is projecting that Sen. Holperin will win re-election in the 12th district, on the back of his great performance thus far in Onieda County. Kenosha still remaining a mystery at this point, but the news from the 12th has to be promising given the relative liberality of the 22nd in comparison.


10:14 PM
Numbers still looking good for Holperin in the 12th, even though his lead has receded in some places. In the 22nd, things are still perplexing for Wirch - with no indication of what parts of Kenosha are in, it is really difficult to say whether we should start being seriously concerned. Way too much of the vote remains out there.


10:18 PM
For the first time tonight we have both Democrats now ahead, and Wirch may be about to take this one across the finish lines, if precincts keep looking the way those last few did. Holperin, on the other hand, has begun slowing down, and if his Onieda numbers continue to dwindle, will go back to being on the other end of our projections - let's hope it doesn't continue.


10:28 PM
We are now confident that Robert Wirch will be returned to the Wisconsin State Senate by the voters of Senate District 22. Holperin remains in the balance however, with recent numbers continuing to do more to inspire fear rather than confidence.


10:40 PM
We are really just sitting and waiting to see more from SD12 at this stage. I was talking on Twitter earlier that if Holperin can outperform his district at the rate Wirch outperformed his, than he will be safe, but as Wirch's numbers continue to take off, he may not even have to do that well to retain his seat. Still, all the recent movement in the 12th has been making victory tougher, rather than easier - we're going to be biting our fingernails for a while here.


10:48 PM
The numbers in Vilas County are great for Holperin, and I'm getting pretty close to calling this one a night - finishing out Onieda County will be the real end of the whole process. But right now, feeling a little more bullish about Holperin's odds.


10:52 PM
We are calling this one for Jim Holperin - data has come in for enough counties for us to be confident that Sen. Holperin will not only defend his seat, but outperform his 2008 election - and that is nothing to sneeze at.


11:02 PM
We are calling it a night - two great wins for Dems, and by excellent margins. We'll recap tomorrow - enjoy the rest of the night!

LDI Liveblog: Wisconsin Senate Recalls, Round 1

FINAL UPDATE - 12:48 AM

With election returns completely stalled in Senate District 8 for some time now, and no indication of that changing anytime soon, we're calling it a night here at the LDI Newsdesk. Tonight was a victory for Democrats, no mistake about it. These were seriously conservative districts - Senate District 18, where Democrats successfully recalled State Sen. Randy Hopper, is the 8th most conservative district in Wisconsin. A lot of money poured into these races, and the fake Dem strategy really appears to have paid dividends for Republicans - the extra time they added to the race may have been just enough to combat the narrative. But Democrats have picked up two important seats, have a slim chance of picking up a third, and have demonstrated that the Democratic machine can still turn out voters when they are revved up. The D+3 shift we saw tonight would not be enough to knock off Governor Scott Walker however, and so if Wisconsin Dems are serious about mounting a recall effort against him next year, they are going to really have to be on top of their game, as this shift would've still let Walker win by 3%. We'll have a more complete reflection tomorrow, and be sure to bookmark this page for next week, when Democrats have to play defense in two recall elections. Lastly, this evening was our most successful night, smashing all of our traffic records - thanks for relying on the LDI for your legislative election coverage, and please let us know what we can do to make the experience even better in the future.

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Welcome to the first ever Legislative District Index liveblog. Tonight, we're going to providing minute-by-minute coverage of the election returns in the six contested Wisconsin senate seats. it will be fun to get back into the liveblog business - last time I was a part of one was when I covered that odd 10PM tweet from the White House about the President addressing the nation.

First of all, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you to also open up a page for Daily Kos Elections tonight - I've been going there for all my liveblog needs for some time, and the folks over at SSP Labs have put together some incredible data, which I would strongly encourage everyone take a look at before the polls close.

I'm going to be focusing tonight on projecting election results using the Legislative District Index formula. In the past, I've written about the six senate districts that are going to be contested tonight, but just as a friendly reminder, here's the Wisconsin Senate scores, with the contested seats shaded in grey.

As I've said from the start, this is a serious uphill battle for Democrats, were this any other election. But tonight's election has little precedent - never has a state legislative campaign been conducted with such fervor and outside attention. Part of what we'll be measuring tonight is the progressive shift - the percentage swing we see towards the Democratic candidates away from LDI's expectations. I say progressive because this is fundamentally a campaign being waged over progressive values - collective bargaining, education, progressive taxation, and social programs. The other part that is worth taking note of is the fact that there will be a progressive shift - all the polling of these senate races thus far has shown them to be extremely close, which compared to what results the LDI would project.

So, keep up to date on this space - as soon as the first results trickle in, our projections will pour out


9:07 PM
Polls have been closed for almost 10 minutes now, though there are plenty of reports on Twitter of people still in line to vote - they'll all be allowed to. May be a while before we see our first results. Projections will be going here, at the bottom of the page chronologically, but I'll also be updating the top with a "big board" of results - just need some preliminary numbers to put those up!

9:38 PM
It has taken a while for results to start coming in, but here is what we have so far. Note that there hasn't been enough precincts in District 8 for my model to start using it - remember though that even now, there is a TON of noise in the model, as so few districts are in - I wouldn't take these results to be indicative of anything, but I want to show everyone how I'll be presenting numbers tonight.


9:57 PM
A few more results have trickled in, and now there are numbers for all 6 districts. Right now we're seeing a 10% Republican shift in the districts we've surveyed, but keep in mind - we are expecting rural, conservative areas to report first. If turnout was as robust as some had said, then we could be waiting a while to get to the Democratic pockets in all of these counties.


10:11 PM
Starting to look REALLY ugly for Democrats, as a considerable number of votes are in, and some of these races aren't even close. Republicans are outperforming their LDI score in 4 of the 6 races, the exact opposite of the scenario that Democrats needed. Things need to change, and fast, for there to be any hope of a positive result this evening.


10:22 PM
The game is changing slightly - now I've got Dems outperforming LDI #'s in 4 of the 6 districts, but only enough to win two of the seats (8 & 32). Still, there is reason for optimism.


10:33 PM
Two of the six races have now been officially called for the GOP. What is troubling at this hour is the fact that overall, we are measuring absolutely 0 shift towards Democrats in the recall, which really has been totally unthinkable this entire campaign. Dems continue to outperform LDI scores in 4 districts, and are increasing their margins, but our projections still show 4 nailbiters. The one thing to be hopefuly about is that later returns in 14 continue to favor Dems, and in 18, a huge number of votes aren't out yet in the strongest Democratic area of the district. If there is a Democratic surge within that base, we might be in for a twist.


10:48 PM
A few things have shifted since the last update - the model is now really excited about the pickup opportunity in the 18th district - the only problem is that so much of the vote is still out. The 14th remains close, while the 8th is beginning to drift away from Dems reach. Also, in the 32nd, keep in mind that Kapanke has been seriously outperforming his Senate seat for some time now - so while the shift is only 1% from the LDI score, it is a significant flip from his performance in previous elections.


11:04 PM
A third race has been called for the Republicans, and now things aren't looking good. I can't see any way that the race in the 8th turns around in the Democrats favor - there isn't any part of the district where Democratic numbers seem to have surged. Instead, we appear to be waiting on the proverbial "super turnout delay" that would wind up with us finding a much higher percentage of voters from the remaining precincts than my model imagines. Right now the total shift is only at +2 - incredibly disappointing.


11:11 PM
So we are all down to 2 races - 8 & 18. In 18, the numbers look much more promising - not only does my model project a victory, but across the board Democratic performance has been significantly up. In Senate District 8 however, I'm just not seeing those kind of numbers - we need serious blue ballots to come out of Milwaukee, and that kind of advantage hasn't been established thus far.

11:20 PM
I'm just not feeling all that optimistic about the 8th - I don't have the numbers to back it up. I think the 18th is a lock now - I'd project victory there, but it really is all going to come down to Waukesha - feels like we have said that way too many times in recent history.


11:44 PM
It is all down to the 8th - while I've revised my projection downward in the 18th (due to a little spreadsheet error), more results have come in that have ensured victory over there. All we can do now is wait for the spotlight hogs in Waukesha, and hope for the best


12:10 AM
A lot of Waukesha has come in now, and the result doesn't change the model for Democrats in the 8th. That news is good - the question now becomes whether or not Democrats can rack up a 14,000 margin in Milwaukee. That is doable, but as results have come in across the night, we are seeing Milwaukee county trending away from Democrats, rather than gaining in advantage.


12:29 AM
We're still taking a hard look at the data in the 8th Senate District, where Democrats are going to have a difficult time making a comeback. The numbers from Waukesha County were not terrible for Dems - the fear was that it was going to tilt the county even further in the Republican's favor, but the margin held consistent throughout. It will be extremely interesting to see the results that come out of Menomenee Falls, where they appear to be sitting on the results until tomorrow. There are still 12 outstanding counties in Milwaukee, but this isn't super liberal territory, so finding the votes to flip this race will be incredibly difficult. I'd say there's probably a greater chance at this point of Democrats picking up the seat after a long investigation into the Waukesha County clerk's office rather than winning the vote outright tonight - if the numbers we've been given are true, the votes just aren't out there to be picked up.