Here’s a comparison of the results in the recall elections in the six Republican-held WIsconsin state Senate districts up yesterday, together with the Republican and Democratic percentages in 2008, when the senators representing these districts were elected. As my Examiner colleague David Freddoso writes, this was a big defeat for Democrats and the public employee unions. Sean Trende has a similar analysis in realclearpolitics.com.
District 2011 R-D% 2008 R-D%
2 60-40 99-0
8 54-46 50-49
10 58-42 56-43
14 52-48 99-0
18 49-51 50.0-49.8
32 45-55 51-49
Democrats needed to pick up three of these seats for a state Senate majority; they fell short. They won only narrowly in the 18th, despite a gravely weakened candidate (he left his wife for a 25-year-old woman and the wife campaigned against him) and won solidly in just one district, the 32nd, which voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008, with Republican Dan Kapanke running well ahead of his party to take the seat. In the 8th and the 10th districts Republicans ran ahead of their 2008 showing, despite heavy spending by Democrats and public employee unions.
My conclusion: these results show Republicans about as strong as they were in 2010, when Republican Scott Walker was elected governor by a 52%-46% margin, and they show Democrats weaker than they were in 2008, when Barack Obama carried Wisconsin 56%-42%. That was my conclusion as well when I compared Barack Obama’s 2011 Gallup job approval in the 50 states with the popular vote for the House in 2010.
