If you’re desperately looking for good political news these days—and who isn’t?—here’s some: A candidate who champions the issues voters really care about may matter more than money this year in the outcome of Wisconsin’s governor’s race.
That’s one conclusion that could be drawn from Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tony Evers continuing to run ahead of incumbent Republican Gov. Scott Walker three weeks before the Tuesday, Nov. 6, election despite Republican groups outspending Democrats two-to-one and Walker’s campaign outspending Evers four-to-one.
Supporters of democracy have always wanted to believe that, but wouldn’t it take a perfect storm in 2018 to create such a perfect political world? Welcome to the first Category 5 election threatening to sweep away a two-term Republican governor.
• Educator Running Against the Anti-Education Governor
Evers—Wisconsin’s superintendent of schools—is the ideal candidate to take on Walker’s slashing of $1.17 billion in public school funding through 2016, the most devastating cut to education in the state’s history. Walker added insult to injury by absurdly calling himself “an education governor,” which every school district knows to be a lie. Frustration over Walker’s enormous cuts to their schools prompted 57% of voters statewide in a Marquette University Law School poll to support paying higher property taxes to pay for schools (only 37% preferred lower property taxes).
• Health Care is a Life and Death Issue
Republicans were so hell-bent on trying to kill health care for millions by repealing Pres. Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) that they forgot to protect the lives of Republicans who have pre-existing conditions, just like Democrats. Walker authorized his Attorney General, Brad Schimel, to lead a federal lawsuit in Texas to destroy all the benefits of the ACA, which would force 2.4 million Wisconsinites with pre-existing health conditions to pay exorbitant prices or lose their health care. A whopping 78% of voters statewide say protecting coverage of pre-existing conditions is very important to them, but Walker still refuses Evers’ demand that Wisconsin pull out of the lawsuit to destroy those protections.
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• A Bad Time for Republicans to Continue Denigrating Women
There’s never really a good time for an obnoxious president, who brags about groping women’s private parts, to put someone credibly accused of a drunken sexual assault on the U.S. Supreme Court, but a few weeks before midterm elections is the very worst time. Republicans pretend those who care about them sickened by Brett Kavanaugh’s approval without a thorough investigation will be offset by male voters thrilled to have such a man on the court. That’s as insulting to men as it is to women. The Republican gender gap and decency gap have become vast chasms.
• The Backdrop of Trumpian Awfulness
The constant lying. The public sucking up to Vladimir Putin abroad and neo-Nazis and white supremacists at home. Racial and religious bigotry toward immigrants treated as vermin infesting our country. The inhumanity of tearing apart families at the border and caging their children. No one really knows what despicable action Trump might take next, but everyone knows Republicans won’t stand up to him for fear of losing his most hateful supporters. The midterms are the only hope of creating a check on Trump by replacing Republicans with Democrats who will oppose Trump’s un-American demagoguery.
There’s your perfect storm of factors converging to create a growing blue wave washing over the Midwest Trump won two years ago. Voters are realizing Trump was lying about manufacturing jobs coming back to their small towns, and farmers see his trade war destroying their markets and driving down crop prices.
Despite desperately spending vast sums of money, Republican candidates trail Democrats by double digits in governor and U.S. Senate races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Last week’s Marquette poll, which erased a five-point Evers lead over Walker a month earlier to give Walker a tiny one-point lead, was an outlier. An NBC/Marist College poll released the very next day gave Evers a 10-point lead over Walker among likely voters.
Republicans used to have a midterm voting advantage demographically because their voters—ostensibly better educated and more economically successful—voted in every election. It’s certainly no longer true of the hardcore Trump cult with less education; they’re the 35% who will support Trump when he shoots Jeff Sessions in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York. They’re the tail wagging the cowardly Republican dog.
Trump’s base is a fringe element. Their only loyalty is to Donald Trump—certainly not to pale Republican imitators who don’t get their blood boiling at raucous hate rallies. They may not even bother to vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot, which could leave this Category 5 election to decent voters seeking checks and balances in the midst of turbulently unbalanced political times as Walker’s house collapses around him in the storm.
