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Elephant from behind
Wisconsin Republicans got exactly what they deserve. They’ve nominated the two worst possible candidates—Tim Michels for governor and Ron Johnson for re-election to the U.S. Senate—radical rightwing millionaires on the wrong side of every controversial political issue that will drive state voter turnout in November’s midterms.
At the same time, Democrats are united behind Gov. Tony Evers and Senate nominee Mandela Barnes in their fight for our democracy to protect state voting rights, women’s rights and every other constitutional right Republicans have targeted for destruction.
Republicans never had any chance to nominate more electable candidates in their primary. Moderate, reasonable Republicans have been driven out of the party. That process began in 2010 when the racist tea party backlash against President Obama elected Johnson, Gov. Scott Walker and a Republican legislature.
No Return?
President Trump pushed Republicans past the point of no return as a legitimate political party when he called his violent, armed mob of supporters to Washington to overthrow President Biden’s election. Decent Americans everywhere watched in horror. There’s nothing conservative about destroying American democracy.
The corrupt gerrymandering by Republicans under Walker after the 2010 census guaranteed Republican control of the legislature for the past decade. But now it could destroy Republican chances in what they thought was going to be a slam-duck victory in the midterms.
Dishonest gerrymandering is still giving Republicans a distorted view of Wisconsin voters and political reality. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election since 2016. In 2018, voters rebelled against Trump’s corrupt, incompetent presidency by electing Evers over Walker and re-electing Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Democrats won the House. Then in 2020, Wisconsin joined other midwestern states in evicting Trump from the White House and Democrats won a razor-thin Senate majority. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania now have great chances to increase their control.
That’s because the price of admission in those states’ Republican primaries was pretending to believe Trump’s absurd lies that Biden won a record 81 million presidential votes nationwide through massive vote fraud. That’s how Wisconsin ended up with two fawning millionaire fans of Trump’s tax cuts for the superwealthy as their Republican nominees.
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They Overturned Roe v. Wade
The other major political event that will profoundly affect voting in the midterms is the decision by Trump’s rightwing supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade destroying abortion rights for women that were constitutionally protected for a half-century.
The court’s destruction of the right of women to make their own decisions about giving birth is already creating chaos and medical horror stories nationally. Republican legislatures can now drastically restrict or completely abolish all abortions, extreme measures that are opposed by two-thirds of Americans.
Evers and Atty. Gen Josh Kaul, who is also on the ballot in November, have vowed to block any attempt by Michels and Republican legislators to prosecute women or their doctors under an archaic abortion ban still on the books from 1849, the year after Wisconsin became a state.
Michels says that backwoods frontier law, by cracky, is “an exact mirror” of his position. It would ban abortions for any reason other than to save the life of the mother. Michels also has said it’s “not unreasonable” to force rape victims to give birth.
Abolish the Filibuster
Reproductive rights also are a major issue in the senate race between Barnes and Johnson. Barnes supports abolishing the Senate filibuster Republicans have used to prevent Democrats from writing into federal law Roe’s protections allowing women to control their own lives. That also would free Democrats to pass laws most Americans want that Republicans unanimously oppose. You know, like protecting voting rights and banning the sale of military assault weapons.
The nation became aware of the huge impact of the destruction of women’s rights is likely to have on midterm voter turnout when a record number of primary voters in ruby-red Kansas overwhelmingly defeated a Republican attempt to remove protection of abortion rights from their state constitution. In Wisconsin, women’s rights are increasing the Democratic vote in Milwaukee’s suburbs. When a friend reveled in a 64% Democratic primary vote in Whitefish Bay, I jokingly told him, “Waukesha’s next.”
But guess what. Michels became the first statewide Republican nominee in nearly two decades to lose not only the Milwaukee suburbs, but he also lost Waukesha and Ozaukee Counties as well. It was the continuation of the Democratic suburban vote that caused Walker’s suburban edge to drop from 22 points to 12 points between 2014 and his defeat in 2018. In 2020, the Republican suburban edge disappeared completely.
The most important demographic change in politics in recent years has been college-educated voters fleeing the Republican party for the Democratic party. Trump has always depended on less educated Republican voters living in rural areas and dying small towns to believe his constant stream of lies. Unfortunately for Republicans these days, fewer people live in those places all the time.
