On first blush, the results of yesterday’s recall elections in Wisconsin would appear to be disheartening for Democrats. They won only two out of the six elections, one short of taking over the state senate. The goal of changing the dynamics in the legislature was not achieved, and so some may feel it was all for naught. However, if you think about it a bit more, the results can only be a victory for those activists who set the recalls in motion earlier this year.
In my last post, I took a look at the turnout in House districts that the DFL lost. Today, a coworker asked me about districts that were close, but were won by the DFL candidate. Good question. So I put together the following table of districts where the DFL candidate won. I chose districts not by any particular mathematical criteria, other than they are districts that were either close in 2006 or close in 2010, and are generally your typical swing districts:
Lots of people have shared a lot of analyses on Tuesday’s elections, much of it on a national scale. They try to make guesses about what the elections say about Obama, or the Republican agenda, on certain subgroups of voters, and so on. I don’t have any great insights into any of these things. I am, however, interested in the flip of the Minnesota House to the Republicans. And while I can’t offer a lot of insight into the why, I do have numbers that appear to tell a tale of turnout. If the question is whether the Republicans won their races on Tuesday due to a higher Republican turnout, a great switch of voters from the Democratic column to the Republican column, or Democratic voters not showing up, it appears that the latter issue may be the important one.
It’s a few days before election day. So what exactly is at stake?
Citizens United was a poor decision for democracy. I can understand how it came about: it was the logical extension of a set of decisions and customs dating from the 19th century. However logical and direct that train of thought may be, though, it loses sight of one big issue: that corporations, while a convenient legal fiction, are not people. Even if the law treats them as such for many purposes.
PoliticsCampaign Finance, Elections, Target, Tom EmmerAugust 06, 2010
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