The state of Wisconsin in purple.
I am as happy as any pro-choice voter about the results of Tuesday’s state Supreme Court race. But my mission today is to curb our enthusiasm.
Because the most significant race in this spring election may not have been for the Supreme Court. That result, with liberal Janet Protasiewicz prevailing easily, had felt inevitable for months.
The more telling result was the state Senate contest in the Milwaukee suburbs. There, a seat held for decades by Republican Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills was up for grabs. Darling’s margin of victory in the last two elections had gone from 12 points to only five. The Democrats had a very good candidate in Jodi Habush Sinykin and a wide advantage in money. The issue was abortion just as it had been in the Supreme Court race and Habush Sinykin was on the right side of that question among generally pro-choice suburban voters. Turnout was extraordinarily high, which both parties believe favors Democrats, though the evidence is that it probably doesn’t.
And yet she lost. To be sure it was a close race with Rep. Dan Knodl (R- Germantown) eking out a margin of less than one percentage point. Still, it was a race Democrats should have won. It suggests that even the powerful abortion issue cannot reliably deliver swing districts to Democrats. If the Democrats are ever going to take back the legislature, even under fair maps, they have to win districts like this one.
Something similar happened in Kansas last year. A straightforward question on abortion was won convincingly by the pro-choice side in August. But a few months later, Kansans elected Kris Kobach, an ultra-conservative election denier, to be their attorney general and the state remained dominated by Republican office holders.
Back here in Wisconsin there are more signs that the state has not suddenly shifted to the left. Voters statewide approved a tough-on-crime constitutional amendment that allows judges to take into account a defendant’s criminal history and other factors when setting bail. And they approved an advisory referendum supporting work requirements for welfare recipients. The bail amendment passed two-to-one while the welfare question won with 80% of the vote. Both margins were larger than Protasiewicz’s 10-point win.
All of which is to say that Wisconsin remains a purple state. Protasiewicz won because her campaign made it a simple up or down vote on abortion. About two-thirds of us support abortion rights and 85% support that right in cases of rape or incest, something that the 1849 anti-abortion law does not allow.
But that relatively liberal view on reproductive rights does not necessarily transfer to other things like crime, welfare, education or social issues.
When she takes her seat in August, Protasiewicz will join a court majority that will likely find a way to redraw legislative maps in time for the 2024 elections. But that is no guarantee of success for Democrats. Even Gov. Tony Evers’ People’s Maps Commission drew boundaries that projected a 55-44 Assembly majority for Republicans. Better than the 64-35 margin they enjoy now, but still a built-in disadvantage for Democrats.
That’s because Democrats cluster in a few places making it hard to draw competitive districts, even when that is the goal. And legally, that is not the goal. Districts need to be as compact as possible and they need to keep communities of interest together as much as they can and they can’t be set up to deny minority representation, but competitiveness between the parties is not a legal criteria.
So, even a liberal court cannot hand the Legislature to Democrats. They’ll have to earn it and earn it in a state that is pro-choice but otherwise not all that liberal.
There are some in the Democratic Party who want to build their whole electoral strategy for 2024 around abortion. Based on Tuesday’s results here, I’m skeptical that that will work.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. Both his reporting and his opinion writing have been recognized by the Milwaukee Press Club. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
