(Update is below the fold)
I just returned from voting. I normally vote around an hour or so later on Election Day so I can keep track of turnout. Last time, in 2016, I got a voter number in the low 700s. Today, an hour earlier during a midterm election, I was voter 694. Holy Cows on Crutches! We’re seriously on match for the general election turnout numbers or they will be higher.
I also saw something I never saw before: Republicans so scared that they are ferrying people to the polls. Normally, this is what Dems do and I normally volunteer to pick up and drive voters to their polling places (couldn’t do it last election or this due to health issues). This year, for the first time ever, I saw a red sedan with large American flags on both front doors dropping elderly folks off at the entrance to the polling location and wait for them to exit.
They see Republican Governor Scott Walkers’ defeat in their rear view mirror and are frantic to save his extremist ass from the voters he’s screwed in the past 8 miserable years. They fear the reversal of the extreme gerrymandering they have done which has left both houses of our Legislature in Republican hands despite Democrats having more votes statewide. They fear restoration of sanity in our state and repair of our rights, roads and schools which have been left in shambles.
There’s good reason for their fear. They’ve lost the vast majority of previously “safe” Republican seats in special elections over the past 2 years and Scott Walkers national “outing” in his failed Presidential bid didn’t go unnoticed.
His poll numbers, normally kept high by a media so dominated by Republican control that it stinks to the clouds, dropped like a boulder. He’s been on a 2 year “good will tour” of the state to try to reverse things, and he has edged up a bit. Even his lying ads about he’s just a regular joe trying to make things better for us regular folks and his phony concern and promises over pre-existing condition coverage (yeah, he’s part of that giant Kill ObamaCare Lawsuit) are ringing hollow.
Tammy Baldwin is looking good for re-election. I’ll be closely watching Wi-01 where Randy Brice is taking on Brian Stiel (corporate lawyer and Paul Ryan staffer) for Ryan’s House seat. They’re desperate to keep this one, too and have been running horrendous, lying negative ads.
They’re also running numerous negative ads against Assembly candidates for the first time ever! These are Legislative seats where canvassing and post cards are the only advertising.
Time will tell, but I’m very optimistic about our chances. I’m going to chill a special bottle of Moscasto for tonight.