Here & Now

Prof: "We're Seeing Something Here We Haven't Recently"

Frederica Freyberg:

The statewide race Tuesday for the open seat on the high court was seen by the national press as the latest bellwether indicator heading into the November midterms. While not a partisan position, the Supreme Court race was certainly painted with a partisan brush, including direct contributions from the Republican Party. On the other side, endorsements from Joe Biden and Eric Holder. So when Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Dallet, the candidate endorsed by the Democrats, defeated Republican-backed Michael Screnock by 12 points, even Governor Scott Walker sounded the alarm for his party, tweeting “Tonight’s results show we are at risk of a blue wave in Wisconsin. The far left is driven by anger and hatred. We must counter it with optimism and organization. Let’s share our positive story with voters. Win in November. Where's a political scientist when you need one? In Milwaukee. Mordecai Lee is a professor in the UW-Milwaukee Department of Political Science. Thanks very much for being here.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

I read one account that said you were “astonished” by the results. Has the 12-point win set in yet for you?

Mordecai Lee:

I'm still astonished. And in part, everybody’s focusing on the margin of victory. I was focusing on the turnout. When you have a turnout that comes near a million people voting, that’s above average when it comes to a statewide race. So I think something was going on here. An average race would have been 700,000 to 800,000.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what do you think was going on? Organization? Money?

Mordecai Lee:

I think it’s exactly what Governor Walker described. I think it’s the unhappiness by Democrats mostly in reaction to Trump, but partly in reaction to the Republican legislature and governor. There’s a kind of an element of people that when you’re angry, when you’re unhappy, you’re more motivated than when you’re happy, when you’re contented. I think the Tea Party was the perfect example. Some people were unhappy when Obama got elected. And the Tea Party rose and then the Republican Party did very well in the elections after that. So what we’re seeing here is something we really haven’t seen before in recent Wisconsin politics. All along there had been something of a Republican network or a Republican machine. In other words, they all voted as a block. They all agreed with each other. This is the first time we’ve seen Democrats in a kind of invisible network. The reason we can tell is from the results of the referendum. That this was a relatively minor issue, but it’s like everybody who voted for the referendum also voted for Dallet.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you are saying that this blue wave that Republicans fear is real?

Mordecai Lee:

I think it’s real. And another reason why it’s real is that when it happens in an election for let’s say the U.S. Senate. There was the special election down south or a special election for the U.S. House in Pennsylvania, one could describe that as particularly about the federal government. But here we had a statewide race that was not about the federal government. Wasn’t even about the state legislature or the governor, and yet we had a similar huge turnout, just this blue wave. So I think it is correct to describe it that way. You know, Governor Walker is a fabulous politician whether one agrees with him or no. And he described it that way, and I think he’s right. And maybe in retrospect this explains why he was so strongly against holding those special elections for the vacant seats in the state legislature. That he’s got this fingertip feel for the voters and he sort of knew what might be coming.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if this was a proxy, though, do you think it was about Scott Walker or Donald Trump?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, that’s a great question. And if anybody knew that answer, they’d be able to predict the results of the November election. I suspect it’s a little bit of both. In other words, voting against Republicans as a whole. Voting sort of a voice against Trump. Voting against Scott Walker, particularly because he had endorsed the Constitutional amendment referendum. So it is significant in terms of what’s going on.

Frederica Freyberg:

So Dallet won 24 counties that Trump won in 2016. What’s your reaction to that?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, partly it goes back to our conversation about turnout. In other words, a presidential turnout is always the high watermark every four years. And these spring elections tend to be the low watermark. The fact that it was above average is an indication that more Democrats were voting. In Wisconsin politics, the higher the turnout, the more it skews left. The lower the turnout, the more it skews to the right. And in particular I think Dallet found something that no Democrat in Wisconsin had found so far. She found a way to talk about values. After all, if you think about American and Wisconsin politics for the last 10 or 15 years, it was Republicans who talked about values, social values, family values. It was like they had a monopoly on values and the Democrats were just sort of empty. She found a way to talk about values in a way that solidified the identification of the voters. They felt comfortable with those kinds of values. I think Democrats are going to try to learn from that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of values, in some ways the Republicans in this race said her values were actually partisan positions. But Judge Dallet had Eric Holder and Joe Biden, as we said. Judge Screnock had money from the state Republican Party. This final question. Was primary candidate Tim Burns right? Is it a charade to believe that these races are nonpartisan?

Mordecai Lee:

It really is. It’s a de facto partisan race. We probably ought to go all the way, go all in. And have them be declared that way. And it’s a shame because for the earlier generation, the races for Supreme Court were not with such a close partisan identification. The problem with nonpartisan elections is that it confuses the voters about who’s on which team. You vote for county board. Is your county supervisor on the opposition team or the ruling governing coalition? So maybe the whole idea of nonpartisan elections has just not worked out the way the good government reformers 100 years ago thought it would.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mordecai Lee, thank you, as always.

Mordecai Lee:

You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me.