YSDA Predicts the Elections!

You’d have to be a fool to predict the results of tomorrow’s elections. Okay, so let’s get started then.

If you don’t live in Madison or Dane County you can skip on down. For those of you who live in the Magic Kingdom, I’m going to predict State Sen. Melissa Agard will win the special election for County Executive and that the three spending referendums will pass. Agard is an easy pick because she’s got all the money and name recognition and almost all of the big endorsements. Me? I’m not going to vote for either candidate. Agard lacks any executive experience and her opponent, Dana Pellebon, is leaning way too hard into identity politics for my tastes.

The referendums are trickier. If I were just to go by what I hear from friends and neighbors I’d say they’ll go down. I’ve been surprised at how many certified liberals are telling me they’re voting against them. They just think their taxes are high enough and that the city and school district haven’t done enough to restrain costs. But here’s the thing. In a typical local April election, when these things really should be on the ballot, there are about 90,000 votes cast in Madison. In a presidential election it’ll be more like 160.000. Those additional 70,000 voters will be there to vote for Kamala Harris. They’ll be surprised to see the referendums on the ballot, but Harris voters are not going to vote against public schools and they probably won’t vote against city spending either.

Me? I’m voting for the city referendum because I’ve authored eight city budgets and I don’t see how you solve a record $22 million deficit without it. I’m voting against the two school questions because it’s way more money than is needed and the schools are delivering terrible results. I want the district to come back in April with more reasonable asks and with promises for measurable improvements in student performance.

Okay, on to the state house races. Thanks to fair maps, the Democrats are guaranteed to pick up some seats. It could be as many as a dozen in the Assembly and four in the Senate. I think a reasonable projection is ten in the Assembly, bringing them up to 45 seats and five away from the majority, and three in the Senate, cutting the Republican advantage to 19-14. Any better than that and it will likely be a good night for the Dems further up the ticket too. Any worse and it’ll be worse.

The state constitutional amendment requiring that all voters be citizens is likely to pass. All the Trump voters will vote for it while just enough of the Harris supporters will as well because it just seems like common sense. It’s mostly a bogus issue designed to help Republican turnout. That’s because citizenship is already a requirement to vote in national and state elections and no local government is proposing that noncitizens should be allowed to vote in local elections. Nonetheless, I’ll vote for it simply because I, in fact, do believe that citizenship should be a fundamental requirement to vote and I do think that Madison could try to allow noncitizen voting in the future. But it’s not a big deal no matter which way this one goes.

There are two Wisconsin congressional seats in play — the Third District around La Crosse and the First District around Kenosha. The Cook Political Report has the Third “leaning” Republican and the First “likely” Republican. That sounds about right to me. If the Democratic challenger, Rebecca Cooke, does nock off incumbent Derrick Van Orden in the Third that’ll mean nothing but good things for other Democrats. If she loses, but keeps it close, that could be good enough for other races up the ticket. Last time, Van Orden won by three points.

At the national level, the Democrats have a realistic shot at taking back the House, even if they lose the two competitive seats here. They need to pick up five seats out of 26 that Cook lists as “toss ups,” and most of those are seats won by Biden four years ago.

Now on to the U.S. Senate. I’ll go with Tammy Baldwin over Eric Hovde. Baldwin got the Farm Bureau endorsement and that speaks volumes. She’s the first statewide Democratic candidate to snag that endorsement in 20 years. It shows how hard she has worked to narrow the margins in rural Wisconsin. That, combined with huge totals coming out of Madison, should pull her through. Me? It’s never been a question that I’lll vote for Tammy. She’s the right kind of liberal — she doesn’t condescend, she listens.

But even if Baldwin wins, it’s likely the Republicans will take back control of the Senate. The Dems’ lift is just too heavy, as they have to defend 23 seats while the GOP only has 11 to keep in their column. Democrats have already lost Sen. Joe Manchin’s West Virginia seat since he is retiring. (I never understood liberals who hated Manchin. He’s what gave Dems the majority. Yeah, he was conservative vis a vis much of the rest of the party — that’s how he won in West Virginia!) They are also likely to lose Jon Tester’s seat in Montana and maybe Sherrod Brown’s seat in Ohio. Tester would have to make up a likely 16 point advantage for Trump and Brown would have to overcome a likely eight point win by the former President. Brown might just pull it off, but I think Tester is toast. In that case, the Republicans would have a one seat majority even if Tim Walz is the next Vice President. A long shot is Texas where Ted Cruz is facing a tough challenge from former NFL player Colin Allred. An upset there would put the Dems back in the driver’s seat if they win the White House.

And finally I’m going to go with Kamala Harris for President. I’m none too confident in that prediction, but I’ve got a lot of reasons for it. I think abortion will turn out a lot of voters in key states and flip enough Republican women. I think her money advantage and better ground game will help. I think she’s the new product while Trump is Trump, only more so. I think the closing weeks have reminded voters of just how jerky this guy is, while Harris’s tone has been pitch perfect, Biden’s “garbage” gaffe notwithstanding. I think her voters are more dedicated while Trump is pitching to young, disaffected men who may never have voted before. That in itself tells me that his polling is telling him he needs them — a good sign for Harris.

Finally, a word about the day after — it will more likely be weeks after, as there’s a good chance the results will be contested. I don’t need to be prepared for a Harris victory outside of stocking enough aspirin for my hangover.

But another Trump win would hit hard. So, I’ve prepared myself to deal with it.

First, we need to keep in mind that Trump has no mandate to end American democracy. If he wins it’ll be because people think he’ll do better on the economy. We’ll need to defend our rights, our freedoms and our institutions against this man, but I have some faith that a strong majority of Americans — even those who voted for Trump — will be together on this.

Second, while there are a lot of awful reasons that Trump has so much support, there is one legitimate reason. Rapid advances in technology and more trade have, in fact, rocked the worlds of blue collar workers. Too many of us with college educations who have benefited from this have been too blind to that. So, we’ve ceded the argument to an authoritarian and a demagogue, not just here but all over the world. There needs to be a classically liberal answer to this problem and it needs to be developed no matter who wins the next election.

That said, I’m voting for Harris and hoping for the best. See you on the other side.