Hope and Fear

When I was running for mayor for the first time in 2003 I was in a studio cutting my final radio ad. We were running through the script when a line occurred to me. “Vote your hopes, not your fears.” We tossed it in at the last minute and it seemed to work.

The line occurred to me because my opponent, Paul Soglin, was hammering away at my lack of experience (I had never been mayor) versus his large supply of it (he had already been mayor for 14 years at that point). I had tried to make the election a choice between going back to Paul or moving forward with me. And, so that’s what the line was intended to convey. Have a little faith in the new guy.

And that’s what this election is about, only of course on a much grander scale and with hope and fear being in much more stark contrast. When I was casting the 2003 election in those terms I was referring to the fear that Paul was trying to instill about my own lack of experience, but I wasn’t implying that anybody had anything to fear from Paul himself.

In this case we have a lot to fear from Donald Trump, but more to my point today, he is trying to fan the flames of and capitalize on the fears of his supporters. And, I think, anger and fear are tied up together here. Trump supporters are angry over immigration but also afraid of immigrants. Below are snapshots, based on polling, that show how Trump’s supporters, in the snapshot on the left, and Harris voters, on the right, feel heading into the election.

As you can see, Trump voters are angry and scared while Harris’ are overwhelmingly hopeful.

From the start of his political career, Trump has sought to profit off of the things people fear, to play on their worst instincts. Fear of migrants, mostly, but also fear of criminals and fear of anybody else who is not like you. I’m struck how many times in Trump’s speeches he says “they.” Sometimes he’s specific and sometimes he’s vague, but his point is always the same. They are not like you. They want to harm you. They are bad.

Trump hasn’t really deviated much from that theme for nine years, but he’s doubled down on it in the last week or two of his campaign. He is ending with a message that is darker than ever. And, of course, that’s a two-way street. Trump is exploiting the anger and fear that are already present, but he’s also magnifying it to gain advantage.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is hitting much sweeter notes. After a couple of weeks where she switched from the Tim Walz-inspired dismissiveness about Trump (he’s just weird) to a much more serious take on the threats he poses to democracy, she is closing by talking much less about him and much more about her vision for the future. She has made it a point — and I think very successfully — to come off as upbeat, confident, even dare I say it, happy.

This election may come down to a relative handful of undecided voters who believe they were better off financially when Trump was President, but who just can’t stand the guy. Trump would have been smart to just hammer away at the economy and shut the heck up about everything else. But he can’t help himself. So he meanders for an hour or more and wallows in his grievances and says stupid stuff about shooting reporters and Liz Cheney and that’s the message that gets through. And voters who want to vote for him for economic reasons hesitate because of everything else that goes into being Trump. If he had made this a simple referendum on the economy he would have sealed a victory by now. Instead, he’s been reminding voters about everything they hated about him.

So, this election is about more than the candidates. Are we hopeful or are we afraid?

What I’ll Be Watching

I’ll be doing color commentary on Channel 3 tonight, mostly on their live stream. I’m joining Brandon Scholz, the former chair of the state Republican Party. Both of us still identify with our parties, but neither of us are dyed-in-the-wool partisans these days. So, we don’t feel obligated to spin things in ways that don’t hold up to reality.

Here’s what I’ll be looking for.

I’ll be watching ten counties, but the two that matter most are Dane and Waukesha. Kamala Harris needs to meet or exceed Joe Biden’s numbers from 2020. That would be 260,000 votes and 75% in Dane County and 103,000 votes and 38% in Waukesha County. If she’s hitting her numbers out of deep blue Dane and doing well in red Waukesha it’s a good indication that she’s getting the votes of suburban women, and maybe women everywhere. It could mean that the abortion issue is resonating like it did in the 2022 mid-terms, when the Democrats showed surprising strength.

I’ll be watching four State Senate races. The Democrats think they’ve got a good shot at picking up four seats after redistricting. If they run the board, that’ll mean a good night for them all around. Three would be good. If they pick up only two that probably means trouble elsewhere. The races I’ll be looking at are the 8th, in the north Milwaukee suburbs (a 53% Republican district), the 14th, west of Madison (a 53% Democratic district but with a popular Republican incumbent), the 18th, hugging the west shore of Lake Winnebago (a new 55% Democratic district) and the 30th, around Green Bay (a 52% Democratic district). So, the really big one is the 8th. If Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin can beat Duey Stroebel that would be a strong indication that abortion is resonating with suburban women.

I’ll be watching the margins in the Third and First Congressional Districts. These are the only two competitive races in the state and Republicans are favored in both, so it’s mostly a question of the margin. Derrick Van Orden won his La Crosse area and Southwest Wisconsin seat by three points two years ago. If Rebecca Cooke could get inside that margin it would suggest a good night for Democrats. Incumbent Bryan Steil is running in a redrawn seat, based in Kenosha, that gives Democrat Peter Barca a chance. There’s no comparable number from 2022, but if Barca makes it close, that’s another good sign for Team Blue.

I’ll also be keeping an eye on the margin in the Eighth District around Green Bay and Northeast Wisconsin. That’s the seat that Mike Gallagher resigned from earlier this year. It’s solidly Republican, but the Democrat, Kristin Lyerly, is a good candidate running a strong race centered on abortion rights. Again here, it’s not a question of who will win — Republican Tony Wied will — but by how much.

Nationally, you might want to pay attention to North Carolina and Georgia as those are eastern time zone states that should start reporting soon after their polls close. If Trump doesn’t win both, that’s a good sign for Harris. If he does, then it probably means she has to sweep Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Finally, a word about timing. Don’t be surprised if Trump has a lead in Wisconsin for most of the evening. That’s because, by state law, communities can’t start counting absentee ballots until the morning of election day and Harris will probably win the early vote, which won’t be reported until the end. There was a bipartisan bill in the Legislature to allow counting to start on Monday. It passed the Assembly, but Senate Republicans killed it.

Did they kill it to help Trump cast doubt on the results should he lose? Yeah, I think they did. But the fact that Speaker Robin Vos let that bill through his house, plus his obvious disdain for Trump, leads me to believe that he will not cooperate in any attempt by his colleagues to overturn the results, should Harris win.

Okay, folks, now I’m going to go vote.