The Wisconsin Experiment

Over the last several weeks, the machinations of various political factions in Wisconsin have once again taken center stage in national politics.  While state after state postponed Democratic primary elections until the early to mid-summer due to Covid 19 concerns, Wisconsin charted a different course towards maintaining its April 7, 2020 election date.  Unlike most states, where the voters were merely deciding partisan primaries, Wisconsin’s voters were also being asked to weigh in on a multitude of municipal races and a state supreme court seat, and this article addresses that latter race.

Though nominally non-partisan, the Wisconsin supreme court has been at the center of many of that state’s political battles over the past decade, and is perceived to be highly partisan when it comes to politically charged litigation.  Effectively, while the two candidates for the state supreme court seat were not directly identified by party on the ballot, incumbent Justice Dan Kelly ran as a Republican, and challenger Jill Karofsky campaigned as a Democrat.

When this election was first set by Democratic Wisconsin governor Tony Evers for April 7, 2020, Wisconsin Democrats saw it as an excellent opportunity to cut into the 5-2 GOP majority on the Wisconsin supreme court.  Wisconsin Dems were optimistic about the race because the April 7 in-person voting would see the supreme court race share the ballot with the contested Democratic Presidential primary and a largely uncontested Republican primary, thus encouraging more significant Democratic turnout.

Without this piece ascribing motivations to his actions, Evers initially held firm to the April 7 date.  However, after efforts in a federal court lawsuit brought by liberal interests seeking the postponement of the April 7 date mostly failed, he faced increasing pressure to postpone the April 7 in-person polling.  The Friday before the election, Evers called a special session of the Wisconsin legislature seeking to force it to agree to an electoral postponement.  Despite pressure from the Governor, Republican legislative leaders categorically refused to act, and pressed forward with the April 7 date.  With less than 24 hours left until the vote, Evers unilaterally postponed the in-person election over Republican opposition, only to see his executive order challenged by the GOP before the Wisconsin supreme court.  With candidate Dan Kelly recusing himself from considering whether the April 7 in-person voting should proceed, the four “Republicans” on the Wisconsin supreme court overruled Governor Evers’ election postponement, and ordered the in-person voting to proceed as originally scheduled.

Without ever publicly stating it, the primary reason for the GOP’s intransigence in moving the in-person voting date in Wisconsin seem clear.  Specifically, while everyone in Wisconsin understands that absentee mail-in ballots will compromise the bulk of the votes for the Wisconsin state supreme court seat (approximately 1.1M mail-in ballots were cast), both sides anticipate those votes will be close, with maybe a small Democratic advantage.  However, should Republican election day turnout outpace Democratic turnout by more than a small margin, the GOP could easily flip a deficit of mailed ballots via an in-person surge.

Hence the Wisconsin experiment addressed by the title to this article: are Republicans more likely to turn out to vote during a pandemic?  The Wisconsin GOP has bet that its voters are in fact more likely to turn out than Democratic voters, and effectively staked a state supreme court seat on that proposition.

The results of this experiment may provide some interesting insights into the association of political views with responses to the Covid 19 pandemic.  Are Republicans more likely to view the pandemic itself as less of a personal threat to their health (in spite of an average older age among Republican voters)?  If so, will Republican politicians and voters push harder for a sooner “return to normal” in business and society?  Are rural voters – who tend to reside in areas that are both less hard hit by Covid 19 but also more Republican – less concerned about the potential personal impact of the pandemic?  How does this affect the November 2020 election should some voters remain concerned regarding mass gatherings?

With the vote totals being released as this article is published, we will know within a matter of hours if the Wisconsin GOP’s gamble that its voters were more likely to brave a pandemic than Democratic voters.  It’s a result that, should Covid 19 remain at the forefront of the political conversation, may have outsized impacts on the parameters under which we vote later this fall.