A Tale of Two Races
This tale is illustrative of the impact of money on elections. Both elections took place in Wisconsin on 5 April 2011, yesterday.
One race, for the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat received national attention and an unknown amount of national dollars.
The other was a ‘local’ race with zero national attention and no outside money.
In the Supreme Court race between incumbent justice David Prosser and assistant Attorney General Joanne Kloppenburg the outside money is flowing in favor of the Republican Prosser by about a 3 – 2 rate. As of 0700 on the morning of the day after the election here is the outcome as reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Supreme Court REPORTING 99%
David Prosser (inc) 733,074 50%
Joanne Kloppenburg 732,489 50%
But in a race with similar political leanings and no outside money, at least none to speak of, we have a different outcome.
Milwaukee County Executive REPORTING 100% Chris Abele134,84861%Jeff Stone87,91339%
Jeff Stone is a Republican, currently serving in the Wisconsin state assembly, and he voted for Governor Walkers “union busting” bill.
Chris Abele is a Democrat who stressed Mr. Stone’s ties to Governor Walker.
The 22 point spread in the Milwaukee County Executive race is what I really expected Kloppenburg to win by. The tens of millions in out-of-state money, heavily in favor of the Repubs and Prosser are what made the race close. Much closer than it should have been. It begs the question, “Why do people vote against their own interests?”
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Liberty Street 
April 8, 2011 at 12:20 pm
[…] for a six to eight week period, to find the race this close buggers the imagination. As I said earlier, I expected Prosser to lose by at least 20 […]