Sunday, November 1, 2009

Again, Milwaukee isn't Going to Help Walker

Here's an interesting claim:
I do not know if Walker would win MKE County in 2010, but the DEM candidate would need to get 60% in MKE County to win statewide. I think almost any DEM could do that against Neumann (and Belling agrees), but I do not know any DEM who could pull those numbers against Walker, including Barrett.
I'm interested in the bolded line (added by me), which isn't true.

Let's go back to 2006. Doyle beat Green by a margin of 160,451 votes while winning Milwaukee County 62% to 37%, or (199,561 to 118,989). In other words, if 80% of Democratic voters in Milwaukee County had been suddenly raptured up to heaven the day before the 2006 election, Doyle still would have edged out Mark Green statewide.

For the sake of convenience, let's say that 300,000 votes will be cast in Milwaukee County next year. A Dem nominee with 60% would win 180,000 votes and come out 60,000 ahead of the Republican. That still leaves a margin of victory of 100,000 votes from around the state the GOP would need to neutralize.

The moral of the story is that the next Governor will not be chosen by Southeastern Wisconsin. Why bloggers continue to think that (a.) Scott Walker has a prayer in Milwaukee and (b.) that southeastern Wisconsin in the only geographic area is the end-all-be-all of the Wisconsin electorate, is beyond me. If Walker is going to win Wisconsin, he's going to have to craft a message that resonates throughout all of Wisconsin, not just with conservatives outside Milwaukee. Doing so inoculates him from charges of extremism and connects with independent votes (who are typically moderates).

2 comments:

capper said...

Fun stat of the week, in 2004, Walker got about 100,000 votes. In 2008, the number dropped to about 70,000. The exact percentage was 28% loss of votes.

It will only keep getting worse as his budget explodes on him.

Jb said...

I think he's got a ceiling of about 130,000 in Milwaukee Co. -- that's probably about the absolute best he could do without getting some assistance from the Dem candidate in the form of a awful campaign or epic gaffes.