Wisconsin report
from Steve in Madison
VISITS, VISITS, VISITS. Clearly the campaigns' internals tell them that WI will be in-play right down to that last vote. Kerry is in Green Bay today and tomorrow and Madison on Thursday. Edwards in Racine and Dubuque Iowa today. Bush on a western WI swing tonight and tomorrow. (Same heavy traffic applies to Iowa as well). Surrogates for candidates also on impressive pace as are the constant arrivals of volunteers, DC hands, and people whose states are not in play. (In particular we see a lot of IL folks headed north to "make a difference" in southern WI... there was a story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday about the 5 buses full of volunteers for field work).
I'm sure there'll be a big push to make Thursday's Madison rally at the State Capitol square (with the Foo Fighters) to be one of Kerry's biggest crowds. In 2000, we packed in 25,000 on the Friday before the election w/ a Bon Jovi appearance. Then they're doing an early vote trek 2 blocks to the city clerk's office (I'm sure that even though he's a Democrat, the clerk is going to be a wee bit upset with hundreds of people looking to vote on TH afternoon). WI statewide demographics are pretty straightforward.
Madison and Milwaukee cities turn out close to half of the total Democratic vote. The other significant cities (Racine, Kenosha, Janesville, Green Bay, Wausau, LaCrosse, Eau Claire) end up being about 50-50 when their suburbs are taken into account. The Republican base lies in the Milwaukee and Minneapolis suburbs as well as in an arc of German Lutherans in eastern WI.
Ironically, the nordic Lutherans on the western arc of the state are much more Democratic in orientation.
Ultimately this election will come down to places like the battleground cities of Green Bay and Wausau, which are 2 of the 10 biggest markets for political ads this cycle. Speaking of TV, it has been ridiculous in the Madison market, mostly from Bush and Democratic 527s, but Kerry has picked up pace the last 2 weeks as have a couple of Repub 527s. There is virtually no ad traffic outside of political at this point, and I wonder how anyone can consider themselves "undecided" at this point.
On the ground, the Republicans talk a big game and it will be fascinating to see if they really do turn their vols out next weekend. On our side, the September 14th primary showed the kinds of resources that will be brought to the table. ACT had nearly 800 paid staff on the ground doing generic GOTV efforts to promote turnout in African-American portions of Milwaukee, to complement nearly 200 from the victorious congressional candidate. This had the desired impact of increasing African-American turnout there by 25% over the traditional primary vote. I've heard that ACT alone will have double that amount of staff on the ground next weekend. And this does not count the Kerry/Coordinated campaign and all other labor/allied organizations. Nader is on the ballot and may ultimately be a factor if this race is decided in the low 1000's. He got 95,000 votes (or about 2.5%) in 2000 and those came heavily from Madison and Milwaukee. As well all know, most of our Nader friends tell us that they're not making the mistake again this time but surely he'll still hold at least 10,000 votes in WI.
VISITS, VISITS, VISITS. Clearly the campaigns' internals tell them that WI will be in-play right down to that last vote. Kerry is in Green Bay today and tomorrow and Madison on Thursday. Edwards in Racine and Dubuque Iowa today. Bush on a western WI swing tonight and tomorrow. (Same heavy traffic applies to Iowa as well). Surrogates for candidates also on impressive pace as are the constant arrivals of volunteers, DC hands, and people whose states are not in play. (In particular we see a lot of IL folks headed north to "make a difference" in southern WI... there was a story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday about the 5 buses full of volunteers for field work).
I'm sure there'll be a big push to make Thursday's Madison rally at the State Capitol square (with the Foo Fighters) to be one of Kerry's biggest crowds. In 2000, we packed in 25,000 on the Friday before the election w/ a Bon Jovi appearance. Then they're doing an early vote trek 2 blocks to the city clerk's office (I'm sure that even though he's a Democrat, the clerk is going to be a wee bit upset with hundreds of people looking to vote on TH afternoon). WI statewide demographics are pretty straightforward.
Madison and Milwaukee cities turn out close to half of the total Democratic vote. The other significant cities (Racine, Kenosha, Janesville, Green Bay, Wausau, LaCrosse, Eau Claire) end up being about 50-50 when their suburbs are taken into account. The Republican base lies in the Milwaukee and Minneapolis suburbs as well as in an arc of German Lutherans in eastern WI.
Ironically, the nordic Lutherans on the western arc of the state are much more Democratic in orientation.
Ultimately this election will come down to places like the battleground cities of Green Bay and Wausau, which are 2 of the 10 biggest markets for political ads this cycle. Speaking of TV, it has been ridiculous in the Madison market, mostly from Bush and Democratic 527s, but Kerry has picked up pace the last 2 weeks as have a couple of Repub 527s. There is virtually no ad traffic outside of political at this point, and I wonder how anyone can consider themselves "undecided" at this point.
On the ground, the Republicans talk a big game and it will be fascinating to see if they really do turn their vols out next weekend. On our side, the September 14th primary showed the kinds of resources that will be brought to the table. ACT had nearly 800 paid staff on the ground doing generic GOTV efforts to promote turnout in African-American portions of Milwaukee, to complement nearly 200 from the victorious congressional candidate. This had the desired impact of increasing African-American turnout there by 25% over the traditional primary vote. I've heard that ACT alone will have double that amount of staff on the ground next weekend. And this does not count the Kerry/Coordinated campaign and all other labor/allied organizations. Nader is on the ballot and may ultimately be a factor if this race is decided in the low 1000's. He got 95,000 votes (or about 2.5%) in 2000 and those came heavily from Madison and Milwaukee. As well all know, most of our Nader friends tell us that they're not making the mistake again this time but surely he'll still hold at least 10,000 votes in WI.
posted by JFH @ 5:23 PM
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