GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — If the past three-plus decades are any indication, it should be a Republican night in Wisconsin on Nov. 8.
It’s been 32 years since a candidate for governor from the same political party as the sitting president won in Wisconsin, and it’s been 28 years since a U.S. Senate winner in the state was from the opposite political party of the victorious governor candidate in the same election.
For governor, we now know Tim Michels is the pick for Republicans to take on Democratic incumbent Tony Evers.
“I think it had a lot more to do with Tim Michels’ message and his campaign and his candidacy than it had to do with Donald Trump,” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist and founder of Arena Strategy Group. “Wisconsinites generally don’t look at endorsements all that closely.”
UW-Madison professor David Canon believes the power of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement is the big takeaway from Tuesday’s results.
“Then we saw it on Robin Vos’s primary where he survives by just 260 votes against someone who, basically, the only thing he has going for him was Donald Trump’s endorsement,” said Canon.
Michels beat Rebecca Kleefisch in 62 of the state’s 72 counties. The former lieutenant governor’s wins were mainly in counties with major urban areas like Dane, Milwaukee and Brown.
“She carried those counties, but maybe not by as big of a margin as she needed to overcome the rural counties where Michels had even stronger support,” said Canon.
The analysts we spoke with say the anticlimactic nature of the U.S. Senate primaries makes it difficult to take anything away for November. However, both Canon and Graul expect the same thing from Mandela Barnes versus Ron Johnson.
“I think the first thing we can expect is, we’re going to see more political ads than we probably have ever of any other race in the history of the state of Wisconsin,” said Graul. “That race really could decide who is going to control the U.S. Senate for starting in 2023.”
And as you might expect, the political analysts say both the senate and governor races should be extremely close.
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