The Wisconsin recalls — in which Dems narrowly failed in their ambitious uphill effort to win control of the state Senate by targeting GOP incumbents — aren’t over just yet, with two more races on Tuesday targeting Democratic incumbents. And in the latest polling from Public Policy Polling (D), commissioned by Daily Kos, the two Dems are favored to win their races.
Of course, in a way these races have much lower stakes than last week’s contests, in which Democrats gained two seats, short of the magic three needed to take control. But the question tomorrow is whether Dems will consolidate those gains, for a new Republican majority of just 17-16, or be busted back down to the 19-14 margin that existed at the start of the year.
In the 12th district, Democratic state Sen. Jim Holperin leads Republican Kim Simac by 55%-41%, with a ±2.6% margin of error. In the 22nd district, Democratic state Sen. Robert Wirch leads Republican Jonathan Steitz by 55%-42%, with a ±2.9% margin of error.
An obvious caveat is that these recall elections have been very unusual, lacking a normal statistical model to make projections, and are thus difficult to poll. With that said, PPP’s pre-election polls for last week’s races were within a few points of the actual results.
