Turnout For Wisconsin Court Race Went Off The Charts

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

In another sign of just how big a contest the Wisconsin Supreme Court became — going from sleepy spring election and likely easy win for incumbent conservative Justice David Prosser, to a hot race in which liberal-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg now has a very narrow lead — the results show that turnout was incredibly high.

Craig Gilbert at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

With 99% of the returns in, almost 1.5 million people had voted in the state Supreme Court race, which would represent a turnout of 33.5% of voting-age adults.

That’s 68% higher than the official state prediction of 20% turnout, which was based on recent historical norms.

A 20% turnout would be about 874,000 votes. Tuesday’s turnout exceeded that by almost 600,000 votes.

Another way to look at it: Each candidate has just under 740,000 votes right now — compared to the 874,000 votes total that would have occurred under typical conditions.

Latest DC
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: