Gallup shows President Obama has moved back into a small lead over a hypothetical “Republican” opponent.
TPM Reader EA writes in …
I can certainly understand how the actions of Scott Walker and his allies in the Wisconsin Senate rankled working Wisconsinites and the larger union community around the country. I’m certainly glad that it activated what seemed like it had become a quite complacent movement. But was the recall movement worth it? More specifically, was it worth the incredible investment from outside non-union progressive groups? I swear I received an ungodly amount of email about Wisconsin but none about other states with threatening union-busting legislation that matter to me more, like PA or NJ.
For someone who hates federal spending, Bachmann sure does ask for a lot of it.
Pressure grows to create debt commission panel reality show.
The “major announcement” the Huntsman campaign was heralding turns out to be the endorsement of Jeb Bush’s son.
Democrats picked up two Senate seats in Wisconsin recall elections last night, but needed three to regain control of the chamber. They have dropped their initial claims of voting irregularities in Waukesha County. Our Wisconsin politics guru Eric Kleefeld has the full story.
As of just after 12:30 on the east coast it’s looking like Sen. Alberta Darling (R) is pulling out a win in Wisconsin’s 8th senate district. If so, that means that state Democrats picked up two recall victories but fell short of the three needed to take control of the senate.
We should have official word shortly.
11:58 PM: 5 races called, 3 GOP, 2 Dems, all down to Darling (R) v. Pasch (D) in senate district 18. And that one is way too close to call.
11:59 PM: A BIG chunk of Republican votes just came in from Waukesha County. Big pick up for Darling (R). That will put Darling into a clear lead and then it’s going to be down to remaining votes in Milwaukee.
12:10 AM: Milwaukee County will reportedly have their final results reported in about 10 minutes. That should tell us the story.
12:11 AM: With 79% reporting, Darling (R) moves into 4% point lead. In raw totals about 2500 votes.
12:16 AM: State Dem chair Mike Tate claims “tampering” in Waukesha vote count reports that put Darling (R) over the top. This is the same county and clerk who generated such controversy in the recent Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. And she does seem to have some very archaic methods of reporting votes. But I have yet to see any evidence of irregularities tonight. The state party says in a press release that “in the next hours we will determine our next course of action.”
12:22 AM: With 80% reporting, Darling (R) moves into 53-47 lead. That’s about 3100 votes, a sizable margin.
11:35 PM: King (D) moves back into narrow lead in 18th district, but now with 97% reporting. Looking more like the second Dem pick-up.
11:39 PM: I said earlier in the evening that it looked like district 18 was going to be the down to the wire one. Now that’s looking like 8. I’m watching various folks crunching the numbers for the remaining precincts. And they’re all coming up with extremely close numbers. Close enough that extrapolations don’t tell us much.
11:41 PM: AP calls 18th District race for Jessica King (D). Second Dem pick up of the evening.
11:42 PM: I see Republicans claiming they’ve got district 8 wrapped up. But the non-partisan number counters I’m watching see no such clarity.
11:53 PM: Crack Madison reporter Jessica Arp notes that “The Waukesha Co. numbers are all from Village of Menominee Falls”.
11:54: Again from Arp: “Waukesha Co Clerk’s office says 9 of 10 precincts will be on the web in 5 minutes”