12:39 AM: Tide turning. Prosser up by over 6k votes with 94% in.
12:40 AM: Or not. Prosser’s lead falls to 2k, with 95% in.
12:44 AM: Hearing lots of unconfirmed reports of counting errors in various counties that could advantage either side. This could be a mess.
12:47 AM: 97% of precincts reporting and still just under 2k margin for Prosser. That was a bunch of precincts with very few votes that just came in.
12:56 AM: Kloppenburg up again, now by about 1500 votes. Still 97% of precincts in.
1:00 AM: And back again. Prosser now up by about 5k. Still 97% precincts reporting.
1:03 AM: Prosser lead now down to 2400. Still 97% reporting.
1:04 AM: Our very quick ‘don’t quote us on it’ analysis suggests that the outstanding precincts favor Kloppenburg. Whether it’s by enough to get her back into the lead is less clear.
1:11 AM: As of this moment Prosser has a lead of just under 2k votes. Still 97% of precincts reporting. But remember, precincts aren’t votes. So that 97% number could give a misleading impression of how many votes remain. What’s more, we’re now getting as yet unconfirmed reports that some counties are only now beginning to count absentee ballots — something that shouldn’t necessarily surprise us. And we’re still trying to track down various reports of misreported numbers from various counties. None of this is really out of the norm. You just don’t hear about it unless a race is super close. But with the margin not much over 1500 votes, any one of these little blips could flip the race in one direction or another. Hold on tight, we’ve got a ways to go here.
1:34 AM: Lotta chatter and rumors. But no vote updates.
1:38 AM: Looks like the few remaining precincts in Marathon county are heavily Dem precincts. Should be a good sign for Kloppenburg.
1:40 AM: Series of pro-Prosser precincts just came in — Prosser lead bumps up to about 2100.
1:44 AM: Now 98% of precincts reporting. Prosser ahead by about 1900.
1:56 AM: We’ve had a few precincts trickle in. Marathon county is now completely in. And we’re still holding at about 1900 votes for Prosser.
1:58 AM: The remaining precincts clearly favor Kloppenburg. Just how much is the question.
2:21 AM: Prosser’s lead falls to roughly 550 votes.
To say the least, this Supreme Court race in Wisconsin looks like it’s going to an inevitable recount. As of 3 AM on the East Coast, 99% of the precincts have reported (which is different from 99% of the votes, mind you) and Prosser is up by a scant 600 votes out of almost 1.5 million cast. The outstanding precincts appear to favor Kloppenburg, the challenger. So it seems quite possible that as final tallies come in over night and into the morning, Kloppenburg could draw even or move into the lead. To borrow from the language of polling, the margin of uncertainty tied to outstanding precincts, absentee ballots and possible tabulation errors is just bigger than the margin separating the two candidates.
We should have a bit better sense of where this is going in the morning. But hard to imagine this one is really going to be settled for a few days.
In the other big race of the evening, Chris Abele won the office of Milwaukee County Executive, the post Scott Walker left to become Governor, by a resounding 60% to 40% margin.
On Monday and Tuesday, politicians and commentators were practically falling over themselves to praise Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal as “serious” and “courageous”, even in cases where they disagreed with it on policy terms. Whatever you think of his policy positions, the argument went, give the man credit for telling it like it is and grappling with the hard numbers. But after a day or two of looking at the numbers, it turns out a lot of his assumptions and predictions are completely preposterous. Not just in the sense of the normal padding and optimistic assumptions that most budgets include. But really preposterous. Like 2.8% unemployment? Really curious what all the Ryan-o-philes are going to say about these numbers. Check out our report. Really must read.
As of this moment, JoAnne Kloppenburg holds a minuscule lead (224 votes) over incumbent GOP-backed David Prosser in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
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Well, all the votes are in in Wisconsin. And challenger JoAnne Kloppenberg is up by 204 votes. Here’s the latest report.
Now, bear in mind. There’s almost certainly going to be some more adjustments. And you can count on a recount. But there aren’t any more collection of votes that are yet to be counted or reported.
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Gov. Walker (R-WI) has responded to the news that his favored candidate for Supreme Court Justice, incumbent Justice David Prosser, appears to be losing to Dem-backed JoAnne Kloppenberg. So why’d it happen. Basically, all those weirdos in Madison, according to Walker. Check it out.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a better illustration of the mix of mendacity and messagefail behind the GOP’s grappling with the impending government shutdown. This afternoon Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) addressed a Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill. She was arguing that the Tea Party doesn’t want a shutdown and won’t let the Democrats falsely blame them for what’s coming. Meanwhile, the crowd chants: “Shut’er Down! Shut’er Down!”
Then our Ryan Reilly who was there at the event interviews a member of the crowd who says he doesn’t want a shutdown. Only he’s holding a sign that reads “Shut’er Down!”