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2023 Assorted US Election Results
ArcTangent
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
There's not really an election thread at the moment, and the 2022 midterms is locked, but there were some important elections today! And probably some more at some point!
Election guru Dave Wasserman
Absolutely massive win for Wisconsin, flipping the supreme court there.
And over in Chicago mayoral runoff...
Looking extremely good for the former teacher and progressive Johnson. They're both Dems, but Vallas is quite far right and his campaign largely focused on crime with a ton of police backing/fundraising, whereas Johnson's has mostly been education and support from teacher unions. So good results there too.
Election guru Dave Wasserman
I've seen enough: Janet Protasiewicz defeats Daniel Kelly for Wisconsin Supreme Court. The result flips ideological control of the court from conservative to liberal, a huge victory for the pro-choice side.
Absolutely massive win for Wisconsin, flipping the supreme court there.
And over in Chicago mayoral runoff...
New: w/ 90% of Chicago precincts reporting, Brandon Johnson now leads Paul Vallas by 3,816 votes (50.4%-49.6%). If the rest of precincts trend this way, might have even more clarity tonight.
Looking extremely good for the former teacher and progressive Johnson. They're both Dems, but Vallas is quite far right and his campaign largely focused on crime with a ton of police backing/fundraising, whereas Johnson's has mostly been education and support from teacher unions. So good results there too.
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(Also Ben Wikler, the WI Dem chair, is a god damn hero)
(Also also nominate Whitmer in 5 years, but that's a side issue)
Wasserman also calls the Chicago mayoral race for the progressive who the police HATE.
As of a few minutes ago, the special election that could give Republicans a veto-proof majority in the state Senate was about a 100 vote margin with 65,000 votes counted, with a lot still to count. I don't think we'll know that one's outcome for a while.
Edit: the Dem now has a 1,500 vote lead out of 70,000 votes.
Democrat is a favorite at the moment in a heavily red district in the Milwaukee suburbs. Turns out upper middle class white women care a lot about abortion.
So all those cops are going to quit now?
That was the threat by the FOP head. More likely they just refuse to enforce the law to sabotage Johnson's political standing while collecting paychecks. That's usually how the police handle it.
Context for why this is important. Dems need to take this seat to prevent Wisconsin Senate from having a supermajority and being able to impeach at will. Remember also that Wisconsin is gerrymandered as FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK, so if both these hold, Wisconsin could actually get decent maps for the first time in forever.
It was closer than it had any right to be, considering the candidates. But it's nice to be able to let that breath out I've been holding all month. The more progressive Alder also won my Ward. So, all in all, a pretty good day. Mayor, Alderwoman, SCOTWI, Finnish Ascension to NATO, and Trump arraigned.
Time for a Scotch to raise my joys rather than sink my sorrows.
800-1,000 threatened to according to the lying head of our FOP union.
So, hopefully.
Protasiewicz's win was the worst news for Trump today. Also the margin should be terrifying for the GOP. They're getting crushed in midwest swing states since Dobbs especially when Democrats run on abortion.
All that means is the city's crime rate will go down lol
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I had little hope for Johnson, considering Vallas had a huge lead in the general, an even bigger lead in fundraising (since effectively every big ticket donor was shoving money into Vallas's pocket), and very little name recognition going into the general election (the themes of the general were "We're tired of Lightfoot", and "Crime" which truly means nothing).
Johnson ran unashamedly progressive, saying over and over again the solution to crime in Chicago is to defund the police, drew the ire of every police union and white person who is vaguely "anti-crime", and won. That's crazy to me.
Geez I can't figure out why people keep calling Republicans fascists
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
He only had a lead if you assumed the black vote that went for Lightfoot wouldn't break towards Johnson. And... I mean, it's not impossible. Both Daley's had strong support among the South and West side communities, but... Vallas ain't Daley and Johnson isn't that far off from Harold Washington.
If they do choose to impeach and remove her, Evers would appoint the replacement, and then there'd be a special election in 2024. So it'd pretty much just be a spite move and doubling down on 2024.
I can't imagine impeaching a Supreme Court Justice who just won by a massive margin would go down very well...
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
We actually have an acid test on this score thanks to Rauner and the budget crises. I'll just copy paste an effort post I made to the socials awhile back.
Governor Rauner’s repeated vetoes of budgets resulted in an unprecedented period of time (from July 1, 2015 through August 31, 2017) without any funding going to State supported organizations, unless by Court Order or separate law/ self funding mechanisms. That budget impasse caused a massive upheaval in social programs who suddenly lost their funding (or received IOU’s which tend not to be very useful when making payroll). When the United Way surveyed human services agencies around Chicagoland in mid 2016 over 90%of them had cut services to their at risk populations.* The Catholic Charities staff that I talked to at the soup kitchen I volunteered at during that time were pretty blunt about the impact. Their colleagues had been laid off, some furloughed or with days working reduced, a number of initiatives that had been in development were mothballed and more than a few programs had simply been eliminated while they tried to make the money they had on hand be able to bridge the eventual resolution. Numerous agencies that focus on violence intervention and targeting at risk youth like Cure Violence and Ceasefire Chicago cut their funding to the bone or literally closed up shop.**
Money was still able to flow to certain departments and agencies thanks to various consent decrees, legally obligated funding that does not require annual appropriations, self funding mechanisms, as well as being more reliant on local government than State funds. The Chicago Police Department mostly fits those descriptions. Throughout the impasse when funding to at risk populations was fully eliminated, CPD’s budget received annual increases. With the exception of 2015-2016 fiscal years, with a ~$10m increase, those increases were well above inflation.***
2015 $1,374,214,220
2016 $1,384,510,306
2017 $1,434,741,100
2018 $1,511,933,076
So, what was the result of funding the police but defunding social services? An unprecedented year over year spike in the homicide rate that sent it back to a level not seen since the 90’s. (A time when lead poisoning fueled rampant violence**** )
2015 494 homicides
2016 795 homicides
2017 676 homicides
2018 573 homicides
2019 519 homicides
Once the General Assembly was finally able to override Rauner’s veto and the State budget was reinstated, allowing programs to expand again, the homicide rate started to precipitously decline back to the status quo ante. Hopefully the annual trend line will continue its decline to a homicide rate of fewer than 500 murders this year or next.***** Though the budget impact of the Pandemic seems likely to cause yet another natural experiment. Now, I’m not a sociologist, criminologist, political scientist, nor similar. Causation and correlation are difficult to tease out in the midst of something as massively complicated as a city of millions. Hopefully more than a few doctoral students are writing PhD theses doing that very difficult work of parsing out what interacted where. However, even with those caveats, that seems to be a pretty significant piece of explaining just what happened. Every cop didn’t suddenly get amnesia and loose decades of experience, or knowledge, or tools to address murder in the winter of 2015. Again, their budgets and staffing increased. So the reason that murders nearly doubled within a year strikes me as fairly straightforward:
Those programs work.
Violence prevention tools and social service support structures are more successful at preventing crime from occurring than an expanded police presence and incarceration attempting the same thing. Budget priorities that focus on reducing or intervening in circumstances before they become violent, or in providing paths to more fruitful futures are dollars much better spent than increasing the ranks of the police. (Particularly since CPD has admitted to a pattern and practice of rampant racism and criminality during their interactions with residents****** ) Reducing the city’s budget share dedicated to the police department will actually result in a more precipitous reduction in crime rather than increasing it.
*
https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/June-2016/United-Way-Human-Services-IL-Budget-Disaster/?fbclid=IwAR0xKH21JjJ9hqTSF6NShrY1cWCaYzNFCjjKIWdcHRJtYElH0gxqxMUjfFI
**
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/NEWS02/150309860/rauner-suspends-funding-for-chicago-anti-violence-group-ceasefire
***
https://www.chicityclerk.com/legislation-records/journals-and-reports/city-budgets
****
https://www.ricknevin.com/
*****
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-homicides-data-tracker-htmlstory.html?fbclid=IwAR086qophEIsK6OrP0fxhrfWG88F0W5uR9SxwMVUtw29ZMSEjbHyXj97CWo
******
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-findings-investigation-chicago-police-department
In polling done this past week, Vallas had a 6 point edge, 53 to 47 percent. Projections showed the race would be tight, but it always seemed like Vallas had a slight advantage the whole way and the huge TV advantage (seriously, there were commercial breaks where I would see 3 Vallas commercials back to back to back).
Either way, looks like the GOP's shitty gerrymander is probably going to get destroyed and those pieces of shit will be forced to deal with a map that isn't rigged to give them the level of control that that the currents maps are.
Hard to say if those maps will result in either chamber of the legislature switching, but those fuckers will lose their veto proof margins. Also I'm pretty sure the Congressional districts in Wisconsin are bullshit and those might get a redraw as well. Maybe not in time for 2024, but who knows.
I can see them trying. WI Republicans' main mode of governance boils down to "and what're you gonna do about it, huh?" since prior to that judicial election they've been larely invincible in the state.
Oh ho ho I'm not doubting that they're gonna try....
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Polling is really, really unreliable for this kind of scale. Especially because it is incredibly reliant on assumptions of what the electorate will look like and we probably had at most 1/3rd turnout.
Tim Dickinson is Senior Writer for Rolling Stone
Ali Alexander is some guy saying that they'll lose the Presidency in 2024 because they don't have Wisconsin Supreme Court. HMMMMM.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/04/north-carolina-tricia-cotham
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
My fear with progressive candidates at this level is never getting in the first time, it's getting re-elected when "crime is still bad" and the police are running against you.
Yeah, but why would WI Republicans care about that?
Their entire MO since Walker has been "Go fuck yourself, we can do whatever we want".
Crime is trending downward, and it really seems a reasonable claim to say it's more of a relic of the Pandemic lockdowns than anything that would cause another resurgence.
Also, for as much as "crime" was the issue it was really more quality of life stuff to my mind. The CTA is in bad shape because they can't hire enough operators to run a frequent enough schedule which helps feed antisocial behavior on the L (I've seen more people smoking in the last two years than the last two decades), and the homelessness problem has become more acute and visible.
Folks in the neighborhoods that voted for Vallas are not at risk of being shot. They're just using that as a synecdoche for the above. And those quality of life problems are the kind of thing that Johnson wants to tackle. The biggest problem is that he won't really be able to do much about homelessness because NIMBYism knows no party or clique. How dare you suggest building more housing on my street.
I think the issue is even if they do it it may not accomplish a heck of a lot due to them not being able to impeach fast enough to prevent somebody from stepping down during the process and having a nomination made by another dem. You would be switching names and faces but probably not a lot else and gaining a lot of ill will and attack adds about how the republicans are attacking democracy running into a presidential election year. I am not saying they won't do it but it has a strong chance of being very self destructive for WI GOP if they do. The state senate seat in question here was held by the GOP for like 30 years and the republican carried it by around 1% that is a huge swing in a few years for the suburbs where safe red strongholds suddenly are squeakers.