Wisconsinites have voted to move Supreme Court candidates Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock to the general election in April.
Rebecca Dallet is a Milwaukee County Judge and Michael Screnock is a Sauk County Judge. Wisconsin GOP and Governor Walker support Michael Screnock. A long list of local judges and elected officials are supporting Rebecca Dallet.
Dallet and Screnock beat out the more liberal-leaning Middleton attorney Tim Burns.
The race had higher turnout than usual for a primary. The average for spring primaries when the Supreme Court is the only statewide item on the ballot is just 7 percent. Yesterday, 11 percent of registered voters showed up, despite the bad weather.
The results are fairly similar to 2016’s Supreme Court race. That three-way primary race also had two more liberal-leaning candidates – JoAnne Kloppenburg and Joe Donald – and one backed by the GOP, Rebecca Bradley.
In that race, Bradley took just over 40 percent of the votes, and Kloppenburg and Donald split the majority. Just like that year, more votes were cast for the liberal-leaning candidates this year.
And then Bradley won in 2016.
WisPolitics.com Capitol reporter JR Ross says although the races are similar, the conditions for the general election are pretty different because, in 2016, Presidential candidates were also on the ballot which drew more republican voters to the polls.
But Ross says both sides have a reason to go all in in the general election.
“Republicans can’t afford a narrative right now of losing a republican seat like the 10th Senate District in January and then losing a statewide race for the Supreme Court in a year when you’re trying to push back on a democratic wave coming,” he says.
In more local news, for the Dane County board races, in district 6, the Madison east side, Pam Porter and Yogesh Chawla were the top 2 vote-getters and will advance to the April election.
On the west side, Al Matano and Kelly Danner will advance. On the southwest side, Stephen Peters and Brent Renteria move ahead to the general. Dane County saw 25% of registered voters show up.
The spring election is April 3rd.