Gains in northern Wisconsin boost Hagedorn to narrow lead in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Craig Gilbert

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It was one of the closest Supreme Court races in Wisconsin history and generated one of the highest turnouts.

And propelled by major swings in the northern half of Wisconsin, Brian Hagedorn clung to a narrow lead over Lisa Neubauer Wednesday, giving conservatives an upset victory if those results hold up.

One year after the liberal court candidate, Rebecca Dallet, won her statewide Supreme Court race by 11.5 points, the conservative Hagedorn held a lead of about half a percentage point.

That represents a 12-point conservative swing in the statewide margin over April 2018.

But the swing was larger in some places and smaller in others.

Hagedorn got his biggest boosts from northeastern and north central Wisconsin.

In the 18-county Green Bay media market in northeast Wisconsin, the swing in the margin was roughly 20 points, according to incomplete returns, from a conservative deficit of more than 3 points last year to a conservative lead of roughly 17 points this time.

In the 11-county Wausau media market in north central Wisconsin, the swing in the court margin was 17 points, from a conservative deficit of 3 points in 2018 to an advantage of 14 points this time.

Those two regions, which happen to be areas where Republican Donald Trump performed well in 2016, also saw some of the state’s biggest turnout increases over April 2018 (a late pro-Hagedorn TV blitz invoked Trump in this race).

The biggest swing was in Manitowoc County, along Lake Michigan, won by the liberal court candidate by almost a point in 2018 but by the conservative by 25 points on Tuesday. In another key county, Marathon in central Wisconsin, Hagedorn won by 19 points and more than 5,000 votes after the conservative candidate, Michael Screnock, lost by a percentage point in 2018.

Of the 20 counties with the biggest swings in a conservative direction over the 2018 court race, all but two were in those two northern TV markets.

It took that kind of performance in northern Wisconsin and the Green Bay region for Hagedorn to overcome another huge liberal landslide in the area around Madison, the Democratic bastion of Dane County.

Dane actually delivered a bigger raw vote margin for Neubauer (more than 88,000 votes) than it did for the winning Dallet in 2018 (82,512). To put that in perspective, that was almost the same vote margin Democrat John Kerry got from Dane County in his 2004 presidential race, when turnout statewide was almost three times higher than in this judicial race.

Milwaukee County, the other key area for Democrats, gave Neubauer a vote margin of roughly 37,000 votes, a bit smaller than Dallet’s margin last year of 41,201.

Neubauer won 62% of the vote in Milwaukee County and 79% in Dane.

ELECTION RESULTS:Wisconsin Spring General Election

The key GOP suburban counties of Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee performed well for Hagedorn, turning out at much higher rates than in the court race a year ago and producing bigger conservative margins. Hagedorn won 75% of the vote in Washington, 69% in Waukesha and 63% in Ozaukee.

In the Milwaukee TV market, the counties of Dodge, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Walworth all had rightward swings in the point margin of at least 15 points over April 2018.

Big nonpartisan court races have become more and more politicized over the past decade or two. But it was still striking how closely the election map Tuesday resembled the one from last fall’s partisan race for governor, another tight contest statewide.

Of the 53 counties carried by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker last fall, Hagedorn won at least 49, based on the unofficial returns. And of the 19 counties carried by winning Democrat and current Gov. Tony Evers last fall, Neubauer won all but one.

Overall almost 1.2 million votes were cast, according to preliminary returns gathered by the Associated Press, for a turnout of more than 26 percent of the state’s voting-age population, compared to the April 2018 turnout of 22.3 percent.

The only court contests with higher turnouts in recent decades were in 2016, when the court race coincided with presidential primaries, and 2011, in the midst of the political wars over Walker’s push to curb public employee unions.

That 2011 race was also the closest court race in recent times, won by conservative David Prosser by 7,004 votes and just under 0.5 percentage points, prompting a recount.

This race appears to be closer in raw votes, similarly close in percentage terms and possibly headed for another recount.