Rural voters moved to the left in Wisconsin primary - Entrepreneur Generations

Results were slow in coming for the April 7 primary election in Wisconsin, but this much seems clear: rural voters moved to the left, which could have interesting implications for President Trump in November.

The most important race on the ticket was for a seat on the state Supreme Court. It's officially a non-partisan race, but there were clear favorites for each party. Justice Dan Kelly, whom Trump endorsed, was widely favored to win the race. But the liberal-backed challenger, Dane County Judge Jill Karofsky, unseated Kelly by a margin of more than 10 points, Tim Marema and Bill Bishop report for The Daily Yonder. Kelly won by 3 points among rural voters; in 2016, Trump won the state's rural voters by 20 points. In the 2020 primary, rural voters accounted for about a quarter of the votes cast.

"When we use the Karofsky/Kelly Supreme Court justice race as a surrogate for the national presidential contest, we see broad movement toward the Democratic side of the ledger in Wisconsin, compared to 2016 presidential contest," Marema and Bishop report. Democrats or liberal candidates "improved their margins across the board in every category of county the Daily Yonder normally tracks," and though the gains were largest in small- and medium-sized metropolitan areas, "Karofsky improved on Clinton’s rural performance by about 10 points. She made rural a horse race in areas where Trump blew the doors off Clinton in 2016."


from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/3ai7Vkc Rural voters moved to the left in Wisconsin primary - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet