In the last 10 years there have only been three statewide Democratic Primary Elections:
- 2002 Democratic Gubernatorial Primary
- 2006 Democratic Attorney General Primary
- 2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Primary
None of these elections are completely comparable to the uncharted election territory we are entering, but they can provide some insight on the impact of turnout levels in specific counties, especially Milwaukee and Dane, and how much turnout levels in those two counties can drive the election results in a Democratic Primary.
2002 Democratic Gubernatorial Primary
In 2002, then Attorney General Jim Doyle, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Congressman Tom Barrett squared off to see who would face Governor Scott McCallum in the November General Election.
Five counties; Milwaukee, Dane, Waukesha, Racine and Rock, made up 52.08% of the vote in that election. Milwaukee and Dane alone accounted for over 40% of the vote. Barrett carried Milwaukee with just under 50% of the vote, and Falk won Dane with 50% of the vote. Doyle finished a strong second in both those counties and then won Waukesha, Racine and Rock, and 53 other counties to win the Primary. Doyle received 38% of the vote, to Barrett's 34% and Falk's 27%.
2006 Attorney General Primary
In 2006, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk challenged incumbent Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager to a Primary election. About 200,000 less voters participated in this election and we saw a significant reduction in the participation of Milwaukee county Democratic voters in this election versus 2002.
In 2002 Milwaukee accounted for 27% of the primary vote and in the 2006 primary Milwaukee County represented 18% of the vote. In took 8 counties to represent over half of the votes cast in 2006; Milwaukee, Dane, Brown, Waukesha, Outagamie, Marathon, Kenosha and Manitowoc. Falk beat Lautenschlager in Milwaukee county by 8,146 votes, but lost Dane County by 10,110 votes. Falk made up the 2,000 deficit in the 6 remaining large vote counties, creating a 6,000 vote lead that she continued to grow in the remaining 64 counties.
Falk defeated Lautenschlager 53% to 47%, winning 49 counties to Lautenschlager's 23.
2008 Democratic Presidential Primary
In 2008, Wisconsin had the opportunity to be a momentum shift in the Democratic Presidential Primary. Then Senator Obama had racked up eight primary wins in a row, and Senator Clinton was hoping to use Wisconsin as a stop gap. There was a lot of attention placed on the state, and Wisconsin responded by turning out 1.1 million voters for the Democratic primary.
Milwaukee, Dane, Waukesha and Brown were again the top 4 players equaling approximately 42% of the total vote. Racine, Rock and Outagamie rounded out the top 7 counties representing over 50% of the vote.
There was no Dane/Milwaukee difference in this Primary, Obama won all 7 of the top vote producing counties comfortably and defeated Clinton by almost 200,000 votes, capturing 62 of the 72 counties.
Democratic Primary Status Update
A week after the Daily Kos/PPP poll showed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett had a 14 point lead in the Democratic Primary, and the Barrett campaign released internal campaign polling results that they say confirms that double-digit lead, the Falk campaign released an internal strategy memo to Politico and others noting that Barrett's lead has shrunk to 8 points with a little over a week to go.
The Falk poll states that Barrett leads Falk 40% to 32%, with a significant portion of likely primary voters undecided.
To boost the last 11 days of the campaign, a third-party group largely sponsored by public employee unions, Wisconsin for Falk, is spending $1 million on paid media to.
The MU Law School Poll, conducted by Charles Franklin, will be out with new survey results on May 1st and will provide the latest and probably last independent look at the Democratic Gubernatorial primary. We will get those findings out to you as soon as they are released.
In the slide deck below we further explore the status of the Democratic Primary by compiling the results of the PPP and MU Law School Polls looking at movement in the top two candidates favorability and comparisons in the Democratic Primary ballot test and where the movement is.
The slide deck also contains maps and results for the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Democratic Primaries.
