Morning Digest: Liberal candidates run up the vote in Wisconsin primaries

But what does it augur for a much bigger election in April?

Wisconsin Democrat Jill Underly, the state’s superintendent of public instruction (credit: Jill Underly ad screenshot)

Leading Off

WI Spring Elections

Democratic incumbent Jill Underly and a conservative-backed rival, education consultant Brittany Kinser, both advanced on Tuesday night to Wisconsin's April 1 election for superintendent of public instruction, a contest that will take place the same day as the state's pivotal battle for control of the Supreme Court.

Underly, who has the endorsement of the state Democratic Party, won 38% of the vote in the officially nonpartisan primary while Kinser took second with 35%. A third candidate, school administrator Jeff Wright, earned the remaining 27%.

Wright, a self-identified Democrat, ran with the backing of some teachers' unions, suggesting his voters would be more likely to favor Underly—also supported by teachers—rather than Kinser, who's received $200,000 from the state GOP and has campaigned chiefly on a pro-school voucher platform. However, Wright did not immediately get behind Underly, with a spokesperson telling the AP's Scott Bauer that he would "take some time to think" before issuing an endorsement.

Turnout, notes Bauer, was relatively low, with just 10% of Wisconsin's voting-age population casting ballots. The results may therefore not be predictive of the general election, when twice to three times as many voters typically engage. However, participation was considerably higher than it was when Underly first ran four years ago: In 2021, 326,000 voters voted in the primary, while this year, at least 467,000 did so.

Underly's showing is also the weakest by an incumbent since 1977, when Barbara Thompson, the first woman to hold the post of schools chief, won 37% in the primary. However, Thompson went on to secure a second term with 55% of the vote, and conservative candidates have fared poorly in superintendent races for decades. One recent example came in 2017, when Democrat Tony Evers won reelection to this post in a 70-30 landslide not long before he launched his successful campaign for governor.

The Underly-Kinser matchup will, however, be undercard in April, with the showdown between Judge Susan Crawford, who's also backed by state Democrats, and former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel as the marquee event. That contest will determine whether liberals retain the narrow 4-3 majority they secured in 2023 for the first time in 15 years and has already drawn far more spending than the race to oversee Wisconsin's schools.

It'll also be the first time since 2013 that the state will hold simultaneous contested elections for both posts, though elections for the Supreme Court have become much more openly partisan since then. It's likely, then, that if Crawford prevails, Underly will have a strong shot at a second term while a victory for Schimel would boost Kinser.

If you appreciate our coverage of critical off-year elections like those taking place in Wisconsin, then please consider supporting The Downballot as a paid subscriber. At $60 a year, that’s just 25 cents for each issue of our Morning Digest newsletter!

The Downballot Podcast

How Dems are fighting to save the Wisconsin Supreme Court

The most important election between now and November will take place on April 1 in Wisconsin, when liberals will defend their hard-won majority on the state Supreme Court. Joining us on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast is veteran Badger State strategist Joe Zepecki, who breaks down every aspect of the race for us: who the candidates are, what kind of attack ads each side is running, and how Elon Musk's seven-figure cash infusion threatens to end Democrats' financial dominance. Plus, why you'll want to keep an eye on Green Bay as the bellwether on election night.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also dive into the Minnesota Senate race, which was just transformed by Democrat Tina Smith's retirement. They explain why, contrary to conventional wisdom, retirements can actually be a good thing and discuss the troubles the GOP is likely to have in recruiting a top-shelf candidate. As if to make their point, one of the strongest possible Republicans they mention, Rep. Pete Stauber, announced he wouldn't run just after the Davids finished recording!

The Downballot podcast comes out every Thursday morning everywhere you listen to podcasts. Click here to subscribe and to find a complete transcript!

Senate

MN-Sen

Rep. Pete Stauber announced Wednesday that he won't seek Minnesota's open Senate seat, a move that could motivate other Republicans to run instead. His comments to Northern News Now came just a day after a GOP source told the Minnesota Star Tribune that "[a]nyone that matters is waiting on Stauber" to make up his mind.

One fellow Republican, former sportscaster Michele Tafoya, started musing about her own interest shortly before Stauber revealed his plans. She told WDAY's Steve Hallstrom she is considering running and discussed the matter with NRSC chair Tim Scott.

Tafoya also played recruiter-slash-pundit, saying that she's encouraged Liz Collin, a former TV anchor who now works for the conservative site Alpha News, to run herself. Tafoya also spoke highly of businessman Kendall Qualls, whose unsuccessful campaign for governor she co-chaired in 2022.

Tafoya added that she thinks Minnesota "is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn't tell them that they're going to ban abortion" but is also "the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime."

On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan leads Rep. Angie Craig 55-22 in a hypothetical test of next year's primary, according to a new survey from Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling.

Flanagan jumped into the race immediately after Sen. Tina Smith announced her retirement last week while Craig recently confirmed she's looking at the contest—as are many other potential candidates in both parties. (The poll, conducted for an unknown client, did not include any other names.)

Governors

IA-Gov

State Auditor Rob Sand confirms he's thinking about challenging Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, telling Pluribus he'll make up his mind sometime this year. Sand, the only Iowa Democrat left in statewide office, doesn't appear to have directly discussed his interest in running for governor before, though Bleeding Heartland identified him as a "likely" candidate last fall.

Speculation about Sand's plans intensified last month when newly released campaign finance reports showed that he ended 2024 with a wide $7.5 million to $3 million cash-on-hand lead over Reynolds.

Sand hauled in $8.6 million during the year, with most of that coming from his wife and her parents. Sand's in-laws are the namesakes of The Lauridsen Group, which manufactures and sells food products; his father-in-law, Nixon Lauridsen, has contributed to Reynolds in the past.

The governor, meanwhile, raised $1.8 million last year for her anticipated reelection campaign. Reynolds has yet to confirm she'll seek a third term but once again indicated she'd do so when she told reporters on Tuesday, "Stay tuned. There might be some news coming, just not today."

NM-Gov

Former Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima says he's considering seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, though he acknowledged he was early in the decision-making process in comments to the New Mexico Political Report's Nicole Maxwell.

Miyagishima's deliberations come at a time when former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has the primary to herself. The ex-mayor, Maxwell writes, became "the first Mexican-American of Japanese descent" to win office in the state when he secured a spot on the Dona Ana County Commission in 1992. He went on to win the mayor's office in 2007, and his 16-year tenure made him Las Cruces' longest-serving leader.

OK-Gov

A Republican pollster has released a survey of next year's GOP primary for governor that shows Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond beginning with a hefty lead.

Cole, Hargrave, Snodgrass & Associates, which regularly releases data on its home state, gives Drummond a 44-14 advantage over state Superintendent Ryan Walters in a hypothetical contest, with former state cabinet official Chip Keating and former state House Speaker Charles McCall respectively taking 6% and 5%. Drummond hits 50% in a scenario where Walters doesn't run, while Keating and McCall secure 7% apiece. (It takes a majority of the vote to avert a runoff.)

Drummond was the only announced candidate while the poll was in the field last week, while McCall kicked off his own effort on Tuesday. Several other Sooner State Republicans could also join the contest to succeed termed-out Gov. Kevin Stitt, whom CHS says took all of 1% when it first polled him eight years ago.

VA-Gov

Former Del. Dave LaRock says he's considering launching a late effort to wrest the Republican nomination from Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has no serious intra-party opposition.

The Virginia Scope's Brandon Jarvis, who first broke the news of LaRock's interest, notes that he would have to work fast to even get on the June 17 ballot. Virginia requires candidates for governor to collect 10,000 valid signatures statewide by April 3, including 400 signatures from each of the 11 congressional districts.

GOP operative Waverly Woods told Jarvis Wednesday she's working to circulate petitions for LaRock, a task she "literally just started today." Woods added, "I don't know how many other people were doing something somewhere else. The scuttle was going around, and I was like, 'I'm grabbing this bull by the horns."

Neither LaRock nor Woods, though, appear to have said why they want to stop Earle-Sears. The former delegate, who attended the Jan. 6 Donald Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, told Jarvis that he was still "just kind of formulating, putting the fine points on that messaging."

LaRock was last on the ballot in 2023 when he lost the primary for an open state Senate seat in the Shenandoah Valley by a 33-26 margin against farmer Timmy French. LaRock went on to wage a write-in campaign for this safely red seat, arguing that a win for French would mean "we have a Democrat representing us." French beat the actual Democratic nominee 58-33, with write-in votes representing the remaining 9%.

Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, meanwhile, continues to have the Democratic primary to herself even though Rep. Bobby Scott has yet to rule out running. The 77-year-old Scott, however, also hasn't taken any obvious steps to get on the ballot, and Jarvis writes that the chatter about him making a late effort "has seemed to die down."

If you appreciate our coverage of critical off-year elections like those taking place in Virginia, then please consider supporting The Downballot as a paid subscriber. At $60 a year, that’s just 25 cents for each issue of our Morning Digest newsletter!

Judges

MI Supreme Court

Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, one of just two Republicans left on the Michigan Supreme Court, unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that she would resign by the end of April, paving the way for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to give Democrats a dominant 6-1 majority.

Clement was appointed to the court in 2017 by Whitmer's predecessor, Republican Rick Snyder, and won election to a full eight-year term the following year. In 2022, she was unanimously chosen to serve as chief justice by her colleagues, earning their vote again in 2023 and once more just last month.

Because Clement's term is up next year, whoever Whitmer chooses to replace her will have to run again in 2026. Another Democratic justice, Megan Cavanagh, will also be up for reelection, but the soonest Republicans could take back the court would be in 2028, when two other Democrats will be on the ballot.