In the 2020 election, Joe Biden won Wisconsin by less than one percentage point statewide. Donald Trump won St. Croix County by 16 points. In 2022, Republican Senator Ron Johnson won re-election by one point statewide and won in St. Croix County by 19 points. Last week, Wisconsin voters stepped up to balance the political scales by electing Democrat-backed Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by 11 points over Republican-backed Daniel Kelly.
Kelly prevailed in St. Croix County, but only by five points, according to Politico.
Even here in deeply conservative St. Croix County, increasing numbers of voters recognized what was at stake. The “will of the people,” once a standard of our democracy, has been usurped by a state GOP intent on moving us backwards on voting rights, women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and gun reform. Electing a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court is a first step to bring Democracy back to Wisconsin.
For more than a decade, the Wisconsin GOP has moved aggressively to erase the choices of voters. It gerrymandered districts to ensure Republicans would maintain control of the state assembly in perpetuity. When Democrats Tony Evers and Josh Kaul were elected in 2018, the Republican majority in the lame-duck session enacted new laws to strip power from the new governor and attorney general. Already there is talk among the GOP majority in the state assembly of impeaching Protasiewicz. Her crime: representing the will of Wisconsin voters.
Seeing the results of last week’s election here in Wisconsin I have to wonder if some conservatives have soured on the GOP’s power grab committed on their behalf. There is no honor in being on the winning team when you know they’ve cheated to do it.
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Email questions to hcoyle@orourkemediagroup.com.