The Wisconsin recall election Tuesday resulted in the Democrats taking two Senate seats from the Republicans, but four Republicans retained their seats, resulting in a perceived loss overall — if you ask the Republicans — as the Democrats failed to take the majority in the Senate. If you ask the Democrats, taking two seats away from Republicans is a huge win. Both are correct. Democrats needed  one additional seat to swing the balance of power, which now stands at 17 Republicans and 16 Democrats.
But the big loss for Democrats is not that they failed to win the Senate. Looking at the total number of votes cast across the state, there was a substantially wide margin favoring Republicans overall.
New York Times statistician and author of the fivethirtyeight blog, Nate Silver, Tuesday before the polls closed, wrote, “If you are going to read into the results, it is probably best to compare them to Mr. Walker’s performance in 2010 rather than the margins that the state senators themselves achieved that year.”
There were 184,228 Republican votes cast in total, (regardless of district breakdown,) and 165,130 Democratic votes lost in total. 52.7% to 47.3%.
Governor Scott Walker won the state by a 52.25% to 46.48% margin.
Additionally, contrary to what the mainstream media has been reporting, these are not solidly Republican districts.
“All of these seats can be classified as being in swing districts, having voted for Mr. Walker, a Republican, in 2010 but for President Obama in 2008. Most are a couple of points more Republican than Wisconsin as a whole,” Silver wrote.
“If some Republican incumbent was re-elected with 70 percent of the vote in 2010, but survives the recall with 55 percent of the vote, it would be dubious to cite that as a sign of progress for Democrats since the elections were contested under substantially different circumstances,” Silver adds. I disagree, since the issues will be the same in 2012 if there is a recall election for Walker.
So, looking at the four districts the Republicans kept, what do the numbers look like?
In District 2, Cowles easily retained his seat with a 60% to 40% win. But in 2008, Cowles won with 99.35% of the vote, and in 2004, with 89.13%. I’d still call that a harbinger for Walker.
In District 8, Darling won with a 54-46 margin. But in 2008, she won with 50.46% of the vote. so, not a win for Democrats at all.
In District 10, Harsdorf won with a 58-42 margin. In 2008, she won with 56.4 – 43.49%. So, she actually got a greater chunk of the votes last night. Bad for the Dems.
Lastly, in District 14, Olsen has never faced a Democratic challenger. Last night he won with only 52% of the vote. Not a good sign for him, or Walker.
Bottom line, the Democrats put two more Dems into the Wisconsin state Senate. That’s huge. But if anyone is looking at this as a good sign for 2012, or for recalling Walker, I’d say we have even more work to do. The Democrats did a great job. The Republicans had more money. Of course, we can still claim foul play with the repeated poor performance from Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus.