Prosser Now Has Lead In Wisconsin, But Even If He Wins GOP Loses

In the suddenly-hotly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court race an earlier clerical error has been reversed, giving incumbent David Prosser a 7000 vote lead.

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said the votes weren’t reported to The Associated Press on Tuesday due to “human error.”

“This is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found,” she said. “This is human error, which I apologize for.”

Before the announcement, it was assumed 68-year-old conservative Justice David Prosser’s race against liberal assistant state attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg was headed for a recount. But Mr. Prosser’s lead is likely to stand if the new numbers hold up through canvassing in all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

If the lead holds, expect Republicans to beat their chests proclaiming victory; but Greg Sargent explains why challenger JoAnne Kluppenburg’s showing is a big deal for the left.

First, the current results reflect a massive and astonishingly fast swing of support away from Prosser and in Kloppenburg’s favor. In a primary election in February (Wisconsin judicial elections are nonpartisan, and the top two primary victors face off in the general), Prosser beat Koppenburg by 30 points, 55-25. The current results show she doubled her vote share in just over six weeks, while Prosser has lost ground. This huge shift happened for one reason: Scott Walker.

Second, it’s extremely rare in Wisconsin to oust sitting Supreme Court justices. In 2008, Louis Butler was unseated, but as University of Wisconsin professor Charles Franklin points out to me, he had originally been appointed and not elected. The last time this happened before that was 44 years ago, and it only happened three times before that since the court was created in 1852.

Third, for all the talk about labor muscle in this race, labor and Dems were actually outspent on the air by a sizable amount. According to an analysis of outside spending by the Brennan Center, the pro-Kloppenburg forces spent $1.3 million, while the pro-Prosser forces spent a total of almost $2.2 million, nearly $1 million more.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.