Kuttner on TAP: Some Good News for Democrats

In the crucial election for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, progressive Democrat Janet Protasiewicz nearly won the seat outright in the first-round, with 44.6 percent of the vote. She is now the favorite to win the runoff. The leading Republican, Daniel Kelly, made the runoff with only 24.2 percent. All told, in the multi-candidate primary election, Democrats won about 54 percent of the votes.

If Protasiewicz is elected, it will flip the court from 4-3 conservative to 4-3 progressive. During the 14 years of conservative control, the court has affirmed Republicans’ union-busting efforts and voting restrictions, including ID requirements and a prohibition of ballot drop boxes.

Kelly was a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin, but lost re-election in 2020 to Democrat Jill Karofsky by double digits. That, combined with the spread for Democratic candidates in the primary, should boost optimism that Wisconsin can get a Democratic majority on its highest court, and maybe some reversals of those voting rights measures—particularly the gerrymandering that has locked in a supermajority-conservative legislature in a purple state, making it something less than a democracy.

Meanwhile in Virginia, in a special election for an open (and safe Democratic) seat in the Richmond area 4th District, Democrat Jennifer McClellan won a resounding 74.3 percent of the vote, outperforming the usual Democratic baseline. In Louisville, Kentucky, a liberal Democrat won a state Senate race by about 12 points above Biden’s margin in the district in 2020. And in New Hampshire, Democrats picked up a state House seat in Rochester, in an election that was a re-run of an exact tie last November.

Even President Biden has enjoyed an uptick in his approval ratings since his outstanding state of the union performance and his resolute defense of Ukraine. In the latest NPR/Marist poll, his approval was 46 percent, the highest in a year.

Something is happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. But a good candidate would be the sheer lunacy and disarray of the House Republicans. For Democrats, this will be a gift that keeps on giving. Add Donald Trump to the cauldron and the slugfest among Republican contenders for 2024, and the news only gets better.

Democrats, as the party of both sanity and of concrete benefits for working people, have gotten a bum rap from the press. The voters are beginning to show some love.