Democrats flex their newfound muscle in state Assembly races

Steven Elbow  —  10/29/2008 12:01 pm

Here's a plumber you won't find John McCain talking about.

Jeff Smith is a self-described Independent who used to vote Republican. But the 43-year-old voted Democratic in the last presidential election and plans to do the same on Nov. 4.

"Even though I have conservative values, I feel I'm more in line sometimes with what the Democratic Party stands for," Smith said. "It seems to be what the everyday person is looking for."

Smith moved to DeForest 12 years ago from Wauwatosa, and now lives in the 47th Assembly District, a former Republican stronghold that has become a soft spot on the GOP political map.

The stakes in the Nov. 4 election are huge. If Democrats can get pull off a win in the 47th, it will be one of three seats they need to control the state Assembly. Already in control of the Senate and the governorship, a majority stake in the Assembly will give the Democrats complete control of the state's legislative agenda for the first time since 1985.

Both parties have focused laser-like attention on the 47th, where Democrat Trish O'Neil and Republican Keith Ripp are vying for the open seat created when longtime Republican Rep. Eugene Hahn decided not to run for re-election.

"We know how important this race is for the state of Wisconsin," O'Neil recently told a group of enthusiastic supporters gathered for a fundraiser in the town of Roxbury. "It's not just about the 47th. It's about taking back the Assembly so we can get things done."

Smith's door was one of 10,000 O'Neil estimates she has knocked on in her quest for the seat.

"I think I'm definitely voting for her," Smith said.

Smith's defection from the GOP reflects a trend among state residents who are increasingly switching their party loyalty to Democrats.

He and his wife, Laura, have three school-age kids, and the economy and health care have emerged as key concerns for the family. Smith said he's come to realize that Republicans have few answers to the current problems facing the country.

"I've become a little disenchanted with what the Republican Party has put on the table," he said.

Living in an area infused with liberal values is also contributing to his changing political attitude.

"I've got individuals that I would consider ultra-liberal living next to me, and it seems like you're just more exposed to it," he said. "It's more in the news. It's more in the everyday conversation with people."

Smith is an example of what Robert Booth Fowler, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, calls the "Dane County effect," the exporting of Madison's liberal culture on surrounding communities. And he said it is looming large in the epic battle for the state Assembly. With 10 percent of the statewide vote, Dane County promises to affect the state presidential race as well.

"It's a huge effect," said Fowler, whose 2008 book, "Wisconsin Votes," documents voting trends in the state. "As far as I can figure out Republicans have no effective way of addressing this growing influence that is very Democratic."

And Democrats are also gaining clout elsewhere. The Eau Claire-La Crosse area and the Fox Valley cities of Green Bay and Appleton have tipped Democratic after years of Republican dominance, and southwest Wisconsin is turning blue as well. Fowler doesn't have a pithy name for these Democratic gains. But he said they are undeniable.

"I don't think it looks particularly good for Republicans," he said.

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Former Gov. Lee Dreyfus once famously described Madison as 30 miles surrounded by reality (the square mileage has since more than doubled). But politically, the "reality" surrounding Madison is becoming more like the city as the liberal culture Dreyfus had ridiculed fans out to surrounding counties.

"It's very clear that in these counties, the closer you get to Dane County the more Democratic the vote is, and the more Democratic it's become," Booth Fowler said. "And it's the becoming that is the real sign that change is taking place."

He points to the 47th Assembly District as Exhibit A.

The 47th District was once considered a cakewalk for Rep. Hahn, who was first elected to the state Assembly in 1990. A lifelong resident, farmer, former member of the county Farm Bureau, 4-H leader and Columbia County Board member, Hahn had name recognition and could depend on the votes of friends and neighbors.

In 2000, Hahn handily beat out his Democratic challenger, besting Laurent Soucie by 26 percent of the vote. In 2002, Hahn beat Meagan Yost by 8 percent. Yost came back for two more contests, losing to Hahn by 4 percent in 2004, then by a mere half a percent in 2006.

Hahn, 79, decided to call it quits after 18 years, and Yost has bowed out.

Despite recent voting trends in the district, Ripp, a Lodi-area farmer and town of Dane supervisor, said his connections with district voters have peeled off Democratic voters.

"Many of them are supporting me," he said.

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, doesn't deny that the 47th has gained Democratic voters with the growth of urbanized populations in DeForest and Windsor. But he points out that George W. Bush still won 50 percent of the presidential vote there in 2004.

"It's not quite as Democratic as a lot of people think," he said, noting he feels "pretty good" about Ripp's chances.

But Fowler said the GOP has good reason for concern.

"Ten years ago, that was Republican territory," Fowler said of the 47th District. "That's not true anymore."

In recent elections, Democrats have also been solidifying their lock on the Madison area. Central Madison Rep. Mark Pocan has not seen a challenge since 2004, and Joe Parisi, elected in 2004 to represent Madison's east side and the towns of Dunn and Blooming Grove, is running unopposed for the first time.

Democrats have also cemented dominance in the 81st District, which includes north Madison and outlying communities. When Democrat Dave Travis announced he was giving up the seat he had held for 30 years, no Republicans signed up to take a crack at it, and the Democratic primary winner, Kelda Helen Roys, is heading to the Assembly unopposed in the general election.

Even Maple Bluff on Madison's north side, long reputed to be an enclave of conservatism, backed John Kerry for president in 2004, after voting for Bush in 2000.

And two years ago, Democrats started knocking off surrounding districts, giving credence to Fowler's Dane County effect.

In Jefferson County, Democrat Andy Jorgensen took the 37th District after it opened up in 2006 when GOP Rep. David Ward resigned after serving for nearly 12 years. And in Rock County's 43rd District, Kim Hixson managed to knock off Republican incumbent Debi Towns, who is trying to take the seat back this time around.

It's a trend that has Democrats optimistic about Democrat John Waelti's chances for wresting the 80th Assembly seat in Green County and parts of Dane and Rock counties from Republican Brett Davis.

But the Democratic wave threatens the GOP with eroding support in other parts of the state as well.

Pocan, who is heading up the Democrats' effort to take the Assembly, said other districts that are trending toward the Democrats lie in the Fox Valley, the Eau Claire-La Crosse area and southwest Wisconsin, where Republicans took huge hits in 2006.

Jefferson, on the other hand, said he expects the GOP to turn back the tide in some of the districts Republicans lost in 2006, particularly Towns' bid to win back the 43rd District seat from Hixson.

But Pocan flatly shot down the notion.

"That's one they're trying to play up," he said. "But Debi's not coming back. We've done plenty of tracking polling and we know we're pretty solid there."

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An idea of where the most contested races are being duked out can be gleaned by following the money.

Special interest cash is flying in the Eau Claire area, where Democratic challenger Kristen Dexter is seeking to oust Terry Moulton in the 68th, and Republicans hope Darcy Fields can take the 93rd District seat Jeff Smith (no relation to the DeForest plumber) wrested out of Republican hands in 2006.

The Middleton-based Coalition for America's Families has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on pro-Republican television ads in the Madison and Eau Claire areas, and Club for Growth has followed suit with radio ads.

The Michigan-based conservative group All Children Matter has targeted the 68th and at least 11 other districts with mailings accusing Democrats of supporting health care for illegal aliens and wanting to raise taxes. It has sent mailings in Green Bay, where Republicans have pitted Tony Theisen against Democrat Jim Soletski, who beat out the GOP's Judy Krawczyk in 2006 for the 88th District seat.

The group has peppered the Fox Valley with its mailings, seeking to sway the vote where the GOP is desperately trying to hang on to the Appleton-area's 57th District, left open by the retirement of Steve Wieckert. Despite the advantage of incumbency, Wieckert barely fended off a challenge in 2006 by Penny Bernard Schaber, a Democrat, who is running again this year against Republican Jo Egelhoff. All Children Matter has also targeted O'Neil and Waelti.

On the Democratic side, the teachers union WEAC has reserved more than $1.5 million in television ads in Madison, La Crosse, Green Bay and Wausau, and the group has unleashed a massive ad campaign in battleground districts.

And other unions have weighed in as well.

Dorothy Curtis, legislative committee chairwoman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Chapter 965, said she has been splitting her time between boosting O'Neil and Clark by talking to workers and registering members to vote. She said the time and effort her union is putting into the election is unprecedented.

"I think that the unions have come to realize that we need to talk to our workers," she said.

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Both Republicans and Democrats say the top-of-the-ticket will be a huge factor in determining local elections. And it's not looking good for Republicans. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is enjoying a surge in the polls, and the Republican National Committee has pulled its advertising on behalf of its candidate, John McCain.

Republicans can still count on heavily Republican Milwaukee suburbs in Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties. While the suburbs have more votes than the city of Milwaukee, the city is more one-sided in favor of Democrats.

"Therefore it balances out," Fowler said.

Meanwhile, Dane County is growing. The county's share of the vote has doubled in the past 50 years, from 5 percent to 10 percent. And its voters are consistently Democratic.

While Fowler said Republicans appear to be gaining a few votes in the west where Minnesota/St. Paul commuters have settled, they're not making significant gains anywhere else.

Fowler said it makes for a disturbing trend for Republican strategists.

"I think the problem from the point of view of Republicans is: Where are they generating some margin out of the rest of the state that will help them?" he said.

And the state GOP's hopes that the McCain-Palin ticket will get Republican voters to the polls is dimming. McCain's campaign, which has drawn biting criticism even from those in his own party for its negative tone, is not generating the kind of excitement Republicans had hoped for.

As Richard Kern, a Waunakee real estate agent and a lifelong Republican who plans to vote for McCain recently put it, "I'm going to hold my nose and do it."

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OTHER KEY RACES TO WATCH

In the southwest corner of the state, 49th District Rep. Phil Garthwaite, who handed three-term Republican Gabe Loeffelholz his walking papers in 2006, appears poised to fend off a challenge from Travis Tranel.

In other targeted races:

Republicans say Nathan Russell is in a good position to oust incumbent Steven Hilgenberg in the nearby 51st District in Iowa County, where voters gave the heave-ho to 16-year GOP lawmaker Steve Freese in 2006.

In the west, Democrats say Ann Hraychuck, who bested Republican incumbent Mark Pettis in 2006 for the 28th District seat in Polk and Burnett counties, is fending off a challenge by Republican Kent Muschinske.

In the 42nd District, Republican incumbent J.A. "Doc" Hines, R-Oxford, is fighting off a challenge from Democrat Fred Clark of Baraboo.

And in the 91st District, where longtime Democratic Rep. Barb Gronemus of Whitehall is retiring, the race between Republican Dave Hegenbarth and Democrat Chris Danou promises to keep both sides guessing until the end.

Steven Elbow  —  10/29/2008 12:01 pm