Ducking Bullets

 

Incumbency usually proffers benefits to the officeholder, like almost guaranteed re-election. This is how Wisconsin's recall elections should be viewed. Democrats took the GOP down a peg, tho, and so the next general election ought to be a doozy.

 

Nate Silver predicted this before the results were in:

On the other hand, Mr. Walker carried the six districts on Tuesday’s recall ballot by an average of 13 percentage points in 2010 — better than his statewide margin of 6 percentage points. If Democrats were to split the vote across these districts about evenly, that would be a reasonably troubling sign for Mr. Walker, however many of the seats Democrats actually win.

The Results? (incumbents listed first)

Alberta Darling 54%    Sandra Pasch 46%

Sheila Harsdorf 58%    Shelly Moore 42%

Luther Olsen 52%        Fred Clarke 48% 

Randy Hopper 49%      Jessica King 51%

Dan Kapanke 45%       Jennifer Shilling 55%

Robert Cowles 60%    Nancy Nusbaum 40%

Mixed bag, I'd say, but if I was Walker, I'd be a little alarmed. Lost two, almost lost a third, in districts he won pretty handily (except Kapanke's, in which he barely had a plurality.)