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Assembly speaker Robin Voss has often said it's not the maps that result in outsized Republican majorities in the legislature is that they have better candidates senior political reporters act Schultz is here now with additional factors that impact elections hi Zach. Hello Frederica. So is it true that Republicans have better candidates and messaging and organizing. Well when Robin Voss says that what he's referring to is in two thousand
eighteen with Tammy Baldwin's US Senate run in two thousand twenty two with Governor Evers re-election they each won at the top of the ticket a number of assembly districts and enough that the Democrats would have had the majority in the assembly if all of their down ballot Democrats had won their races.
And he says that proves that down ballot Republicans win on their messaging. But there's also the factor that in Wisconsin split ticket voters exist and they do separate out their feelings on who should be a US senator or a governor and who should run for assembly. So there is truth in what he's saying but a different district makeup will affect that as well.
So as to the question of incumbents landing in the same district with new maps how big of a deal is that. Well that happens every ten years during redistricting anyway in the past the legislature has tried to avoid that because it's their incumbents Republicans in 2011 under Scott Walker tried to minimize
the number of incumbents that were affected by that and the same thing in the last round. It's not unusual and Wisconsin's laws on who can run in what district are very loose.
So residents requirements don't limit an incumbent who is now just outside their new borders to run over here get an apartment move in after they win.
We've got cases where people have actually owned homes in other districts and taken property tax credits on those homes but still represented somewhere else.
There really isn't any enforcement mechanism so I don't think it's that big of a deal.
It's something to talk about however in terms of if people don't want to move getting paired up in the same district is an issue.
If one wants to retire or they're going to run against each other in a primary.
So what are other implications of the new maps in terms of governing?
Is it most conceivable iterations that there's isn't it that most of these maps there'd still be a Republican advantage?
Well that's the geographic nature of the state. The distribution of Democratic voters is concentrated in the cities and in urban areas and Republicans are a little more spread out at the moment.
That doesn't mean you can't draw Democratic districts in urban areas or by taking off chunks of cities.
That's been done and been proven these maps are possible but the average map mathematicians from UW have told us in the past will slightly favor Republicans.
But that doesn't talk about swing elections, wave elections and candidate quality as Robin Voss has talked about.
So you suggested the Republican maps are designed to appeal to the US Supreme Court but experts say that it is highly unlikely it would go there.
Well this is the Republicans Hail Mary. They want to keep all their options open so if the US Supreme Court does weigh in and they say alright well if the only thing was wrong is a non-contiguous part of the district.
The Assembly Republican map fixes that problem without changing anything and keeps it on majority in favor of Republicans and they're hoping that is the outcome that comes out of the US Supreme Court if it does get there.
Alright Zach thanks very much.
Thanks Fred.
That last answer was really good because