The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
2024 Election Coverage. As predicted, it was a close
election with winners and losers on both sides. But unforeseen
were the MAGA gains across the country and across Wisconsin.
I'm Frederica Freyberg tonight. I'm "Here& Now". Reporter Zac
Schultz on Wisconsin's election results and the new landscape of
the state legislature. Political scientist Anthony Chergosky on
how Donald Trump defied demographics. And our political
panelist, Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross give us their partisan
takes. It's "Here& Now" for November 8th.
provided by the Focus Fund for journalism and friends of PBS
Wisconsin. >> Wisconsin was the tipping
point for Donald Trump's victory. When our results came
in, they pushed him over the top. Final results Trump with
49.7% of the vote to Kamala Harris's 48.8%. In Wisconsin's
U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin beat
Republican Eric Hovde by a similarly close margin, with
Baldwin at 49.4% to Hovde 48.5%. Senior political reporter Zach
Schultz has more now. >> Election day 2024 arrived
with gray skies and a steady rain as voters cast their
ballots. Democrats were convinced Kamala Harris was
pulling away in the final days of the election.
>> There were a lot of people who didn't think we could do
this. chairman of the Republican Party
of Wisconsin. He says it was the hard work of thousands of
volunteers who convinced voters to send Donald Trump back to the
white House. >> This got done because
volunteers and staff across this state went out and talked to
over a million and a half voters.
started coming in and showed the race for president and U.S.
Senate would be tight. The election night party for
Democrat Tammy Baldwin was largely empty. Baldwin herself
never showed. It was up to Lieutenant Governor Sarah
Rodriguez to inform the handful of supporters it would be a late
night. some of these results roll in,
and I want to level with you. We are likely not going to know the
Senate results until much, much later in the evening.
>> Republican Eric Hovde mingled with guests at his party, and at
least they could celebrate as state after state was called
for. Donald Trump. Finally, when it was clear the absentee
ballots out of the city of Milwaukee, central count would
not be enough for Harris to catch up to Trump in Wisconsin.
The room erupted. >> Wisconsin is the state that
put Donald Trump over 270 electoral votes last night.
>> However, there were enough votes left for Baldwin to
surpass Hovde, although she had to wait a long time to deliver
her victory speech. >> And to the people of
Wisconsin, thank you for putting your trust in me as your United
States Senator. Let's get to work.
>> Even as Tammy Baldwin made her victory speech two days
after the election, Eric Hovde demurred on conceding Zac
Schultz joins us now from the Capitol with more on this and a
look at legislative races. Hey, Zach.
>> Hello, Fred. >> So, for his part, Eric Hovde
blames a third party candidate on his loss. What is that about?
>> Well, I'm sure for most of our viewers, this will be the
first time they've heard of Thomas Leiber. He he really came
out of nowhere. He doesn't have any party. He didn't really come
as attached to running any ads or anything like that. But his
name did appear on the ballot, and he did receive a significant
number of votes for a third party candidate. And it becomes
more significant when you have a tighter race. However, even
Bryan Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin,
said it's incumbent on their candidate to let voters know who
is the real Republican in the race and this isn't the first
time that third party candidates have played spoiler. The third
party candidates in the presidential race took a
significant number of votes. In 2016, Democrats blamed Jill
Stein and the Green Party for taking a significant number of
votes away from Hillary Clinton. A lot of these cases, it's
simply people deciding to raise a protest vote. And when they're
voting third party, especially if they don't know who the
actual candidate is. And in fact, if Hovde had just ran
closer to Trump, then perhaps he would have come out ahead of
Baldwin. But he's blaming it on a third party candidate at this
point. allowed a switch from the
current 22 to 11 Republican majority in the state Senate to
an election pickup of four seats for Democrats, narrowing the
Republican majority in that chamber to 18 to 15. What are
the implications of that? >> Well, it's pretty big in the
Senate. Republicans had a supermajority, which means they
had the ability to constitutionally impeach people.
We've seen them do that in the past. They refused to seat any
of Governor Evers appointees and rejected quite a few of them. So
with that large of a power imbalance in the state Senate,
Republicans could do whatever they wanted with a much more
narrow majority. Not only did they lose two incumbents, which
is pretty significant. Duey Strobel sits on joint finance
and he was a big conservative figurehead in that party. And
knocking him off is a pretty big accomplishment for Democrats.
And just the implications of them running ahead and against
these Republican headwinds that came everywhere else. These were
four swing seats that they won and picked up in this race. And
in prior years where we've seen a red wave election, so to
speak, 2010 2014 Democrats down ballot are getting crushed. So
the Democrats are rightfully so, saying they did a really big job
of winning these seats and putting themselves in position
to possibly challenge for the majority in the Senate in 2026.
>> So in the Assembly, the current Republican majority is
64 to 35, and Democrats picked up ten seats in that chamber,
bringing their majority down to 54 to 45. Now that's a smaller
gain, but still potentially predictive for 2026.
>> Well, it's significant in a lot of ways, not in the
Assembly. Republicans were only two seats short of a
supermajority, which meant in the last session, Democrats had
to have every member there every session day, because if they
shrunk their amount, then that reduced what the Republicans
needed to possibly override some of Governor Evers vetoes. That
threat is gone in this next session. And once again, it puts
Democrats in position to challenge for the majorities in
26. And most importantly, we should see shifts in what it
means over the next two years of governing in this state. I don't
think anyone's going to predict that Republicans and Governor
Evers are suddenly going to have a great relationship. But every
vote that these Republicans tak, they're going to have to think
about their vulnerable members and what it might mean back in
their district in the next election in years. And sessions
past. Robin Vos, for example, the Assembly Speaker, has let
some of his more vulnerable Republicans vote no against some
Republican legislation because with 64 or 60 votes, it mattered
that it passed this time around with only a 54 seat majority. If
he can't let that many of these vulnerable members take really
damaging votes. So you might see a shift in what actually comes
to the floor over the next two years.
around the corner from a state Supreme Court spring election on
April 1st. What are the stakes in that race?
>> Well, every time we have an election in Wisconsin, people
say it's the most important election of your lifetime. And
they'll be saying that about this one again. Right now, the
Supreme Court has a 4 to 3 Liberal majority. The Justice
that is retiring is Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. She is part of
that Liberal majority. So with her out it's three three.
Whoever wins this, whether it's a conservative candidate or
Liberal candidate, will decide the makeup of the majority for
the foreseeable future. So it actually is quite significant.
Last time around with the Janet Protasiewicz, we saw record
national level spending. We're probably going to see that
again. That's coming up in April. So people who thought the
political ads were gone for their television, you may get a
couple months off, but the ads are coming back and they're
going to come back in a big way. >> So the current Liberal
majority court is hearing oral arguments on Monday in the
lawsuit over abortion in Wisconsin. What will that be
deciding? we handle abortion in Wisconsin.
Currently, the 1849 law that handles and regulates abortion
in Wisconsin has been put on hold by a Dane County judge. So
the Supreme Court is reviewing whether that's appropriate,
whether abortion laws that have been passed since 1849 supersede
and override that. And so we're kind of in a Roe environment as
far as what that matters. But they'll also at the same time be
deciding if there is a constitutional right to
abortion, health care in Wisconsin. So they could go
either way. And as for what we should expect next Monday,
there's going to be increased security in the Capitol. We've
already been told people will have to pass through metal
detectors to get into the chamber. They're expecting
protesters. It's also Veterans middle of oral arguments, we can
expect to hear a 21 gun salute for Veterans Day programing. So
there will be a lot going on. The bigger question, especially
tying it back to that election that we were just talking about,
is when this decision might be released. Does it come down
before that April Supreme Court election impacting it that way,
or will it be released after that election so that we don't
know the fate of abortion rights in Wisconsin in leading into
that election next year? >> All right, Zac Schultz,
thanks very much. A lot of information. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Fred. Reproductive rights were said to be a primary
driver for voters in Tuesday's election. But were they what
was? We turn to UW lacrosse political scientist Anthony
Chergosky for his take. And thanks for being here, Professo.
Thank you. Is it fair to say that the main driver of Donald
Trump's win was voters unhappiness with the economy?
>> I think so, just general dissatisfaction with the Biden
administration. And there could be different factors driving
that dissatisfaction. But when we look across the country,
there was this uniform swing towards the Trump ticket across
all kinds of geographic areas, across all kinds of demographic.
So it tells me that this election was bigger than any one
specific region, any one specific geographic area, any
one specific demographic. Though there are some demographics that
do stand out as particularly significant. In general, this
just seems to be a broad repudiation of the Biden
administration. >> Yeah. So you're quoted as
saying that the results underscore Trump's ability to
make largely uniform gains across all types of geographic
areas and all types of demographics. You say some of
those demographics stand out, like what?
>> The Latino vote. When we look at areas with a concentrated
Latino vote, we see a stark trend towards Donald Trump. So
those states with high levels of the Latino population that is a
big part of the post-election analysis, I think. But of cours,
Wisconsin, very much a majority white state. So the racial and
ethnic politics of Wisconsin are different than, say, a state
like Arizona or Nevada. So we did see Wisconsin follow
slightly different trends than other states. In fact, the swing
towards Trump was not as substantial in Wisconsin as in
some other states. So I think all of that is relevant when we
do that post-election analysis. >> Were you surprised at all by
the gains on Trump's part nationwide? But even the smaller
ones in Wisconsin? >> Yeah, he did make some small
gains in Wisconsin, ultimately enough to put him over the top
here, but it was still a really close election. And now, Fred,
we get to say that the last three presidential elections in
Wisconsin were each decided by fewer than 30,000 votes. So
Wisconsin entered this election season as the ultimate swing
state. I think we emerge from this election season as the
ultimate swing state. There is always talk about states
becoming swing states or states that were swing states no longer
being swing states. Speculation about, say, if Wisconsin goes
the direction of Ohio, going more Republican goes the
direction of Virginia, going more Democratic. But I think
we're right back where we started, Wisconsin being that
key swing state. Milwaukee continues to edge
toward blue in parts of it, Donald Trump gained in places
like Madison on the UW campus, who are his voters helping him
make those kinds of gains? >> There's a lot of talk about
young men, and the gender gap is a big storyline in this
election. We've seen a gender gap in American elections for
years and years and years where women are more likely to go for
the Democratic Party, and men are more likely to go for the
Republican Party. And we see that gender gap across all ages.
But there are signs that the gender gap is particularly
pronounced among young voters. And this fits into the lose buy
less motto that Republicans had when it comes to Madison and
Milwaukee. They know they're going to lose those areas, but
they wanted to lose them by less than they did before, and it
seems like they accomplished that.
obviously, again, was a big consideration. But some seem to
be surprised by how many women actually then did go ahead and
vote for Donald Trump. >> It's a big part of the story,
right? Because ultimately the Harris team could have benefited
from an even larger gender gap. The big question going into this
election, just how big that gender gap would be, the exit
polls give us some indication. I think there's going to be more
data on that. That gives us a clearer vision of what exactly
that gender gap was. But watch that gender gap among young
voters. I think that's going to be really important in upcoming
elections. >> So in your neck of the woods
in the third Congressional District, Republican incumbent
Derrick Van Orden won handily. What kind of coattails did he
get from Trump? And what was that race about?
>> Yeah, as expected, Derrick Van Orden won by a bit. This was
anticipated to be the most competitive U.S. House election
in Wisconsin, and indeed, it was a big part of the election was
the spending on the Democratic Party side. Rebecca Cooke
enjoyed much more spending to support her candidacy than the
Democratic candidate in 2022, Brad Pfaff. So I think that
contributed to the competitiveness of this electio.
Ultimately, Van Orden won this election by roughly the same
margin that he did in 2022, and you can bet that the parties are
wasting no time in looking ahead to 2026, as this is, I'm sure,
once again anticipated to be the most competitive U.S. House
district in Wisconsin. I think it's going to stay that way for
at least the next election cycle or two.
Rebecca Cooke did really well compared to the top of the
ticket candidates? >> Yes. Here in the cross County
and in some of the surrounding counties that I've been able to
look at, Rebecca Cooke did better than Kamala Harris. In
fact, there are places where Rebecca Cooke did better than
Tammy Baldwin, and that is no easy feat in Wisconsin politics,
because we know that Baldwin has a strong track record of
electoral success. So I think that people are going to emerge
from this election with a positive attitude towards the
Cooke campaign. She didn't quite win, but she was able, in key
situations to do better, maybe even substantially better than
the other Democrats on the ballot.
ahead. Two years. >> Yep, yep. Do we get a
rematch? I mean, we're always looking ahead to the next
election as as political get a rematch? I mean, when
Derrick Van Orden did really well in the 2020 election, he
came up a little short, but it was clear that he could run for
2022 and do quite well. That year. Are we in the same
situation right now? I think there's going to be a lot of
focus on this congressional district moving forward. I don't
think the 2024 election does anything to change the fact that
this third congressional district is a key one in
Wisconsin. thanks very much. Thank you.
State Attorney General Josh Kaul held a press conference today
stating the Department of Justice will protect the rights
of Wisconsinites from the newly elected Trump administration.
>> And let me say that if the new administration infringes
upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use
our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act. We
will act to protect the best interests of the people of the
state of Wisconsin, will act to uphold equal justice under the
law, and we will act to defend Wisconsinites freedoms.
>> The Attorney General also addressed targeted racist texts
being sent to people across the country and here in Wisconsin.
>> Anybody making racist statements or bigoted statements
in text messages is something we cannot tolerate. I encourage
anybody who has information about those texts to contact
local law enforcement. I think it's important that there's an
appropriate law enforcement response.
>> A stunning win for Donald Trump, with Republicans also
taking the U.S. Senate and probably the House. Our
political panel is Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot
Ross weigh in. And hello. >> Good to be back.
>> So, Bill, what is Donald Trump's appeal to a wide swath
of voters in Wisconsin and elsewhere?
>> So he grew his base with women, with men on college
campuses, with Hispanics, with Blacks, with young voters. I
think the appeal really revolves around the top issues that he
discussed and that's the economy and immigration. Those are the
primary issues for all walks of life here in the state of
Wisconsin and frankly, across the country. And I think that's
why he improved in 49 out of 50 states in the state of
Wisconsin. He now has the highest turnout ever at 1,
roughly 1.7 million. And frankly, to her credit, Kamala
Harris has the third highest total ever. The only one who
Democrat who did better than her was Barack Obama in 2008. And
there's only 10,000 votes that separate them. So while overall
turnout in the country was down considerably, it was up in the
state of Wisconsin. >> So, Scott, what do you make
of Donald Trump's appeal in Wisconsin and elsewhere?
>> Well, I think it's unfortunate that America would
rather put a racist rapist who's been convicted of 34 felonies in
the white House than a woman. And I think it came down to two
things. I think it came down to sexism. And I think it came down
to hundreds of millions of dollars in transphobic ads that
were that were appealing to people's worst natures. You kno,
if you want to talk about the economy, we lost 3 million jobs
under Donald Trump. We gained 15 million jobs under Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris. So it's very clear that the economy was not
at play here. As much as I appreciate what Bill is saying,
it was very much a divisive, hate filled campaign by Donald
Trump. Kamala Harris tried to tried to parry that with joy. It
did not work in the end. And people are going to suffer. And
all across Wisconsin, all across the United States for that. And
our economy is certainly going to suffer. I don't think
Democrats planned out the full switch after Joe Biden was
displaced on July 23rd. >> I don't think they had the
next several steps figured out and there were some misses. The
first miss was potentially having a competitive primary,
albeit short, prior to the DNC. The second miss was there should
have been some distance created between Harris and Biden, and
they should have worked that out before this thing really got
rolling and that ultimately really hurt her. Her interview
on The View three weeks out is when I knew this thing was over,
when she said she can't think of anything that she would have
done differently than Joe Biden. Well, this was a change
election. So if you're the same thing, you're not going to win.
>> How do you respond to what Scott said about Donald Trump?
>> People have factored that in. This is I call him the
Terminator. This guy has been whether it's impeachment,
indictments, they tried to bankrupt him. There were two
assassination attempts on him every time one of those major
events happened, he got stronger, not weaker. He got 72
million votes. This time. He had 74 million. Last time. The big
drop off actually came on the Democratic side. So the energy
was with Donald Trump. >> And I don't understand. I
mean, I think that the Harris campaign, I thought they ran a
really, really good campaign, but where it seemed to end,
where the where the momentum seemed to end and, you know, is
looking back is honest to God. When Tim Walz stopped calling
J.D. Vance weird, when Kamala Harris stopped saying they're
out of their minds. I mean, these were manifestly, you know,
in some, you could argue, deranged position, but places
that the Republicans wanted to put us in and not and going
after the Charlie Sykes Liz Cheney voters, I loved it. I
just I mean, I that one was that one that baffled me. You know, I
get you know, it's trying to bring everybody in, get enough
people to get to 50%. But turning down the what the alarm
at what actually is going to happen the next you know, four
years, you know, things like the national abortion ban, $4
trillion in more tax cuts, mass deportations of human beings out
of the United States of America. And this is going to be a
disaster. We saw on Friday Donald Trump had Elon Musk, the
world's richest man, sitting on a call with, with, with, with
Zelensky, for God's sakes. I mean, this is scary stuff. You
know, it's going to be it's going to be a test. You know, we
have failed this test of the American character. Now it's
time. We're going to have to like try and get back back to
back to places and liberals and right minded people are going to
have to stand up to this guy. And the power that he now has,
as you say, the US Senate and possibly the House of
Representatives. the liberal elites when they
called Trump supporters That was fuel for Trump
supporters to get to the polls and bring low propensity voters
to the polls, in some cases, for the very first time, including
in the state of Wisconsin. >> And maybe that was unique for
Trump because, again, we saw, you know, Senator Baldwin was
returned to the US Senate. We talked about the giant gains in
the legislature here in the state of Wisconsin. We didn't do
well with the House, that's for sure. And there's a lot of
improvement there. I don't know, in the D, triple C is going to
target Wisconsin again because of the performance of the two
main candidates. But, you know, I think the one bright side, if
you're you know, if you're looking at Tammy Baldwin, the
other bright side you're looking at is you probably with this
have guaranteed that Democrats in the state are going to
control government sometime within the next four years, and
we're going to have a lock on the on the Supreme Court because
2025, 2026 and 2027 are going to be massive backlashes against
the insanity of project 25 and what Donald Trump is going to do
to destroy this country and play to people like Elon Musk, while
people are suffering. points. This was a Trump wave,
not a red wave. And Republicans should be very careful how they
interpret the results of this. The only way that this becomes
durable going forward is if they actually enact the agenda that
he ran on. So they have the House, they have the Senate,
they have the tools and the levers to make this stuff
happen. If they do not deliver. The Republicans who abandoned
him will get primaried. There's no doubt about it.
>> What do you think the Trump administration bill is going to
do on day one? I think they're so much further ahead.
>> I know they are than they were in 2016. They've been
working on the transition since literally the day after the
convention in Milwaukee. They they will have those 5000
appointees ready to go on day one, and they will have a
different caliber of cabinet than they had last time. There
might be some similarities. We'll see. But these are people
that have very, very successful careers who are willing to leave
those careers for a one term president to try and put this
country on the right track. So I think the key criteria for the
cabinet members is, are you here for the right reasons? Are you
here to enact the agenda? If so, you make it to the next level.
If you're for here yourself, you're out.
>> The guardrails are gone. I mean, just thinking about things
like Aileen Cannon being made, the attorney general, things
like that, this is going to be a punitive. He's promised it. If
promises, he's promised to punish his opponents and using
the full force of the government to do that, including law
enforcement. He's going to do that. It's going to be
disastrous. It's going to be corrupt. It's going to be
un-American. You know, if I'm. But but again, if I'm a citizen
out there and I'm thinking, wel, what do I do? Use your voice,
run for office and demand that your Democrats stand up to this
guy and do communications every single day, because I think
that's one place where the Democrats fail. They don't work.
The press like they should. They're not out there fighting
because people sit and watch television. You need to make
sure that television news is talking about what you want them
>> Bill, he's expressing fear of what's to come.
think people are going to be excited about the changes that
are coming. It's common sense. It's things that will benefit
Democrats, independents and Republicans to get the
government out of the way. Let's not have Big Brother in
Washington DC. Let's have the government that our founders
intended. And I think that's the government Donald Trump's going
to try and enact. We'll see. >> Thanks both. Thanks for all
your work with us this election cycle. For more on this and
other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS
wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab to see all of our
election coverage. Visit Wisconsin Vote.org. That's our
program for tonight. I'm Frederica Freyberg. Have a good
weekend. >> Funding for "Here& Now" is
provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS
Wisconsin.