Democrats pick up two seats in Wisconsin recall, hope to capture a third

Through­out the sum­mer, Democ­rats in sev­er­al swaths of Wis­con­sin have been can­vass­ing, phonebank­ing, and orga­niz­ing around the six Sen­ate can­di­dates the par­ty is field­ing in Wis­con­sin’s long antic­i­pat­ed recall election.

As most read­ers are aware, back in the spring, when Repub­li­cans were ram­ming anti-union leg­is­la­tion through Wis­con­sin’s state­house, Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists began col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to ini­ti­ate recalls against sev­er­al Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who vot­ed for the anti-union bill. They suc­cess­ful­ly gath­ered enough sig­na­tures to force six of the incum­bent Sen­ate Repub­li­cans to stand before vot­ers at the same time.

Because Repub­li­cans have only a nar­row major­i­ty in the state Sen­ate, a loss of only three seats would cause the cham­ber to flip to the Democrats.

Two of the Repub­li­can incum­bents, Dan Kapanke and Randy Hop­per, have already fall­en to their Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers. Three oth­er Repub­li­can incum­bents — Luther Olsen, Sheila Hars­dorf, and Robert Cowles — have survived.

One race is still too close to call: the con­test between Repub­li­can Alber­ta Dar­ling and Demo­c­rat Sandy Pasch. Pasch has held a nar­row lead for most of the evening, but Dar­ling took the lead when sev­er­al heav­i­ly Repub­li­can precincts from Wauke­sha Coun­ty report­ed in. Here is how the race cur­rent­ly stands:

Sandy Pasch (D): 48% (27,766 votes)
Alber­ta Dar­ling (R): 52% (30,394 votes)

We Are Wis­con­sin, a pro­gres­sive coali­tion that had been work­ing to unseat the six Repub­li­can incum­bents, says this evening that its orga­niz­ers and vol­un­teers knocked on 92,332 doors today alone. That’s an impres­sive feat.

UPDATE, 9:33 PM: Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Par­ty chair Mike Tate has just issued a press release blast­ing the Repub­li­can who con­trols the Wauke­sha Coun­ty clerk’s office and accus­ing her of tam­per­ing with the results. Here’s his statement:

The race to deter­mine con­trol of the Wis­con­sin Sen­ate has fall­en in the hands of the Wauke­sha Coun­ty clerk, who has already dis­tin­guished her­self as incom­pe­tent, if not worse. She is once more tam­per­ing with the results of a con­se­quen­tial elec­tion and in the next hours we will deter­mine our next course of action. For now, Wis­con­sin should know that a dark cloud hangs over these impor­tant results.

UPDATE, 9:41 PM: Jes­si­ca Arp of WISC-TV claims that the final num­bers for Mil­wau­kee Coun­ty are in, and Sandy Pasch did­n’t make up enough ground to sur­pass Alber­ta Dar­ling. If so, it looks like Dar­ling survived.