I want to discuss what I don’t think is getting enough attention:tomorrow’s Wisconsin elections.
I’m not referring to D POTUS primary. That’s likely the least important aspect of tomorrow’s elections,w/no plausible result likely to change trajectory of Biden becoming nominee.(1/)

But there are many other aspects of what happens tomorrow, including the leadup to the elections (apparently) not being delayed, that could have significant impacts on what happens in November, or at least that we should keep focus on to prevent or limit problems in November.(2/)

First of all, Wisconsin has divided government, a Democratic governor and Republican Legislature (and courts). Evers, the D governor, has wanted to either postpone the election or at least try to massively expand mailin/absentee balloting. R legislature/courts resisted. (3/)

As of now, it looks like the election is scheduled to proceed with only very minor relaxation on absentee balloting. Next, obviously we are in the middle of a pandemic. It is expected that in person voting locations, poll workers, etc. will be limited. (4/)

But reality indicates this will affect large cities disproportionately. Milwaukee supposedly will have only 5 poll locations open, compared to 160 in a normal primary. Obviously rural areas will likely also be impacted,but not nearly to this % degree just based on basic math.(5/)

So this means, in addition to overall turnout being significantly down tomorrow, 1 of 2 things beyond that will result: either big city turnout will be WAY down compared to rural turnout being only moderately down, depressing Democratic turnout disproportionately, or (6/)

a bunch of people will congregate in close proximity at 5 Milwaukee polling locations, risking health (cue Trump tweet Wednesday morning: “Look at all those crazy Wisconsin Democrats not social distancing yesterday! Don’t they know I’m trying to get this country open soon!”(7/)

“But wait”, you might ask, “why does it matter much if Republican turnout in this 1 state is higher than Democratic turnout, isn’t this a primary election?”
2 reasons. One, while most items on ballot tomorrow are primaries, there is 1 important non-primary election tomorrow:(8/)

A seat on state Supreme Court. While those elections are nominally nonpartisan, candidates have clear leans, & the incumbent leans R. The D leaning challenger would be competitive under normal conditions, but tomorrow isn’t likely to be normal conditions as I describe above.(9/)

With 2020 being a census & redistricting year, control of Supreme Court in a purple state will have significant impact on state legislative boundaries for a decade. I believe this is main reason why the Republican Legislature/courts did not want to delay tomorrow’s election.(10/)

Beyond that, Wisconsin is of course a presidential swing state. Often, parties use the primary as a dry run for the general election, to mobilize voters, gauge swing districts to target and base areas to focus GOTV. An abnormal haphazard primary disrupts all of that, (11/)

And could put Democrats at a disadvantage in trying to swing Wisconsin back blue on the presidential level in 2020. Finally, the Democratic presidential primary will be in Milwaukee. While this factor is probably less important than the two I mention above, (12/)

I’m sure Democrats would prefer high local enthusiasm during their convention, and low primary turn out can’t necessarily help that. So for multiple reasons, tomorrow’s Wisconsin primary could be a perfect storm of a bunch of little things that hamper Democrats electorally.(13/)

Beyond all of that, we should keep one eye trained on the mechanics of administering the November election itself. There is a chance that a second coronavirus wave could hit in the fall, right around election time. Expanded absentee/mail balloting would help, which of course(14/)

Republicans will resist for the reasons I described above. These decisions will likely be made on a state-by-state basis, but the states where they are most needed are likely to be the states where they will be most resisted. I don’t have an answer or even an action plan,but(15/)

We should all keep focus on this and push our state leaders where we can. Hopefully this thread has been informative in explaining why this is an issue that deserves our attention, now and as we head toward November. (End)