On “Here & Now,” tonight we launch coverage of the general recall election. Hear what newly minted Democratic recall candidate for Governor, Tom Barrett, told supporters the night he won the primary. Incumbent Republican candidate, Scott Walker, also fired up his crowd the night the race to June 5th was officially on.
Also tonight, an interview with Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, Mahlon Mitchell. Incumbent Republican, Rebecca Kleefisch, joins us next week.
We travel north to the Eau Claire area to report on a Senate recall race in the 23rd district between Sen. Terry Moulton and challenger, Kristen Dexter.
Then, more “What’s on Your Mind, Wisconsin?” with those in favor and opposed to Governor Scott Walker…and we check in with UW-Milwaukee political scientist, Mordecai Lee.
Tonight on “Here & Now,” at 7:30 p.m. statewide.

Talk to longtime political observers in both major parties and they’ll share with you the long-held belief that 45 percent of the people always vote for a Republican candidate, 45 percent always vote for a Democratic one, leaving 10 percent of every electorate to determine the fate of the office in question.

I’ve always thought that was simply the parties overstating their own allure and that there had to be more people who were open to voting for Republican and Democratic candidates. I mean,  how else to explain elections like 1994 in Wisconsin when Tommy Thompson won 67 percent of the vote to stay governor while Herb Kohl won 58 percent to get a seat in the U.S. Senate. Empirically, there was crossover.

Fast forward to today and the looming gubernatorial recall election on June 5 between incumbent Gov. Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. A recent Marquette University Law School poll conducted before Barrett won a four-way Democratic primary had four percent of the electorate as undecided.

However, internal polling for both major parties shows that number to be high, with a more realistic figure to be 1 or 2 percent undecided. In essence, everyone’s mind is made up.

That’s  frankly what we’ve found during our trips around the state as part of our “What’s on Your Mind, Wisconsin?” civic engagement program. To date, we haven’t met anyone who doesn’t have an opinion about the recall, whose  mind is not already made up.

For example, we met Roger Timm in Oconomowoc: “I’m not real happy with Governor Walker to be honest with you. I’m a former public employee. I voted for Governor Walker, I will not next time because my feeling is that he never once, while campaigning, never mentioned about taking away collective bargaining. That to me was under the table. Based on that, I will not vote for him again.”

We met Barbara Carlson in Appleton: “I stand for Gov. Walker myself.  I think he’s doing a good job.  I think he’s cutting spending and I think he really cares about our state.”

I could attach two dozen more quotes, but you get the point.

I know we have four more weeks before the official election, before it’s safe to watch television again. Four more weeks and $40-plus million to convince that small, small fraction of the population that doesn’t have its mind made up. You are Wisconsin’s most wanted.

If that describes you, I’d love to hear from you.  Please email  me at: adam.schrager@wpt.org.

After months of waiting, the recall election is finally upon us.  I was voter number 58 at my ward today on Madison’s north side.  We don’t have a Senate recall here, so my choices were limited to the Democratic primaries for Governor and Lt. Gov and the Republican primary for Governor.

We are now officially just four weeks away from the general recall election.  The ads have saturated TV for a quite a while now, and they will only increase from here on out.  Most of the ads I’ve seen are misleading or false or contain statements that need context to be appreciated.   But most of the people who create the ads have no shame, so my clucking won’t change much.

I know most viewers won’t bother factchecking the ads themselves or even trying to learn more about the claims.  But people can read the name at the end of the ad to figure out who’s paying for the ad.  Here’s my advice: if the name at the end of the ad doesn’t belong to a candidate, don’t trust anything the ad says, especially if you’ve never heard of the group before.  Most of these groups with made up patriotic names are just well paid advertising hit-men with nothing to add to the discourse in state politics.  Liberal or conservative, the groups are not engaging in “honest” debate, they’re throwing mud, hoping you’re dumb enough to let it stick.

Happy election.