Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV and not hear a political ad, the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate race is about to heat up.
I know most of the state is still recovering from recall fatigue, but we are only seven weeks away from the fall primary election. It sounds odd, but the fall primary is actually August 14th. A brief history lesson on how it all changed: The fall primary used to be held in early September, after Labor Day. But over the years it became clear there wasn’t enough time for the local election clerks to print up accurate ballots for the November election and mail them overseas to the troops in the middle east. Often, military absentee ballots were coming in too late to be counted in the November election. One solution was to have empty slots on the ballots (allowing clerks to mail the ballots earlier) and leave the servicemen to fill in the appropriate blanks. But ultimately Congress decided the solution was to require all states to move up their primaries so there was enough time to mail accurate ballots and get them back for the election.
Add in a recall election that sucked up all of the political time, attention and money in Wisconsin until June 5th, and you can see why the race for U.S. Senate nomination is really compressed this year.
I have been interviewing the Republican candidates and those interviews and stories will begin airing in July. While talking to the candidates and their campaigns, they’ve all expressed how the early primary and the late recall have made this race a sprint.
Eric Hovde was one of the only candidates to spend a lot of money running ads before the recall, and even he stopped weeks before that election. The other candidates are Mark Neumann, Tommy Thompson and Jeff Fitzgerald. Candidates realized the public wasn’t watching their race. And then after the recall, they realized the public just needed a break. Hence the ad silence the rest of June.
But multiple campaigns have told me to expect the onslaught of ads to pick up next week around the 4th of July, as campaigns and outside interest groups start the stretch run.
Turnout for the August primary is expected to be low. August is a prime time for family vacations and many people don’t know about the new date. Add in the fact you can’t cross over on the ballot, (meaning if you vote in a Democratic primary race you can’t also vote in a Republican primary) and there could be a very small pool of voters who decide the Republican nomination.
That winner will face off with Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a Madison Congresswoman who is not facing a challenger in her primary.
This Senate race is expected to be one of the most closely watched races in the nation. Control of the Senate is up for grabs this fall, and with Wisconsin’s back and forth voting habits, and this being an open seat, the choice of Republican in the race is extremely important.
