“I don’t mean to throw anyone under the bus here on the Republican side, but we’re probably operating in a lot of aspects as we did three election cycles ago. In some cases 10 or 20 years ago,” Michels added. “The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has 20 people on staff, full time, year round. … The Republican Party of Wisconsin has five people on staff.”
Michels said Wisconsin Republicans simply cannot keep up with Democrats by relying on volunteers every two years.
“[Democrats] are using the most modern Silicon Valley technology to do voter identification, ballot identification, following-up with these people, and getting them to the polls,” Michels explained.
“They had 90% voter turnout in Dane County. That’s incredible. I don’t know how you could get 90% of the people, in say Oconomowoc, to show up for anything. You could give out $100 dollar bills and I don’t know if 90% of the people would show up, ” Michels said. “But they drove all of those people to the polls. And then the results were 80-20. That is a huge, huge hurdle that has to be overcome by conservatives and Republicans.”
It is also worth noting that the Democrats have a structural advantage because their voters are so concentrated in Dane and Milwaukee Counties (with a couple of other pockets). It’s logistically easier to focus efforts on a smaller geography while Republicans have to turn out voters in 300 small towns.
If Republicans really increase staff, they have to get that staff out of Madison and into the communities where Republicans live. If there are 20 GOP staffers, they better be in places like Wausau, Oshkosh, Osseo, Hayward, Manitowoc, New Berlin, and other communities that turned out Republicans. If they hire 20 staffers to sit around Madison and Milwaukee, they will lose the next election too.
I’m all for increasing turnout, but…
If turnout was such an issue, how did Michels end up with 68,000 less votes than Ron Johnson on the same ballot? Even Eric Toney’s AG total ended up with almost 30,000 more votes than Michels. Democrats did not give Beglinger 27,000 votes. It’s difficult to make an argument that even supposedly principled Indies would waste a vote on a withdrawn candidate.
Dobbs? That’s pretty thin bullshit. Both Michels and Johnson were on the same side of Dobbs. Female pubbies and Independents held that against Michels, but not Johnson? Nah.
i, for one, voted for RoJo, but not Michels, so here is one of the 68,000.
how did Michels end up with 68,000 less votes than Ron Johnson
Well that’s easy. He sucked as a Republican candidate.
Put up someone that hasn’t lived in the state for ten years and people will question commitment. Not to mention his many non-conservative stances (pro-union, pro-gov’ment spendspendspend, etc). Bet a buck most who did vote for Michels held their nose doing so just as most did for Trump’s first go.
And even with those 68k votes he would still have lost.
Also–he avoided sure-fire winning issues such as SCHOOLS SUCK and GROOM YOUR KIDS.
I will never understand the advertising $$ he spent walking around the old AOSmith yard and driving his truck talking about his Dad and Mom–and lingering over his military service.