Many Republicans are disappointed in the results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which is understandable, considering its potential significance. The truth is that it would have taken a miracle for Brad Schimel to win this race.
The primary challenge for Republicans in elections like this is that they’re the party of the working class, which translates to lower-propensity voters who aren’t fixated on politics. That’s not bad, but it means that elections like this one will be particularly hard to win when there isn’t a headliner to draw out the voters. The Republican base will turn out in presidential election years in sky-high numbers. Still, many of them will pay little attention to an election for an attorney general or a judge, whom they don’t see as having much impact on their lives.
Those crazy college-indoctrinated leftist women we see faceplanting in the subway or shouting at people in restaurants? They are laser-focused on elections like this. They rage-follow every political development and are first in line for any election of more significance than local dog-catcher. Much of the Democrat base is this way. Although it may be shrinking, what’s left of it is plenty motivated. Anyone living off government largesse or having been taught to worship government will be a high-proclivity voter.
The builders, electricians, waitresses? Moms? They’re too busy living to pay much attention to what they see as an obscure race. Getting them to the polls in an out-of-cycle election takes far more effort. It’s hard enough to get them to notice that an election is happening. Even a midterm can be challenging, but nowhere near to the same extent as an election like this one.
Although George Soros makes Darth Vader look like Mother Teresa by comparison, he isn’t dumb. He’s fully exploited this vulnerability, funding radical candidates running for positions like attorney generals and judges, who have far more influence than most people realize. The Republican political class has woken up to this threat, but it will take far longer for many Americans to understand. This challenge is further compounded when the Republicans are in power, since it introduces a notable headwind on top of the low-propensity challenge.
The parties previously faced opposite challenges because their bases were so different. The Republicans wanted low-turnout elections. That’s what they needed to win. Why? Democrats were relying on many of the same voters. The working class used to be the core Democrat voting bloc. Not so long ago, West Virginia was one of the most Democrat-affiliated states in the country. It’s now the second most Republican state, trailing only Wyoming.
The Democrats’ complete betrayal of the working class resulted in that group moving decisively to the Republicans. If Republicans are smart, I expect that advantage to grow, since it took a little longer for some of the working-class minority groups to buck the propaganda, but 2024 showed that they are following the same trend line. Donald Trump deserves most of the credit for realigning the party to take advantage of the shift, but much of the credit also goes to Democrats wedded to a platform that repulsed working-class voters. The Republican party is far stronger for it, since it abandoned some of its worst impulses.
At the same time, colleges amped up the radicalization, resulting in college grads moving in greater numbers to the Democrats. It’s hard to believe now, but the Republican party was the party of the college-educated. In fact, in 2008, the Democrats garnered a paltry 31.5% of that vote. That group has shifted decisively to the Democrats, especially in some swing states, with 56% of college graduates getting their “unburdened by what has been” groove on in 2024, with a 16% gap between the parties. College graduates are high-proclivity voters who punch above their weight in lower-profile elections.
The Republicans put up a valiant fight. They matched Democrat spending, making it the most expensive state Supreme Court race in history, passing $90 million. This made it a higher-turnout election than what you would normally see, with Brad Schimel seeing an increase of about 25% from the Republican performance in the last Supreme Court race. Stalwarts like Scott Pressler also led the fight on the ground. For all that, Republicans were still major underdogs.
To use a sports analogy, an FCS school occasionally upsets a powerhouse like Michigan in football. But if it does, chances are that three things happened. Michigan took its opponent lightly. It made many mistakes, and the plucky underdog played a perfect game. In this case, the Democrats were all in from the start, and they also didn’t make many mistakes, using their massive cash and absence of morals to drive up the negatives on Schimel.
The Republicans gave it a great shot. They fought the money battle to a draw while doing all they could to draw attention to the significance of the race. Besides putting up a lot of money, Elon Musk brought further attention to it with a rally. In retrospect, that rally was probably a mistake, since the added attention combined with leftist media spin created a false narrative that likely pumped the numbers of the higher-proclivity voters who turned out for Crawford.
It’s a tricky balancing act for Republicans trying to motivate their normal voters without shooting the moonbat voting percentages to the moon, and the Democrats and their media allies have been effective in turning an innovative hero doing a thankless but critical job into a villain.
The Republicans have tough elections ahead of them, and they will be underdogs in many of them, including the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races later this year and the midterms in 2026. They must be all-in now, organizing and prepping the battlefield for those races. Elon Musk will need to stay out of the spotlight, especially in the Virginia race, if Winsome Earle-Sears is to stand any chance. The Democrat-Media Death Star has done enough damage to Musk’s reputation that he is best served to doing the kind of engagements he did with Brett Baier with his team while avoiding anything that smells even remotely like a celebratory rally.
But the main lesson of this election was that President Trump and the Republicans need to continue charging hard and fast on policy now while they have the chance. Anyone who recommends that they throttle back or move more cautiously should be ceremoniously tossed from the room. If they lose the midterms, the administration will be tied down by nonsense investigations and nonstop impeachment attempts. The Republicans will have much more trouble moving the ball forward. Our nation can’t afford for them to move slowly, even if far too few people realize it. If the price of that progress is a few lost elections, it will be well worth it, especially considering that they would have almost certainly lost those elections regardless.
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Jesus Christ is King
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