Wisconsin election results: Balance of power breakdown

Ron Johnson may or may not run again in 2028. Brian Stile was on that very short list of who might make a good Senate candidate. Would he still be one, or is this the end of his political career? No, I don't think it's nearly the end of his career, still a young man here. I don't think it's the end of his career. He had a large war chest. He was able to raise a lot of money for his congressional race. It didn't help him win tonight, but he is a person who's able to raise. A good amount of money, and we did see a lot of money from outside groups and from the different candidates flooding the airwaves in this congressional seat, which was seen as, according to Nate Silver earlier this week, the most competitive House seat in the entire country, meaning it was going to be razor-thin. We have the election results we can pull up from the first congressional district, just so we can see exactly how close this race came down. This is the seat that over... You know, it touches a large amount of our audience. But here you can see Mitchell Berman, 52 percent to Brian Stiles, 48 percent. So a lot larger margin there than even the pollsters and analysts were expecting. If you would have said earlier this year that Brian Stiles was going to be defeated, you might have been laughed at. Whether you're Republican or Democrat, if you would have said that, you may have been laughed at. It's been done tonight. This is really a blue wave. This is, you know, when we look at... Nationwide, where Democrats have flipped seats that haven't voted Democrat for decades or even lifetimes. For example, Kansas and Texas, this is a blue wave. Democrats have done extremely well tonight, and this is one of the examples right here, flipping the seat that Republicans have held since 1995, the first congressional district of Wisconsin, a seat once held by former Speaker of the House and former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Well, as you said, a record amount of money has been raised over all this campaigning, but this was expected to go Republican, and particularly because you were looking at the incumbent there, Brian Stile. We're looking for a fifth term. And so not only do you have two strikes going for you, if you will, you have the fact that this was expected to go Republican and he's the incumbent. Do you think that they let their foot off the gas a little bit in terms of campaigning and tangibility among voters? And perhaps that could have led to the fact that he was beat by Mitchell Berman tonight? Or do you think this is just more or less a vote? Or a referendum on the current administration by saying, hey, we need some help here. We need some help filling up our cars and filling our refrigerators. I think it is a referendum on the economy. You know, again and again, when you ask voters, what's your top issue? What's your number one issue? They would say again and again, affordability, the cost of living, inflation. And then they would talk about housing costs and health care costs and the like, property taxes and all of these. Dollars and cents issues that voters again and again said was their number one issue. And they were looking for change when you look at these states that, again, Texas hasn't voted for a Democrat for Senate for 33 years. Three years. Maine, looking at North Carolina, looking at South Carolina, South Carolina, the Republicans have held the Senate seats in South Carolina for 21 years. When you're looking at places like Kansas, my calculation said Republicans have held Kansas as Senate seats for 87 years. I know some other estimates said it was more than 90 years. But so I'll just say an entire lifetime, Republicans have had the Kansas Senate seats. And not tonight. Now tonight it's flipping to Democrats. So right now our count has Democrats flipping seven. Senate seats. Let's look at history right now. Mary, let's look at what history shows us when we're looking at the balance of power and we're looking at how Democrats had this really great night for themselves. In midterm elections, if you look at the numbers from 1934. Through 2022, so the last midterm election, what you're going to find is the president's party averaged losing three Senate seats and losing 27 House seats. That is according to the American Presidency Project. They find, again, an average of three seats lost. So typically, what's the bottom line here, Mary? The bottom line here is that typically midterm election years are bad for the party that controls the White House. That is what history shows us. That's what the American Presidency Project shows us. The President's Party rarely gains seats in both houses. That's only happened twice, according to that American Presidency Project. The most common outcome, two-thirds of the time, is that the President's Party has lost seats in both chambers. And that's what we're looking like is happening right now. Lost seats, Jason, but not lost them altogether. I mean, that's what makes tonight so significant. Sometimes, yeah, they do lose seats and they do lose an advantage. But this is across the board. Yeah, and it's also, let's bring it right back home to Wisconsin, Ted. Not only talking about the United States Senate flipping to Democratic control, but we're also looking at the Wisconsin Senate flipping to Democratic control. Republicans have had the legislature, controlled the legislature since 2011. And you remember 2011, you also had Governor Scott Walker, the Republican. They had that long time where they had power. Then Governor Evers wins election, beating Scott Walker in 2018. And so there's been divided control of the Capitol with Republicans leading the legislature. Governor Tony Evers leading the governor's office. And so... It's historic tonight, again, that Democrats are flipping the Wisconsin State Senate. And so what is that going to mean? There's going to be a lot of changes in Madison with David Crowley winning the governor's office, Democrats flipping the state Senate, and we're still waiting for a number of assembly seats. But it looks likely that Democrats are going to be able to flip the Wisconsin Assembly as well. Still too close for us to call that tonight. But what does that mean? That's called a trifecta. That's what Republicans had in 2011 under Governor Scott Walker. And you remember a lot of the changes that they incorporated into Wisconsin law back in 2011 and following. That's what we're going to see here in Wisconsin with them now taking control of the Wisconsin Senate and continuing to hold the governor's office. Just thinking out loud here, the mandate from voters is get our gas prices down, get our grocery bills down. find us some health care that we can afford. That's the mandate. But if it is that trifecta you talk about, there could be some other changes. The legalization of marijuana, which Wisconsin is on the minority side of states not having it. I know this wasn't a campaign issue, but if the governor's mansion and both houses are controlled, we're surrounded by states that have legal marijuana. Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, not Iowa. Do you think that comes back into play? Oh, yeah, 100%. That's what David Crowley had said again and again. We'd quiz him. We'd question him. We'd say, you know, you're proposing all of these new policies. He had proposed universal pre-K. That costs a lot of money, Ted. Who's going to pay for it? That's what we asked candidate David Crowley. Thank you. He didn't clearly answer how he was going to pay for it, except he did again and again bring up the idea that legalizing marijuana in Wisconsin will bring in a ton of new revenue, that all that revenue right now is going to our neighboring states. If people want to consume marijuana, they can go to our neighboring states. And so he says Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois is happy to see we not have legalized marijuana here because people are going across the border, right over the border in Kenosha to be able to consume marijuana. So Crowley has said that that's going to bring new money into Wisconsin to help pay for some of the programs that he is proposing. What is going to happen with all the other proposals as well? So he's calling for expansion of BadgerCare. He called for having a public option. And Ted, what that means is if you want to have be part of BadgerCare you can buy into it you can you can join BadgerCare that would be a public option that he's called for he's called for legalization of marijuana he's he's called for a number of things so with democrats get that trifecta which seems very very likely tonight it's been a very good night nationwide for democrats you're going to see a lot of changes come pretty much instantly when they take over in January. We talked about medical marijuana, but also we're talking about recreational marijuana. We're talking about universal pre-K was something that was promised. More funding for childcare was something that was promised. What about school vouchers? That has been an issue that you've seen Republicans propose and support in Madison. David Crowley, during the debate, With Democrats had said he wouldn't get rid of the school voucher program. He said that to do away with the school voucher program would leave all of these students needing to go somewhere. And he said right now the public schools wouldn't be able to take all those students in. So he wasn't calling for the elimination of the voucher program, which some Democrats were hoping to eliminate that program. But he was calling for not. expanding it. That was one of the proposals Republicans were looking for. If they got the trifecta, they had passed a bill in the legislature to expand vouchers to allow any student in Wisconsin to be eligible for that. What is a voucher? Once again, Ted, it's this money from the state that goes to pay for students to be able to go to the private school that's part of the program. So that is something that's been started under Governor Tommy Thompson. It's It's continued. Governor David Crowley, now the governor-elect of Wisconsin, he says he was going to keep that going, but he doesn't want to see it grow larger than what it is right now.