This would be some cool info on your fave candidates, and referendum questions thumping in your chest and — at least we hope — brain, for you politics junkies. Was it true, the red before the blue? Town vs. city, and certainly different when sent sooner. This site is currently undergoing a major redo, and thus an improvement, so you may have to be patient with this post’s posting time. Good things come to those who wait, even when it deals with something as instantaneous as the internet. (Should be posted by midweek.)
Lordy, it is time! So here goes. And you just might find it an interesting post if you stick with it past the narrative of numbers:
St. Croix County has somewhat of a political disparity depending on where you are in it, but generally is about as red an area as you will find. From the east end and its farmland that constitutes a work-the-land, deep-seeded way of life that for many, inexplicably, votes conservative as its very farming becomes almost as much a political ideology as an occupation. To the west end and the more politically potent and rich, big Hudson area that virtually bleeds red, except for a block of the more intellectual, and then a stone’s throw further west the St. Croix River bluff line that entertains both liberal nature lovers and the well-heeled who cruise through it in million-dollar yachts.
This range showed, to a degree, in the specifics of the polling results on Aug. 13, but as a reporter and observer assigned by more than one media outlet, I was eager to find how much of a difference there would be between the 14 precincts of the mostly rural but large population base in the town of Hudson, versus the county as a whole. (I primarily was onboard to report results, as they came in, for the Associated Press, first at the town hall and then with its broader reach at the county government center. AP has now deemed elections to be so important with their contentiousness, that they have me staff both places.)
The most striking result I found was the big difference between those who were eager enough to vote early, and those who did it onsite on election night.
The highest profile race involved originally-from-California-rich-businessman Eric Hovde, who was a virtual shoe-in during this partisan primary election to go head-to-head for a U.S. Senate seat come the early November finale, against Democrat Tammy Baldwin.
Hovde garnered 7012 votes, but that was only about 80 percent of the total, as the only real question was who would be runner up. Having seen it on a single sign, I was familiar with the name Rejani Raveendran, a mother who ran on a platform largely based on defunding police, and then Charles Bauman. The mom got 739 votes county-wide, with Bauman at 706, but it was a little different at the 14-precinct town level. She received 72 votes to Bauman’s 47, and for early voting it was a closer margin, 17-13 in favor of Bauman, with Hovde chiming in with 563 and 82, in the town voting categories. In general terms, each opposition candidate got about 10 percent of the vote in the various stats breakdowns, although Raveendran’s in-person town total was more impressive.
Another race of high local interest found Rob Kreibich, a leader of the Chamber of Commerce in New Richmond, raking in 2412 county votes to the higher tally of 2465 for Brady Penfield, for the representative for Assembly District 28, on the Republican side. (There was no voting for this office in the township.)
Lastly among those races contested, 3872 county residents picked Kyle Kilbourn and 3195 did Elisa Rae Duranceau, who in an odd quirk only I would point out came in with a dual name-recognition advantage — much like being a celeb — of being the only candidate using a third, could-be middle name, and having the likeness in name of popular rock band Duran Duran, a fave group of one of my drivers. In the town, the winning margin was far greater at 287-213, but the pace was narrowed to 122-96 in early voting there, for Democratic representative to District 7 in Congress.
But the two referendum questions were the one showing the largest local distinctions. The first, to prohibit the state of Wisconsin from delegation of appropriation of power, whatever that means, was turned down at the county level 8502 to 8364, but it won in the town 716 to 629, although in the early voting it was defeated in the town by the large margin of 259-98, for an overall deficit of 888 to 814 there.
The second question, to require the state of Wisconsin to allocate federal monies, also lost in the county 8523 to 8387. So for the two queries, the voting was along straight lines, as in the town it was OK’d too, by a wider gap, 722-626, with the early tally being much different at a 265-92 loss. All this found only a small handful of residents changing their votes from one to the next, although there were a couple-dozen more people voting on the second question.
The turnout was said to be good by varying degrees by clerks, although they were able to tear down the voting booth apparatus, and compile their total results earlier than usual, by about a half-hour. One worker at the town level, in relaying to me the summary of results, which were broken down into two subtotals of the voting types, in-person or early, had trouble finding one race listed on the sheets and quickly concluded that it was not applicable for the town voting. Because of the consistency of the voter preferences, almost like voting along party lines, election workers often could just place the per-voter sheets in front of them in one stack or the next.
A total of 8459 voters cast ballots for the Hovde-led race, outpacing the other hopefuls. By comparison, the 2022 partisan election drew about 5300 voters for Democratic races in the county, and about 8000 for the Republicans. In the following main general election in November 2022, about 44,000 county residents cast ballots when taking into consideration the two parties.
Now we get past the junk only interesting to political data junkies, and slide in some sarcasm. There was enough leverage by parties beyond the red and the blue to get on the ballot. There were the Libertarians, not like Lago but it comes to mind when writing, and with the initials on the side of the ballot that indicated them, it looked like we were headed into the territory of every short four-letter-word for name but Woke, but not Maga and definitely not Mar-a. There also was the presence of the Constitution and Wisconsin Green parties, to invoke longer spelled and more complete names.
An election worker who knew me asked if I also knew just who had been for an hour sitting in a car across the lot, kinda a lemon not a limo. I said oh, that’s my driver. (Is it now that I am important enough, and get paid enough for these gigs, to play my Trump card or car and have my own driver?) As it was, the driver of this humble not Hummer car told me that he’d always had a question for a law enforcement officer, but was never in the right place or time to ask. But now it had come, at the county fair not in St. Croix, but Pierce in Ellsworth, as there was a new sheriff in town, literally, via recent elections. Emboldened by the fact that he’d known the previous one, he blundered forward: Why is it that Corvettes never have front license plates? Outta the other end of the county?
Hmm, let me think about that, came the answer. I’ll keep an eye out.
The driver added that he might be needing another seat for another passenger, as the lot was emptying and a frantic woman came up to him about 8:10 p.m. and asked, like he had as much authority as the prior person cited, if she could still vote.
We need more people like her, as shown by the addition that had gotten through to place those two referendum questions. Somebody managed to sorta sneak them in, when few were looking. To me it seems like some pork barreling pols politicizing the polls.