Republican Primary Voters Helped Defeat Constitutional Amendment Resolutions

The attempt to restore checks and balances in Wisconsin government by giving the power of the purse back to the legislature failed spectacularly earlier this month when voters overwhelmingly rejected two proposed constitutional amendments in the Fall Primary Election.

One amendment would have prevented the legislature from delegating its constitutional authority to appropriate state funds. The other amendment would have put the state legislature in charge of appropriating federal funds (subject to the governor’s veto of course.) Both failed by about 15 points, around 180,000 votes.

Liberal groups formed a coalition to defeat the amendments, spending well over $1.6 million. Democrats called the proposed amendments an attempted power grab by the legislature. Gov. Evers convinced voters that “checks and balances” meant him having all the power to spent billions of dollars however he wanted without any oversight. A lot of Republican voters fell for it.

There were 553,547 people throughout Wisconsin who voted for Republicans in the primary. That’s over 30,000 more people than voted for the amendments. On the other side of the party divide, 640,247 people voted in the Democrat primary, which is about 60,000 less than voted against the amendments. That means a lot of Republican voters crossed over to the liberal side for those resolutions.

The MacIver Institute examined the election results throughout the state, county-by-county, to determine where Republican voters had voted against the amendments in the greatest numbers. That is not an easy task in Wisconsin, where voters are not required to declare a party and where every county has its own format for reporting election results. Regardless, the results of this analysis help indicate where Democrats have been most successful in targeting Republican voters and where Republican messaging efforts are struggling.

Proportionally, Lincoln County is at the top of that list, with 25% fewer yes votes than Republican votes. It had about 4,200 people who voted in the Republican primaries, but only 3,200 voted yes in the resolutions. Over 550 more people voted against those referendums than voted in the Democrat primaries. Dunn County came next with 21% fewer yes votes than Republican votes. There were 4,500 Republican voters and only about 3,600 yes voters.

Numerically, Brown County had the most Republican voters who did not vote yes on the resolutions. It came out to about 4,600 Republican voters who did not vote for both resolutions. There were 32,330 Republican voters and only 27,646 yes votes on the first question. Marathon County came next with up to 2,981 Republican voters who did not vote yes. There were 17,136 Republican voters and only 14,155 yes votes on the first question.

Altogether, there were over 31,000 Republican voters who did not vote for the resolutions throughout the state.

On the other hand, there were 17 counties were more people voted for the resolutions than voted for Republican Candidates. In Milwaukee County, there were 33,508 Republican voters and 42,065 yes votes for question one, a difference of 8,557 or 26%. In Calumet County, there were 3,257 Republican voters and 6,185 yes votes, a difference of 2,928 or 90%.

Keep in mind, too, primaries are low turnout elections. This year’s turnout was 26%, which was a 60-year high. Wisconsin had 76% turnout during the 2020 presidential election. That perspective should add a new sense of urgency to both side’s campaign efforts.