Crisis could put April vote under national spotlight
Dem primaries have been postponed in other states
The coronavirus has suddenly put Wisconsin in a unique and very strange place politically.
If the state holds its scheduled April 7 election, it will be the only major contest in the Democratic presidential race for the next six weeks since Georgia and Louisiana both postponed their primaries because of public health concerns.
The Democratic race is largely over in the eyes of most analysts after Joe Biden piled up three more victories Tuesday over Bernie Sanders in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.
But if Sanders keeps running, Wisconsin would be the only real chance for him to make anything like a “last stand” between now and late April, due to the impact of coronavirus on clearing out the nominating calendar.
Regardless of what Sanders does, the state also may find itself on the front lines of an unfolding national debate about holding elections amid a pandemic, a civic dilemma that pits the essential mechanics of democracy against public health.
“I think it could be an interesting test case for the rest of the country to examine,” University of WisconsinMadison political scientist Barry Burden said of the “terrible trade-off ” between holding the election as scheduled and putting it off.
Here is a closer look at the national implications of Wisconsin’s April election amid a rapidly shifting landscape:
How the primary calendar has changed
Even before coronavirus, Wisconsin occupied a quiet stretch of the nominating season. But now, “it’s really going to be dead,” said political scientist Josh Putnam, an expert on the nominating process.
Among the states that have already postponed their
primaries due to coronavirus are: Georgia (originally scheduled for March 24), Louisiana (originally scheduled for April 4) and Maryland (originally scheduled for April 28). Ohio, which was scheduled to vote this past Tuesday, also put off its election at the eleventh hour amid a great deal of confusion.
The result is a much lighter stretch of presidential primaries than expected.
While a few small contests remain in the next several weeks (possibly Puerto Rico March 29; and Alaska, Wyoming and Hawaii April 4), Wisconsin’s primary is by far the biggest Democrat delegate prize between now and late April.
What will Sanders do?
The Vermont Senator told NBC’s Haley Talbot Wednesday on Capitol Hill:
“There’s not going to be an election for another three weeks. We are talking to our supporters, but anybody who suggests at this point we are ending our campaign is not telling the truth.”
Sanders won Wisconsin over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but neighboring states Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois have all been captured by Biden in recent weeks, and Sanders has consistently gotten a smaller share of the primary vote than he did four years ago.
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘last stand,’ but it’s kind of approaching that,” Putnam said of the stakes for Sanders in Wisconsin. “It’s time to put up or shut up.”
Sanders could decide to drop out after his string of defeats. Or he could decide that with so few contests on the near horizon, he can afford to stay in and try to pick up more delegates to improve his leverage at the national convention.
Holding an invisible primary
If Sanders stays in the race and Wisconsin holds its scheduled election, it will likely result in a bizarre “non-campaign” with no rallies and little personal campaigning by the candidates. The same kind of invisible campaign will occur in other election contests that day such as the contest for state Supreme Court. And in both cases, turnout will likely be depressed by much lower levels of election day voting.
Public health vs. democracy in action
The debate over whether to hold elections on schedule at this stage of the coronavirus outbreak has taken on different shapes in different states.
“It continues to be an evolving situation. I don’t think we’re done yet,” Putnam said of election postponements around the country.
Unlike some states that postponed primaries, the Wisconsin election is set by statute and includes general election contests for state and local offices, including Milwaukee mayor and county executive. Postponing is not easily done, the decision-making authority isn’t entirely clear and delaying could mean allowing offices to go vacant.
“We have made no decision on that,” Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday about the possibility of postponement. “Obviously, elections are very important.”
Wisconsin does have a rising level of absentee early voting by mail and inperson, but that still accounted for less than a quarter of the vote in the 2018 midterms, so mail isn’t anything like a replacement for election day voting.
But the political parties are promoting voting by mail and requests for absentee ballots have surged, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and are expected to surpass the nearly 250,000 absentee ballots issued in the 2016 presidential primary.
Meanwhile, state and national Democrats have sued Wisconsin to remove some restrictions on absentee balloting for the April 7 primary because the coronavirus pandemic has confined many people to their homes.
The debate in Wisconsin mirrors a national discussion about how to balance health concerns with core democratic functions.
“There are definitely conversations going on about whether Wisconsin ought to hold its (election) April 7,” said Burden, who studies election administration. “My view is it’s not clear there is a better date out there. The impact of the virus continues to increase. It may be worse for an event held in May or the first week of June.”
Journal Sentinel reporter Patrick
Marley contributed.
Craig Gilbert has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and chronicled Wisconsin’s role as a swing state at the center of the nation’s political divide. He has written widely about polarization and voting trends and won distinction for his data-driven analysis. Gilbert has served as a writer-in-residence at the University of WisconsinMadison, a Lubar Fellow at Marquette Law School and a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he studied public opinion, survey research, voting behavior and statistics. Email him at craig.gilbert@jrn.com and follow him on Twitter: @WisVoter.