Andy Kroll

Reporter

Andy Kroll is Mother Jones' Dark Money reporter. He is based in the DC bureau. His work has also appeared at the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit News, Salon, and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He can be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. He tweets at @AndrewKroll.

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Don't (Completely) Trust the Polls in the Wisconsin Recalls

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Aug. 5, 2011 5:22 PM PDT

Mike Tate, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, was positively sunny earlier this week in a call with reporters about the state of play in Wisconsin's looming recall elections. Against a slate of six GOP state senators, Tate said, internal polling showed Democrats leading in three races and neck-and-neck in the other three. But there's a big problem with any Wisconsin recall polling, Democratic or Republican: The Badger State is in uncharted territory.

The state has never before held nine recall elections in the middle of the summer. (Nor has so much money been showered on Wisconsin elections.) That means pollsters have no frame of reference to gauge what the turnout will be in the August 9 recalls, which target the six GOPers, or in the August 16 recalls, which target two Democratic senators. (One Democrat, Dave Hansen, already won his recall—more on that later.) That's a big deal, because in summer elections like these, turnout is everything.

Here's Greg Sargent quoting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's pollster:

"We don't have a precedent for this," Mark Mellman, the well respected Dem pollster who is conducting recall polling for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, acknowledged to me. "The nature of the turnout is so uncertain that it really will make a huge difference. We’re dealing with big uncertainties."

Mellman said that three of the key races—though he wouldn't specify which—are so close that if turnout doesn't break the Dems' way, it could throw them to Republicans. He described them as "all very close races that could go either way."

Democrats understand this. At a Friday afternoon rally in the town of Waupun, Jessica King, a Democrat challenging GOP Sen. Randy Hopper in Wisconsin's 18th district, repeatedly urged the lively three-dozen or so attendees to ask at least one more friend, one more family member, one more somebody, to get out and vote on Tuesday. King knows how crucial turnout is: In 2008, she lost to Hopper by 163 votes out of more than 80,000. "It really comes down to who gets out the vote," she told the crowd.

One of the few available indicators of how the turnout will look next week was the re-election victory of Democrat Dave Hansen in mid-July, the first general recall election of the summer. Hansen cruised to victory, and the turnout neared 31,000—a figure suggesting an energized electorate in Hansen's Green Bay-area district. So the big question is: Can Democrats replicate that energy in six districts scattered throughout the state? Their hopes of snatching back the majority in the Wisconsin senate depend on it.

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Tea Party: Liberals Want to "Break the Back of Conservatives" in Wisconsin

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Aug. 5, 2011 7:41 AM PDT

A tea Party Express bus at a rally for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

The tea party arrives in Wisconsin today, kicking off a four-day tour to rouse conservative voters and help protect the six imperiled Republican state senators facing recall elections on August 9. Spearheaded by the Tea Party Express, the "Restoring Common Sense" tour brings together four different conservative groups—TPX, Tea Party Nation, FreedomWorks, and the Patriot Action Network—and plans to hit nine cities in what the groups see as a crucial battle to keep the GOP senators in office, and thus prevent Democrats from jamming up Republican Governor Scott Walker's agenda.

On Friday morning Tea Party Nation blasted out a life-or-death missive to its members on the importance of the recalls. TPN's leader, Judson Phillips, accused liberals and Democrats of wanting to "break the back of conservatives here in Wisconsin" via the recalls and drive the state into bankruptcy. Referencing the winter labor upheaval in Madison, the state capital, Phillips wrote: "Liberal mobs attacked the capitol building and at one point trapped at least one Republican lawmaker."

He goes on:

The left lost. So they are fighting back. They have filed recall papers against 6 Republican Senators. If three of them lose, it will flip control of the State Senate back to the Democrats and the fiscally conservative Governor Scott Walker will be hard pressed to do anything to cut spending.

This recall election is setting the stage for next January when the left is going to try and recall Scott Walker. By law, January is the earliest they can do this. Millions of dollars from radical left wing groups has flowed into Wisconsin along with millions of dollars from Unions.

[...]

As we tour Wisconsin the next few days, we need your help. If you can make it to Wisconsin, join us for the tour. If you cannot, spread the word about the tour to anyone you know. Details about the tour are on the front page of Tea Party Nation.

Phillips' plea, not to mention the uniting of four different tea party groups for the bus tour, can only be seen as a sign of serious concern about how the six GOP senators will fare in next week's elections. And if recent polls are any indication, they've got good reason to worry.

Wisconsin Recall Elections: The Dark Money Pours In

Amount spent on all state legislative races in 2010: $3.75 million. Amount spent on recall elections targeting eight state senators: $31 million. Need we say more?

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Aug. 5, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Supporters of Wisconsin Republican state Sen. Luther Olsen.

Mike McCabe has never seen anything like it.

He runs the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group tracking the flow of money in Badger State politics—though, presently, "torrent" may be the best way to describe the state's campaign finance environment. In the run-up to next week's recall elections targeting six Republican state senators, outside advocacy groups have flooded Wisconsin with millions in campaign spending. McCabe estimates that nearly $31 million has been spent on the recalls in about four months' time. It's a staggering sum considering $3.75 million was spent on the entire slate of state legislative races in 2010. Recall spending "is totally off the charts," he says. "This is so out of whack from everything we've ever seen."

[Read the full article]

Veteran WI GOP State Senator: "I'm Not Sure" I'll Survive Recall Election

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Aug. 3, 2011 9:48 AM PDT

It's less than a week until Wisconsin voters hit the polls in the recall elections of six Republican state senators. According to polling by Wisconsin's Democratic Party, Democratic challengers are, for the most part, sitting pretty right now, leading in three races and tied in the rest. Mind you, these are internal polls, so they should taken with a grain of salt.

But in the case of Republican Alberta Darling, a 20-year veteran of the Wisconsin state senate, you don't need polls to know she's in trouble in her race against Democratic state assemblywoman Sandy Pasch. Darling herself admitted as much on Tuesday. In response to an audience member's comment "Obviously you think you're going to win this," Darling said, "I'm not sure. It's going to be about turnout." From a long-time member of the Wisconsin GOP and a lock to win her recall mere months ago, that's a striking admission.

Here's the video, from the state Democratic Party:

Now, since the clip is short, we don't know what Darling said after this. According to polling data, Darling has some cause to worry: One poll released in mid-July by the Democratic Party showed Pasch ahead of Darling by 1 percentage point, while a Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the liberal Daily Kos put Darling up by 5 points. Even then, it's a sign of the shifting political headwinds in Wisconsin that the Republican state senator considered by Democrats to be the least likely to lose her recall election is now conceding that she may be unseated.

Man, That Debt Ceiling Fight Sucked! Let's Do It Again!

Think the partisan warfare over the nation's debt is over? Think again.

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Aug. 3, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.

On Monday, with a flick of his pen, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, ending a contentious, months-long fight over the nation's debt ceiling, spending, and taxes that brought the nation to the brink of default and possibly economic catastrophe. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as the president turned the lopsided, GOP-friendly bill into the law of the land.

At least we won't have to go through that again—or so you might think.

Bzzt. Wrong. If you listen to Republicans, you'll know the debt ceiling fight was just the beginning.

[Read the full article]