To expand on yesterday's update, summarized here:
Quote (Pollster @ Aug 13 2014 12:19am)
New Ranges, shift, and cause for movement.
House: D+3 - R+10 - [Shift: <-] (Results of GOP primary election in WI-06)
Senate: R+1 - R+7 - [Shift: No Change]
Governors: D+6 - R+1 - [Shift: No Change]
The AP came dangerously-close to a massive embarrassment last night. It made a call in the WI-06 GOP primary quite early on when State Senator Glenn Grothman was comfortably leading by about 10 points. The problem was that most of Sheboygan, Wisconsin was outstanding and when it started to report shortly after AP made their call things started to tighten, and tighten fast. Grothman's lead shrunk to all of 200 votes before 100% of precincts are in. The AP never retracted their call as the margin narrowed, and at one point even stopped
updating. They are praying that Grothman's lead holds.
This is doubly-bad for the GOP unless by some miracle a recount produces a Grothman loss. Not only did the GOP nominate the one man that the party
did not want to advance to November, but he won by the narrowest of margins and will probably have to deal with a protracted recount or even lawsuit to hold onto his win. It's even worse if Sheboygan is a major player in a hypothetical recount because that's an area that is important to Democratic nominee Mark Harris' chances of beating Grothman in November to pick up the seat for the Democrats. The GOP is very uneasy at the prospect of Grothman getting so many free media and this seat that retiring Republican Tom Petri has held for 35 years could become yet another pure tossup race in the House like other seats vacated by retiring Republicans.
Edit: Making matters worse, one of candidates that Grothman defeated put his State Senate seat on the line in an attempt to move up into the House of Representatives. WI Republicans have no margin for error in November: they are clinging to an 18-15 edge in the State Senate and are dealing with challenges all over the map, and Governor Scott Walker is also locked in a pure tossup race. Worst case scenario for the GOP is Grothman costs his party what would otherwise be a Safe Republican House seat, a loss of a State Senate seat that could cost them their majority, and depressed turnout in a district that Scott Walker has to romp in if he wants to be reelected. The GOP better hope for a quick rebound.
This post was edited by Pollster on Aug 13 2014 05:04pm