2025 Elections Begin With Big Throwdown in Wisconsin

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : Republicans are hoping Youngkin's relatively strong popularity (and upset win in 2021) carries over to his successor, and also note that Trump improved on his 2020 performance in the Commonwealth significantly in 2024 (losing by 5.7 percent as opposed to 10.1 percent in 2020).
57% : And finally, if as expected New York Republican Elise Stefanik is confirmed in the next week or so as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a potentially competitive special election will fill her seat.
56% : Here's an overview in chronological order: Wisconsin Supreme Court The first cookie on the plate is a big one: an off-year judicial election in the battleground state of Wisconsin (the closest state in the country in 2024; Trump carried it by a margin of 0.86 percent).
51% : " Team Crawford is delighted with the not-very-popular Musk's high visibility in Schimel's campaign, offering voters a chance to "send a message" to Musk and Trump about their ongoing demolition of federal programs and personnel.
49% : Ballot initiatives 2025 looks to be a quiet year for ballot initiatives, in part because the abortion-rights (and in a few states, abortion ban) measures that convulsed the country after the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022 have reached their likely culmination for a while (mostly because many states with abortion bans and Republican legislatures don't allow citizen-initiated constitutional amendments).
47% : The Democrats don't need unlikely victories to make a splash, however: Since Trump carried the First District by 37 points last year and the Sixth District by 30 points, a respectable underdog showing would raise both eyebrows and currently depressed grassroots Democratic spirits.
32% : Republicans can test out the MAGA hypothesis that Donald Trump is building a new majority coalition that will last for decades.
31% : But you don't have to wait until 2026 for some electoral tests of Trump 2.0 and its counterrevolutionary chaos.
27% : The possibility of a loss in this race may have had something to do, in fact, with Trump's decision to cancel Elise Stefanik's nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations because her vote is needed.
24% : And in 2024, Trump cut his 11.9 percent 2020 deficit in the Garden State to 5.9 percent.

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