1.11 Stranger - Results

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the eleventh day of the month is "Stranger."

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I went to a lot of school to understand election results and I still don't understand what happened in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

I mean, I do understand it. But I don't understand how people make the decisions they make.

Here's the deal. The governor won reelection. He's a Democrat. The no-good, horrible, racist, sexist, homophobic US senator also won reelection. He's a Republican. 

This is the incumbency advantage. Once you're elected to an office, you're much  more likely to win reelection than a challenger is to beat you. That's all this is. Both of these white men had won the office before and because of name recognition, government resources like the franking privilege, and easier access to campaign finance, they won again.  That's the correct "political science" answer.

But there's an another interesting puzzle here.

There had to be some split-ticket voters. In order for this outcome to happen, there are people walking around in our state who voted for Evers and Johnson, two politicians who couldn't hold more opposing views. Who are these people? What are they thinking? How does this outcome happen?  How are they judging the merits of the candidates and arriving at the conclusion that voting for these two candidates aligns with their own values?  

There was a time in history when people frequently voted across party lines. I remember my father telling me that it was important to keep Democrats in Congress and Republicans in the governor's office (which...is nonsense for another time), but I think that the time for that sort of thinking is long since gone as the parties diverge in positions.

So, that's my current question. Who are these split-ticket voters and why are they voting like this?