News; Election night, 1

Johnson Public Radio. It's 8 o'clock you're listening to Wisconsin Public Radio. Stay with us coming up it's news from National Public Radio and then Wisconsin Public Radio's election night coverage comes your way with host Ben marrons and news analyst John Powell. In our weather for tonight mostly cloudy with areas of fog a chance of light rain or snow mainly during the evening hours. Lows in the mid 20s to low 30s for tomorrow and tomorrow night partly to mostly cloudy with a chance of rain or snow in the north from the mid 30s to mid 40s lows in the upper teens and 20s for Thursday and Thursday night partly to mostly cloudy a bit warmer highs in the 40s to around 50 lows in the 30s and for Friday partly to mostly cloudy highs from the mid 40s to mid 50s lows again in the 30s. Clouds around much of the state currently along with fog superior 30 degrees Auclair 33 Rhinelander 33 Wausau 30 for Green Bay 37 Appleton 37 Aakash 37 as well lacrosse 36. Madison 36 and the walky

clouds and 39 degrees. From NPR News in Washington I'm Corey Flintoff. It's midterm election night and American voters are making the decisions that will determine which parties will control the House the Senate and the majority of the nation's governorships. NPR's Craig Wyndham's been watching the Senate results. Craig what are you able to tell us so far. Well Corey the first of the high profile Senate races now has a projected winner in New Jersey former Senator Frank Lautenberg is expected to defeat Republican Doug Forrester a 78 year old Lawton Byrd entered the race in the homestretch when embattled New Jersey Senator Bob Torricelli dropped out abruptly amid an ethics scandal. Several veteran senators are doing well tonight. In Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry is the projected winner in his re-election bid. Kerry expected to contend for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Other expected winners are Mississippi governor or GOP Senator Thad Cochran an Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. In Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin is the projected

winner he had to run TV ads to clear up a possible name confusion because his opponent's name was Durkin. NPR projects West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller the winner in his re-election bid. The ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee GOP Senator John Warner of Virginia is expected to win his fifth term. And Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is expected to defeat his opponent Lois Weinberg McConnell will be the number two GOP leader in the new Senate. And this one just in NPR is projecting that Pat Roberts will win reelection as a GOP senator of Kansas. Thank you Craig Wyndham. They're also a lot of interesting governors races tonight. The party of course that holds the most state houses can exert a lot of influence on the domestic agenda of the president and the Congress. NPR's Barbara Bradley Haggerty you've been following the governor's results. What we know at this point Corey the big news right now is Florida NPR is projecting Republican Jeb Bush to be the winner. And by a fairly healthy margin about 60 percent of the vote his opponent Democrat Bill McBride is a relative political

novice and he actually put on a really strong challenge that worried Bush and indeed President Bush campaigned actively for his brother in recent weeks and apparently has helped his brother. Now polls have closed in two other key governor's races that are being watched very closely but these have not been called yet. In Illinois Democrat Roy Black excuse me Blagojevich who's a member of the House has been leading in the campaign against the Republican Jim Ryan. The state attorney general if he wins Blago if it would be the first Democratic governor in Illinois since 1972. As I said no word yet. And finally there's Maryland the incumbent Parris Glendening is retiring because of term limits his lieutenant governor Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has been running what her own party says is a really disappointing campaign. And by contrast her Republican opponent Bob Ehrlich has waged a really energetic fight. If Ehrlich wins he'll be the first Republican governor of Maryland since Spiro Agnew in 1966. Thank you Barbara. You're welcome.

Midnight tonight marks the end of the era when the national party committees could raise so-called soft money the big unregulated contributions from wealthy donors corporations and unions. The major party committees are on track to smash all records for collecting soft money in this past election cycle. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed additional charges against WorldCom saying financial fraud at the company was even worse than had been suspected. NPR's Scott Horsley reports. The FCC now says WorldCom began misleading investors about its financial condition at least as far back as 1999 and that the company has overstated profits by some nine billion dollars. The commission amended an earlier complaint filed back in June when WorldCom first admitted its bad bookkeeping. Since then the company has acknowledged billions of dollars in additional misstatements. And WorldCom says it's likely that more corrections will be coming. Earlier this week an examiner appointed by WorldCom is bankruptcy trustee accused the company of taking

extraordinary and illegal steps to mask its problems as the telecom business deteriorated. WorldCom says it still plans to emerge from bankruptcy and the discovery of additional accounting problems will not affect customer service. Scott Horsley NPR News analysis of tonight's election results has been slower and more cautious this evening in part because media organizations were embarrassed by making wrong calls on the Florida presidential race in 2000 but also because the nation's biggest exit polling service and Voter News Service announced this afternoon it was unable to give reliable results. I'm Corey Flintoff. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Support for NPR comes from the Discovery channel featuring the new series Unsolved History Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m.. This week discovery uses forensic science to examine Custer's last stand. We invite you to join more than 42000 of your Wisconsin neighbors who share a common

interest. Support of Wisconsin Public Radio is a W O R G and click on become a member of Wisconsin Public Radio. A good election evening to you. Your turn to Wisconsin Public Radio's election night coverage on Ben marrons. Glad you've tuned in as we will bring you the results. Well the two close races in their cup I think John Powell can't wait to call will bring him in to do that right now. We'll be talking to some of the candidates a lot of NL analysts this election even will also talk to our reporting staff that in about hearing what's been said at the polls. And we'll get to some of the candidates headquarters as well John Paul as always sitting in for election night with me Good evening John you've been and we have a race for governor with a lot of candidates only two main Democrat Jim Doyle and Republican Scott McCallum. All the minor candidates Wisconsin Green Party Jim Young and libertarian at

Thompson then a host of independents an attorney general's race expected to be close and a lot of people saying they have no idea how that will turn out between Democrat Peggy Lott and slogan Republican Vince Biskupic other races that are out there you want to call right now go right ahead. It will help basically we're watching just the two races of course governor and attorney general there quite a number of interesting county races of course are on the state for district attorney and Sheriff people are interested in those but for statewide and national concern let's face it all eight members of Congress are going to be re-elected. I fearlessly call all of the incumbents re-elected right now. Having seen a number yet but but really I don't think a single incumbent is going to go down much less even be close for Congress. There are of course secretary of state and state treasurer on the ballot. Let's face it those offices have no clout no policymaking authority whatsoever. Bears will report on them but they were really ones that were

watching of course our governor and attorney general governor race WTMJ TV in Milwaukee exit polled and announced their exit poll the moment the polls closed in their exit poll shows Doyle 46 percent and McCallum 41 percent in their southeastern Wisconsin viewing area. And I think that means that it Thompson has more than 10 percent they don't have Ed Thompson's numbers on here but he's going to get the vast majority of the third party votes and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets 10 percent or more if there is a 13 point there you know I think Jim Young gets more than one or two percent. I doubt it. Almost all of the publicity has been to THOMPSON First of all of course because his brother is Tommy. Secondly the Jesse Ventura effect from neighboring Minnesota people wondering if you have a colorful character comparisons to Jesse Ventura he certainly got the lion's share of the publicity from the Among the third party candidates and that would still be a remarkable showing by the way for Ed Thompson to get 10 percent or more to

get into double digits because as you know third party and independent candidates generally only get a couple of percentage points at most so he said they would be telling. At the same time there are a lot of negatives about the main candidates in the races they've run. Yeah. And you've got a former governor's brother running who you know has charisma. So why is it so surprising if he gets 10. Well it's big by historical comparison in the past it's been extremely rare for third party candidates to get more than a couple of percentage points in this case because of the connection to Tommy and because of disgust with business as usual I think with the negative campaigning and so forth that will end up as a protest vote in part I think against corruption in general I think the general public sees all sorts of corruption not only in government. But the corporate crime even pedophile priests I mean it all kinds adds up in the public mind to the people in charge are either corrupt or incompetent and that that sort of

that will stimulate a protest vote I think and probably bring some people to the polls who might not otherwise vote to cast their protest for it. THOMPSON And so I don't know if the Thompson vote would really change the dynamic between Doyle and McCallum but conceivably it could for instance help Democrats down the ballot because a larger turnout. Conventional wisdom is a larger turnout helps Democrats. We'll see how that will look tonight folks. Certainly the governor's race and the attorney general's race the two that we expect to be close. And then also at the state legislature the assembly and the state Senate have races where there may be some protest votes going on with the caucus scandals and the like. We'll see how that plays out we have reporters who have covered those races who will be joining us through the course of the evening. Right now the assembly held by the Republicans by six would change it. Turn it around and then the state senate succumbed to it whether you're a

Democrat. Will try to have it let people know who will be controlling the state senate before we sign off tonight because there are only about 5 races to watch there that are really up for grabs with 99 State Assembly seats of course not all 99 are being closely contested but nevertheless with ninety nine Assembly seats to watch it's much more difficult to get a concise reading before we before 10 or 11 p.m. tonight. What's going on there. Our first numbers are in from our poll watchers we have people reporting in from polls around the state in Madison in Milwaukee and other places around the state this is a Madison East Side Madison working class ward that leans Democratic and it has a 58 percent turnout which is a lot more than Madison many average a somewhat larger turnout than the rest of the state but that's much more than some of the guesses have been as to what the statewide turnout average will be. And in this Madison this is a Democratic leading ward for Governor Doyle

642 McCallum two hundred thirty eight Thompson two hundred twenty one. Almost equal to McCallum in a Democratic leaning award for attorney general peg Loughton slugger 814 Vince Biskupic three hundred five and four Dane County people who are interested the Dane County district attorney race which we knew would be very close former sheriff Rick remission now running for D.A. as a Republican Brian Blanchard the incumbent Democrat there almost exactly even Ramus 533 Blanchard five hundred eighty seven in a Democratic leaning war that would be bad news for Blanchard. Well we will follow those and more results coming in as we speak we're trying to get our first guest Alec Kirby He'll be with us in just a minute John what do you have now. Near West Side ward in Madison with a good turnout. Jim Doyle 776 Scott McCallum 113 Jimmy Young 103. The Green party ended Thompson 65 so there's your Green Party candidate coming through a lot in slugger 869

Biskupic one hundred fifty three. Blanchard is 780 to re-image 207 this is obviously a more than slightly Democratic leaning ward but not enough to tell us a lot about the final outcome will be looking at these sorts of things through the evening and will try to bring you the call the election before Tim. Maybe not. Ella Kirby is a professor of history and government at the University of Wisconsin stout by the way John Paul thanks for those results and those in the field getting them for us here to talk with us a little bit about the ethics of the governor's campaigns. Good evening. Evening. Thank you for making time to be here appreciate it. Oh thank you. You know we've heard from a lot of people I'm glad the election is over today because I'm fed up with all of the commercials and all of the mudslinging and we don't like them. We hear experts say the public can't stand the negative campaigns and the ads this slogans the fighting it doesn't work. We keep seeing it though. Oh come on.

Well the short answer is that while there are very few people who are experts on policy. Have you ever met anybody who's not an expert on character. It's the one subject people love to talk about. It's true the public has. Expressed a huge amount of disgust with negative advertising that's a sign in fact that negative advertising is working in a kind of perverse sense. The goal of negative advertising is of course to tear down your opponent and to the extent that you can depress voter turnout for your opponent you win this kind of win by division rather than addition. So the public there come two salient points that negative advertising alas does work it nauseates us in general but it intrigues us on some level and both sides are firing negative ads and there is and they're both they're both seeing their target and one guy one would expect. Although this doesn't appear to be the case for much of the reported from Madison. That voter

turnout would be down significantly in the state and in the nation. Yeah we don't yet know about that although we've heard some reports the numbers at least in a lot of Florida were extremely high and in the Panhandle numbers they expect to see during a presidential race so. So Mary is the country the vote has come out in greater numbers than experts predicted at the same time. Two things that have come out nationally and Wisconsin is no different. The large amount of money that's being spent on races for governor or Senate or Congress and at the same time the amount of negative that has been thrown around with that money. It's not just here in Wisconsin. Yes absolutely it's an excellent point. There's an old adage that triple C defines every campaign the triple C is character cash in context the context in which the campaign is is is waged character intrigue character issues inevitably surface and campaign cash does play a major role and here

in Wisconsin certainly on the gubernatorial level we've seen precedent. The unprecedented levels of ash flowing in from various sources according to one study by the Wisconsin democracy campaign. At least twenty point seven million dollars has been spent by candidates and interest groups in the governors races and exorbitant exorbitant amounts of money. There's more to ask you but I'm going to move on I'm going to others to get to talk to you later I appreciate your time this evening. Thank you. Ella Kirby is a professor of history and government at the University of Wisconsin stout. Joel Hi I'm is a guest on one of the talk shows here professor of political science at the UW lacrosse He joins us next. Good evening. Give me a bit how you doing I'm fine how are you. Pretty good. Appreciate your time. Got up this morning with snow on the ground yesterday. And if you're not good not good people voting when you want to go vote today. They were the surprising thing is that snow didn't seem to deter anybody from getting to the polls early. The polls that I checked with said they had to study people coming in the entire day.

Well I assume it wasn't that much snow. No it was but it's just talking about money in the campaign. They're feeling that in the last couple weeks the race got tighter and with that tightening of the race the money flew into the state. Well it there's so few races in the country that are competitive that. It's almost like a magnet. You have money out there like bits and pieces of iron and you've got a magnet rays that will attract it at the last second because people want to put their money where they would be most impact on it. Do you read much of the fact the president was in the Midwest about the weekend but didn't walk into the state. Yes I did. I wondered about it. He had spent time here earlier but did make me wonder if perhaps they were making a decision with him with that in other words they thought the race was over with. Well the other house that I could have gone either way the other is that they obviously thought the race didn't need the president anymore. When we talk about the race for Congress in the state John Paul walking out way out

on that limb and he called the incumbent in a landslide. Is there anything in this state that would have changed that tonight do you think. Redistricting by a neutral body that would make the races more competitive. It's clear that the incumbents have figured out how to how to ensure their reelection and by manipulating the lions they can trade a few voters here and there too especially if they're next to a Republican or a Democrat you know side by side destroyed. They find it mutually advantageous to ensure their own continued success. But unless you redistrict the point were to incumbents go up against each other how is somebody who's not an incoming going to beat the incumbent for Congress. Well I think the dishes could be drawn so that they work would be more competitive. Maybe they wouldn't be perfect but I think with your dishes movement I have come around to thinking that competition is more important than how much in it for the voters. Another is that you can represent everybody because they're all alike. You can vote their conscience because they're all alike. I think competition is more important and I guess I'll

throw in campaign fund raising. I think if we had sufficient fundraising for challengers they could at least run a reasonable race against incumbents that are well financed. Given the current trend is that just mean those who didn't have as much money would have more money to run more negative ads. Well that's the problem of course is how do you keep the free speech issue out of this and an incumbent amassing huge amount scares people away. I don't know really if we have a solution to that but at least the calendar has a certain amount of money they can run at least a reasonable rate and people would pay some attention to it. Obviously they could be overwhelmed by the incumbent cash role Joe Heim thanks for jump in and we may talk a little bit. Thanks for the the intense care my pleasure. OK Joe hind giving us his take on some of this. Professor political science at the cross. John Powell the latest we've got a couple of reports here one from two wards and Wellwood Tosa and two wards of the south side of Milwaukee these one with toast

awards both awards went very big for Tommy Thompson in 1998 that really isn't much of a comparison for us to make for tonight. One Ward went narrowly for President Bush two years ago the other in a big way for President Bush who ultimately lost Wisconsin anyway. Ward 11 in Wildwood McCallum three hundred seventy nine dollars three hundred sixty two Thompson fifty three the other ward it's McCallum This is the one that went big for Bush. MACCALLUM 517 Doyle three hundred sixty four Thompson 34 in the attorney general race. It's Biskupic over Lawton Slogger by a slight margin in one of the wards and by a much larger margin in the other ward. So this tells us that this is kind of following the pattern of the race for governor. I mean the race for president two years ago which is not tremendously earthshaking news for us. Big turnout there though like 60 percent turnout in that ward in Tosa

and in Milwaukee's south side a white middle class war that leaned to Governor Thompson and slightly for Gore. Doyle 3 0 2 253 Thompson 50 in one ward Doyle 260 McCallum two hundred twenty seven Thompson 40 in the other ward and almost a dead heat between Biskupic and Slugger a.g race I'm up for I think we might not know it for a long time tonight. But those are holding steady in the same patterns basically as the presidential race two years ago. John Powell I bet and you're listening to election night coverage on Wisconsin Public Radio. It's a calypso tune written by Pete Seeger played by guitarist Martin Simpson folk music is full of surprises and delights. I'm Judy rose. Join me for simply Sunday evening from 5:00 until 8:00 here on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Volunteering it was gone from public radio is lots of fun besides providing a vital service. You'll meet the people you hear on the air and others who share your interest in quality radio. To learn more visit WP our dot org. Click on about w PR and then on volunteer opportunities. Election night coverage on Wisconsin Public Radio. As we get the results in we'll tell you about them so far we have numbers that sort of jump in from Madison outside the Morkie area. We don't have any firm decisions to tell you about except in the races that are clear cut over Secretary of State Of course state treasurer and the races for Congress in Wisconsin. But the race for governor. Still we wait to find out where the numbers will fall in from and the attorney general's race apparently will be a close race as well. We'll talk a little bit about campaign finance reform continuing the discussion we're having with Joe

Heim Don Kettl a professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at the UW here in Madison at the Le Follet Institute of Public Affairs comes in to talk to us next Don Kettl Good evening. Good evening it's great to be with you. As we were just doing this it seemed two months ago we had what have we seen since then that the money has exploded and with it we're not getting necessarily better quality information from all the candidates were just getting more attacks on each other. We are it's been a campaign. It's been as negative as that in that we've seen. It's not that we haven't seen negative attack ads before but there were at least usually a few more ads that were more positive and those have been almost completely absent so it makes the negative ads seem to stand out all the more. We're spending by some accounts 20 to 25 million dollars in this gubernatorial race and in the end we really don't know what either candidate would do when it's time to take office. Well you know Don I'm wondering if part of the reason for that is that the candidates have nothing good to promise big because of the state of the state's finances. This isn't a race where you can promise

tax cuts or new programs or anything. So there's nothing good to promise the voters. So maybe that's untrue. John all along I think we all had a sneaking suspicion that this was going to be negative and was going to be negative for a long time and the reason was two things One is that. Like the crazy at the attic you know what he wants to talk about. Nobody really wants to talk about what the story really is with the state budget. But if you take that off the table and are even halfway realistic about the money that's left you can't make promises about new programs. So in the end you have almost nothing left to talk about except for character and integrity and that's why the campaign's gone so negative. Do you believe that both of promised no tax increase. Do you think either of them could can realistically keep to their promise. There's going to be absolute frankness Not a chance in the world that that promise can be kept and the basic reason is that the size of the state deficit is in fact larger than has been discussed in the campaign and to eliminate it only the spending cuts would essentially mean wiping out all state operations including corrections in the university and if that's my casual point. Action is it that's not

going to happen. That's so clear to you and many people have been saying that. Why would people namely Doyle McCallum Ron say that they promised no tax increases and guarantee themselves one term in office by breaking the promise. Well part of it is that you don't even get to the office without making at least a promise everybody knows that they're taxed too much. I would talk to anybody who didn't think their taxes are already too high. But I have told him what he knew was the kiss of death immediately as if they got anywhere close to the tax issue because they knew that Republicans would pounce on him for it. That's a Republican issue so it's easy enough to explain and understand why. But the real question is whoever it is who wakes up as governor tomorrow morning won't have any electoral support for doing what we all know is going to have to be done. And yet I've talked to a lot of people who say you know what. I understand we're in trouble and I pay more taxes. I just would like to be told by somebody honestly that this is what I'm going to have to do. And the fact that the time may be right to say OK it's not something you want to hear but

I'm going to honestly tell you whether you're McCallum or Doyle we're going to have to raise some revenue from you folks to get through this mess. That's right and. Anyways that would've been one option the campaign I think both sides guess that if they had tried to do that they would have been instantly dead. The written actually interesting question though is whoever it is who wins. Then how do they play this. How do they get themselves out of the situation they put themselves in. How do they talk frankly about what has to be done and how to develop a strategy and by the way how do they do that almost instantly because the hole is so deep that we need to begin almost right away to begin trying to fill one more question for you about campaign finance reform the way to move on. If we had some quick kind of campaign finance reform given the fact that when people have 20 million dollars to spend they go negative with so much of it. Wouldn't we just see better quality negative ads if the money were reduced in campaign. We might see just as many negative ads but what I think if we had campaign finance reform we'd see is we'd see more races that were more competitive that would even up the odds not so

much of the gubernatorial level because Fred. That's not where the real impact for campaign finance reform would be would we see more and more good legislative races I think and if we succeed and I don't act that we might succeed in changing more of the political culture of the state I think I know that's the conventional wisdom I'm just not sure I understand how it works. We'll talk more with you about it another day. Yes indeed. Thanks Don Kettl a pleasure. Don Kettl from the fallen School of Public Affairs the file into public affairs at the UW. John Powell what do you have. Well we have some reports here we have a board in Award and Milwaukee's East Side awarded wall with a West High School at the Milwaukee School of Languages and these are all following the pattern of the 2000 presidential race. One area that went heavily for Bush is going heavily for McCallum The Milwaukee east side which went overly for Gore is going heavily for Doyle. There is one anomaly here and that's that Racine's a Mitchell School where Bush narrowly beat Gore and where Doyle is substantially substantially ahead of

MACCALLUM So that's that's one area that's different and that's bad news for McCallum. The others are following their pattern from the previous voting. We've got the state Senate race there with fucking step that may have a play into that. All right. Well if yes were seen and that would. Let's see we don't have the numbers from them as yet in that but the fact that the Democrats are doing extremely well in that particular ward would better much better than Gore did two years ago would seem to be good news for not only Doyle but for plucky as well. Thanks John Paul. That's John Paul I'm Ben marrons and we are going to talk more with you through the evening until we figure out who has won this race for governor and we'll try to tell you who won the race for attorney general two when we come back we'll talk to Dick haven. He will speak to us a little bit about some of the rhetoric in the race in the meantime. Please stay with us throughout the evening as we'll bring you news information about this race this election 2002 here on Wisconsin

Public Radio. It's 8:30 this is Wisconsin Public Radio News Good evening I'm Randall Davidson. It's been a good night so far for Senate incumbents Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts Richard Durbin of Illinois and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia have won re-election along with Republicans John Warner of Virginia Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thad Cochran of Mississippi. In early returns Republicans appear to have the upper hand in races for the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans are counting on President Bush's popularity to help them. Democrats hope history will repeat itself and inflict midterm losses on the president's party. And one of the high profile gubernatorial races Florida Governor Jeb Bush has taken an early lead over Democratic challenger Bill McBride. Also in Florida former Secretary of State Katherine Harris appears headed for an easy win for a House seat representing the Sarasota area. The polls have closed across

Wisconsin in the pre-election rhetoric is over Scott McCallum and Jim Doyle are done courting voters and have retreated to their respective camps to listen for election returns. MACCALLUM and supporters are at the Concourse hotel in Madison the dual campaigns at the mairie out west in Middleton. Libertarian Ed Thompson is gathered with friends at his supper club in Toma waiting for whoever wins is the state's the state's top office rather is a state budget deficit that analysts predict could hit 2.8 billion dollars. The governor's race tops election news in Wisconsin tonight all eight of Wisconsin's congressional seats all ninety nine in the state assembly seats and about half of the state Senate seats are also to be decided. The executive director the State Elections Board predicted voter turnout for today's election to be less than average statewide. About 40 percent of voters were expected to go to the polls. That's slightly below the average of 43 percent. However in Dane County clerk job turnout was running about 50 percent. He says today's turnout is similar to the general election four years ago. The highest turnout elections are the fall general elections the first highest being the presidential election followed by the gubernatorial elections and the September

primaries always have a lower turnout. Most people like to come out for the general election. So this is about what we would expect to see for a November gubernatorial. Meantime Incan ocean clerk Jeanne Morgan says she expected more people than average to vote and in Waukesha deputy city clerk Mary Bieber says a hotly contested a state assembly race helped boost voter turnout there. Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Madison the only openly gay member of Congress is seeking re-election against Republican Ron Greer an African-American minister who attacked her for a left wing ideas. The second district race in south central Wisconsin is the most hotly contested battle an election where most House incumbents are poised to win new two year terms. And weather tonight mostly cloudy skies areas of fog a chance of light rain or snow mainly during the evening hours overnight lows tonight in the middle 20s to the lower 30s. This is Wisconsin Public Radio News I'm Randall Davidson. I've been marrons along with John Paul on this Election Night 2000 and 2

and we're glad you two no Wisconsin Public Radio's. We try to tell you who's winning and why. Hopefully we'll know why. John Paul do we have any updates you want to give a recaps and we should get to as I say most of the words that we're checking out are pretty much following the pattern that they set in the 2000 in the presidential election if they want just by a small margin for Bush they're going by a small margin for McCallum and so forth. Gore ended up winning that Wisconsin by a small margin of course. The latest we have in here is from the Le Follet high school voting precinct on the far west side of Madison or south side of Madison. Doyle is winning big here. Six hundred fifty three McCallum one hundred seventy eight Ed Thompson one hundred seventy five. This is the second ward we've had from Madison where Thompson almost equaled McCallum. Jim Young seventy eight for attorney general Peggy Lawton flogger by a very big margin. And perhaps more indicative of the true balance of the county district attorney race in Madison which will

report on whenever we can. That pits former sheriff recrimination who is nominally a Republican but in Dane County Republicans are pretty liberal by statewide standards I think and are Amish was sheriff so. He's not a stranger on the ballot here that's going to be a close one. And the incumbent Democrat Brian Blanchard Blanchard 654 re-image 406 in this ward which is obviously going much bigger for Doyle and longer. So we'll just keep you posted as these come in I don't see I see only a couple of words that deviate from their pattern of the presidential race in 2000. We are going to be joined next by Dick Haven his associate dean of the College of Arts and communication at the U. In Whitewater he also is a professor of communication Dick Caven Good evening and welcome. Thank you Ben nice to be with you. We've asked you to come talk to us a little bit about the rhetoric on the campaign trail both the ads and some of the debate rhetoric that you saw in the speeches you've heard. Did you hear anything along the campaign trail that breaks seriously away

from this mantra of complaint that all we hear is negative. Is the public not tuned into the positive they dissed haven't caught it. You know I you know I don't think so I think we were dominated certainly by the airwaves and then especially television with negative advertising that. While there were positive messages out there those were pretty well drowned out. And you know I think even at the debate so you might have noticed that it was not unusual to see the major candidates simply go back to after you know offering a positive comment go right back into their negative. Criticism of their opponents try to bring up often some of the more insignificant issues that were I think at times designed to sidetrack the electorate and or at least to try to focus more attention on questions of character rather than questions of substance. You talk often with us on our talk programs about sort of historical context to the speeches and campaigns of days gone by. Have we seen negative campaigning all along we just pay more attention to it now because it seems more prevalent or is it actually

more prevalent in the 20th and 21st centuries than it was in the early races of our country's life. Well I think it varies. I think the negative campaigning has always been with us we often go back and cite the 18 0 4 presidential election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams as the first example of a very bitter negative campaign. And clearly that's been with us all the time I think it becomes more dominant more prevalent because of the impact of the electronic means. Especially television in terms of bringing us such a predominance of messages also the influx of money into the campaigns and we're seeing more of that Wisconsin this year than we've seen in the last two years in a governor's race that a lot of money. It's a combination of factors. We've also seen a turn towards more negative campaigning in the last half of the 20th century as we did in the first half of the 20th century.

We will leave it with you there to Cavan Thanks for jumping in. You're welcome bad Dick Caven from the White Water. We're going to be joined next by Mary Jo Wagner to talk a little bit about the state Senate race. But before we go there and the Seventh Congressional will talk to John Paul more numbers John what do you have. Just two more following the same pattern of the 2000 presidential race we have eight percent of the vote from Waukesha County counted now and in that county the Bush beat Gore by more than two to one in 2000 and a surprise McCallum is beating Doyle by a little more than two to one and also the Republican attorney general candidate overlooking slugger also a bit more than two to one. So that doesn't give us too much to go on since the 2000 election is a very close statewide and they're following the same pattern as this doesn't tell us too much new. Similar story from Racine County where we have 19 percent of the county vote total again. Hard to tell where that 19 percent came from in different parts of the county. But as I say for the most part they're following the patterns of the 2000 vote

and Thompson seems to be getting well if I can do the math in my head here we have. What's 1000 over 1 1 15th What percentage that's what he's getting in Waukesha County 115 which is what 6 percent like that he may get 10 percent statewide we've seen some wards where he's getting double digits in Waukesha although of course Walker's show is the strongest Republican county probably in the state. Mary Jo Wagoner operates out of our Auclair bureau and she joins us now Mary Jo Good evening. Good evening Ben. Thanks for asking me to talk about the congressional races which you said are going to be very competitive I understand. Well I want you to talk about it and that was there any interest out there of those of the public you talked to about this race so they is turned off to it as seemingly the rest of the state it. Well I don't know about the public but it's very you can it's very telling with just the fundraising alone in the seventh Congressional up there were representative David been in office since

1969. Over the years several Republicans have tried to challenge him it's very very difficult to raise funds when he has more than $600000 his Republican challenger right now is Joe Roth our CEO of a toy company it's an Internet based toy company but it's it's really a struggle brought power is raised about $18000 so to get your word out it's very hard. Let's see if the Democrats ever take control of the House of Representatives will be will chair the Finance Committee lobby as you know very well aware of that and the people who you know it's big money. You know he's on the Appropriations Committee Yes. State Senator. Yes you are going to talk about that. They said it was in a fight with Ron Brown tell us about it. Yes Senator Moni is the assistant majority leader that means he serves as second to Senator Chuck Koala which. We all know the issues that are involved with koala and all the indictments So Ron Brown has made an issue of that trying to tie my own two koala Now Senator mone has said that you know a lot of this stuff

was operating out of qualis law office and not in the Capitol. You did not know the stuff is going on he said I don't work for another senator I work for my constituents so that has been a very contentious issue as has the Ashley furniture issue Senator Miller that's in that district an Ashley furniture as you know tried wanted to expand and there was some wetland involved there and it actually took its expansion down to the south so that has resulted in some very negative television ads against Senator moan. Well we'll see how that comes out. I don't know if you've seen any numbers yet if you have any. Not any yet no. OK. Well we'll be back to you. Mary Jo thanks so much. Thank you. Mary Jo Wagner from our Auclair bureau will have more for you in just a quick minute. You're tuned to election night coverage. I'm Ben marrons with John Powell on Wisconsin Public Radio portal Wisconsin dot org now features discussion forums the forums like you have ongoing conversations by posting messages. One forum is a chapter a day book club. Another asks for

your favorite unexpected place to visit in Wisconsin and we invite you to start our conversation. It's a P O R T A Our Wisconsin dot org slash forum. If you are in a leadership position with a Wisconsin company we invite you to support your employee's contributions to Wisconsin Public Radio to learn how your company can become a matching company. Call 800 7 4 7 7 4 4 for. Election night coverage continuing on Wisconsin Public Radio. John Powell in the studio with me Ben Barron's Guildhall staed reporter works out of our Madison bureau in the studio next to talk with us a little bit about the Second Congressional District. And Gil welcome. Nice to be here man. You know there was some talk that Ron Greer was going to give Tammy Baldwin a real run for her money as a race war on though it seemed like that petered

out some welcome. Yeah. Well I'm I think probably because of the extremity of his views to a certain extent. It's we still don't know about a certain part of this district there's some people who say that the new parts of the district in Jefferson County in Rock County are are somewhat unknowns in terms of how they will go for either Tammy Baldwin or wrong group both of them have been working hard down there. It's been said that they are Democratic districts but they may be more socially conservative so it's possible that Ron Greer's message on things like abortion and Tammy Baldwin being openly lesbian might might have an impact down there but the race doesn't look like it's certainly not as tight as it was the last time she ran for re-election when she won by won by just 9000 votes. The one poll that's been done was done only in the Dane County area and that showed her winning 63 to 23 that's one third of the district's voters. So. Can I call it for Tammy right now but it's certainly she's not facing as tough a challenge as she did last time.

You may not be calling him John Paul I like to see any evidence that any challenger is getting any traction. I think all of the end and I guess it would instill the other way. Otherwise all of the incumbents are going to win for commuters. The other area that you followed other districts the first congressional district Congressman Paul Ryan is there it's no competition this time around he's really established himself as. So yeah going to the district how come so quickly. That's a question I have for people who watch that district more closely to I don't know. My sense is there's been a demographic shift I mean this was a place where Democrat Les Aspin was in power for 22 years. And there's there's been a shift there's the big factories have have lost the Labor vote is not as strong as it was Chrysler's smaller Case Western is smaller. I think that that that's had an impact but it's definitely become a Republican district. It's also just the power of incumbency. You know when the last time an incumbent member of Congress lost in Wisconsin. Maybe you could think of it if I thought about it for a while but there's another well be talking about the third

congressional district next door Democrat Ron Kind right. One of District Six years ago where there'd been Republican representation it's a Republican leaning district when one kind came up for re-election the first time the Republicans did not even field a strong candidate. I think that's a real testimony that the empowered power of incumbency. Hostin thanks for coming in. Thank you. We're going to talk about that third Congressional disgrace next with Sandra Harris from our look Cross Bureau Sandra HARRIS Good evening and good evening to you. Thanks for making the time to be with us on this busy night for you. When we talk about Ron Kind in the competition he had who ran against him and what kind of race did you see. Well first of all it was a very low profile race for Ron Kind neither of the opponents had has had a lot of money to spend so kind of put on a very low key campaign he's had some political advertisements on television but they mainly focus on his family and there's nothing of substance really in

regard to the issues. But then again you know with that little competition there's really no need to bring up the issue. And. I would guess that's probably the reason why neither Republican bill Arndt nor libertarian Jeff Sastre have been real visible. They've been around the area in the lacrosse area probably a couple of times that I've actually seen Arndt got a small amount of money from the 3rd District Republican Party but that's about it and he said he wasn't expecting any more and that was some time ago all the interest. Go ahead. Most interesting what. Oh the most interesting thing in this race really is the anti-Iraq War coalition around the lacrosse area that has started a write in campaign. They're protesting Ron's kind support of the president's resolution that would allow him the authority to attack Iraq. That group wants people to write in Mark Twain's name on the ballot. So as a journalist you'll recall Mark Twain had this anti-war attitude. So that's that's what they were hoping to have people right.

You don't have any fresh tape for Mr. Twain do you. No no no. Very interesting twist of the night Shell said Harris thanks so much. You're welcome to weigh in. OK well we're going to move to more walking next. Check who coordinates a huge staff on election night and he's going to take a break from coordinating them to talking with us to talk more about that evening. Good evening Ben. How are you. Busy but things are going fine. You want to talk about some races I guess Sure I'd love to. What do you want to talk to us but we talked a little earlier about some numbers in Racine that are far heavier for oil than they were for Gore and with a plucky stepped race over there for the state senate in plucking Cathy Stepp. We thought that may have played into it some. Well some conflicting numbers here. We'll talk about the Racine Ward a retired overseen Mitchell School on the south side. This is more in the city of Racine traditionally a Democratic area and Clocky Although that the top of the ticket Thompson did beat Garvie in 98 and Bush narrowly beat Gore but generally a city of Racine is

regarded as Democratic territory still plucky was ahead there in both wards we sampled by about 200 votes. County wide though we've gotten some county wide numbers from Racine County about 20 percent of the vote in a much different result there. Cathy Stepp the Republican challenger and about 65 percent of the vote versus plucky about 35 percent of the vote. Plucky is going to run weaker in overall county in the rural areas of the county Cathy step is from Yorkville a rural part of the county she's a home builder and she is going to do well in the rural parts and it's hard to say yet where these county wide numbers are coming in for coming out for more ways than it's to be expected if they're coming from more of the city of Racine than Kim's bloc is in real trouble. And the wall with the state Senate seat mix so far we've got Milwaukee County numbers George CHRISTIANSEN The Democrat versus Tom Reynolds the Republican. We just got some numbers handed in from Walker Sharpe County

where Tom Reynolds as you might expect is doing much better than George Christensen running about three to one I had in Milwaukee County samples from West Allis. And while would tell us a show Kristensen ahead generally in the four or five wards that we have by a bit over Reynolds. Not sure if it's going to be enough to offset Reynolds's advantage in Waukesha County that race is going to be close for a while but we do have. People paying attention to all four five of the communities involved will be going to have more of that soon. Most election nights in the past we've talked about Tom Reynolds opposing Jerry Klitschko trying to get to Congress. In your conversation with him why did he change directions and try to go to Madison instead. Well losing three times might be a factor I guess. You know sort of narrowing your target and he went after Peggy Rosenzweig the Republican incumbent lacing into or on the abortion issue. Reynolds is anti-abortion lacing into around the gun issue. Reynolds backs the NRA is

line for concealed carry and saying that Rosenzweig had backed it too many tax increases of course Rosenzweig had closely aligned with Tommy Thompson over the years greater state spending. You know the race going to congressional races for what they are and for the race for the 4th Congressional District because new district that encompasses more of North Morkie than he has in the past. No one really challenged him was the time right to do it now because it is a new district and the Democrats just said no I mean the Republicans said we're not going to bother. Well maybe it was I mean it came together fairly late for you know for sure that the deal was going to be that the fourth congressional district would move to the all of the city of Milwaukee and just one or two suburbs instead of also having more of Waukesha County in it and maybe one where the Republicans decided let's see how this first go around sorts out and then maybe challenge

Klitschko in two years there's also some uncertainty as to how strong that recall. Movement is in Milwaukee County how long it's going to last and so on and that's largely been linked to Republicans. We'll know the strength of that the Durance of it in a couple of years and maybe we'll see a stronger challenge then. We're still getting numbers into us one of the big discussion points always on election night just turnout and a lot of people saying that for governor McCallum to stay governor McCallum a large turnout is going to be necessary in Milwaukee larger than most people expected. You have any idea what the numbers look like percentage wise. Well it's actually fairly good in the certain areas. Kathleen Dunn tells us in the northwest side of Milwaukee 11:36 of 2000 I mean that's over 50 percent in WA would tell us large western side a traditionally strong Republican territory. Brown reports that about 55 percent. Other

one turned out well for McCallum it appears. And so he's he's getting some turnout and so is Doyle though though on the east side of Milwaukee and the southeast side where he's expected to do well in the in the north side of Milwaukee. Do you have strong local races bringing people out. Not tremendously no other than those state Senate races that we talked about. It's largely. In a few assembly races and by the way I figure if I can detour for 30 seconds here are the latest numbers from Walker's shark colony show Scott Jensen Well in control of his re-election in the 98 the Semele district he's leading is challengers by four and 5000 votes. And the little bit that we know he has no Democratic challenger so there is no Democratic challenger he's ahead of an independent a libertarian and a write in candidate. I'll buy as I say at least about five thousand five thousand five hundred votes and this is with a nearly 20 percent of the county reporting so it looks like Jensen is going to go on to get reelected. And Steve

40 in the western part of Waukesha County only a small part of the portion of the 38 is in Waukesha County but right now he is ahead of Mo Hanson a Democratic challenger also yet to be heard from Jefferson County and I think a bit of Dodge County that that race includes Chuck will be back to you later thank you. That's going to Milwaukee bureau we're going to talk to Patty Murray from our Green Bay View. An update on numbers first from John Paul. We get when he gets fresh paper folks I figure there's numbers on it. Maybe it's a secret notice of the we'll see Patty Murray. Good evening good evening Ben. Got you here. And when we talk with you we talk about the race for the Congressional of which there really isn't. And the Senate race between James Baumgarten Joseph leave him tell us about that. Well I don't think there's going to be much of a contest in the 8th Congressional District the incumbent Republican Mark Green. We only have 3 percent of the precincts reporting district wide but he's got a wide lead 8000 vote lead over

his Democratic challenger Andrew Becker and the Wisconsin Green Party candidate. Keiser is showing in the race he's got about seven percent of the vote so far but I think that lead for Green may only get larger turnout as the night goes on. You know we talked to Mr. Becker on the air recently and he didn't seem to be very optimistic but he is hopeful and plan to get paid to the very end he said. All right it was a very very low profile campaign obviously the challengers could not afford to to match Mark Green for advertising and get out the vote effort in the state senate district race you're dealing with. Right that's the Ninth District it's in the Manitowoc County Sheboygan County areas we have Senate incumbent Democrat Jim Baumgartner. And his Republican challenger is seen as a young up and coming Republican Joe line. Now we only have 4 percent of the precincts revoted reporting in that district so far so Leiberman though is showing a lead he's got 60 percent of the

vote over Jim card. And that race was seen as one of the more vulnerable ones that could tilt the balance in the state Senate. We'll be back to you a little while and we'll see what those numbers play out as the night goes on. Patty Murray thanks so much. And before look at John of the numbers no no we haven't gotten any words in and we still have less than 10 percent of the statewide total counted in any of the races. So much new report in terms of data coming in at the moment. We talk next to a local scientist in Madison David Cannon who does a lot of talk radio for us and now some election night coverage too. Hi David. Good evening thanks for being here. Good to be here. So we look at the national picture for Congress obviously Wisconsin we're not going to change anything these many seats shifting one way or the other both in the house and or Senate. Well I have been scanning made it out here. For the last half hour or so and it's tough to find many big upsets at this point the one probably the most notable that Frank Lautenberg

won a pretty easy win in New Jersey and that was one the Democrats as Lee had to hang on to some bad news for the Democrats to be coming out of Georgia where right now with about a third of the precincts reporting the Democrat Max Cleveland is running behind significantly 56 to 43 and that's when the Democrats really need to hang on to to be able to maintain control of the Senate. On the other hand we have no idea where those precincts are reporting from and so it depends on what part of the state those are coming in from but that's kind of bad news for the Democrats it looks like. Also in New Hampshire right now another state that the Democrats would really like to pick up. John Sununu is. Running I had about 6 percent ahead of the Democrat DNC had shot in and it was about half of the precincts reporting there. And so those are both early states that the Democrats were hoping to win both of those of the Democrats could have won both New Hampshire and Georgia. They're pretty assured of hanging on to the Senate. But with both of those

leaning Republican right now that could be some early bad news for the Democrats. And the telephone the Internet is how sure of that is that. Well I get it it's 52 percent of the precincts in this Hampshire and thirty two percent and in Georgia. And so if those are representative of the whole state then that would be a pretty comfortable lead for the Republicans but again we have no idea where those precincts are reporting from if they're from the largely rural areas let's say like in Georgia. Atlanta hasn't reported yet and that would be you know good news for Max Cleeland in the Democrat incumbent might be able to pull through it. So given that they don't say where the precincts are coming from it's hard to say exactly how meaningful those numbers are. David can and do if ever take 20 seconds into the race for Congress here in Wisconsin are we better off leaving our incumbents there so they get more seniority in Wisconsin will have more pull in Washington versus having competitive races and losing some of that seniority. Well that's a good question I mean talk to Dave Obey and he definitely would tell you that it's great to have the seniority and that if the Democrats take control then you know he'll be chair of the Appropriations Committee and that definitely would be a

very big deal for the state of Wisconsin. There is real value in having seniority there's no doubt about that. But you lose something by not having competitive races that when you don't have an opportunity to have the opposition party even you know make their case of why the incumbent should not be returned to office. I think the voters lose an opportunity to you know find out more about where the incumbent stands and to have incumbent justify their positions. So I mean the other eight out there on the other hand in the past we have had members of Congress with a lot of seniority and we've been near dead last in getting federal money back the whole time so one wonders what the what use it is. Right although we haven't had the chair of appropriations committee and that would be something it would be a huge huge bonus certainly for the state. David Tennant I know that that that's something that it would depend on who who would be the people in the positions of power. David Cannon will be back to you a little later we break for news here on election night Wisconsin Public Radio. Wisconsin Public Radio has long enjoyed an active and often lively communication with our

listeners. We regularly receive thoughtful commentary on our program three letters phone calls e-mail and our web based response form check our Web site at WPRO dot org and get in touch with us. This week A Prairie Home Companion is live from good old St. Paul with a terrific honky tonks and a Mr Delbert McClinton joining us. Fine blues harmonica and squeeze bucks player Mr. Dave Moore comes up for mine. Pat Donohue rich to our ski Sue Scott Tim Russell Tom keys gun war the news from Lake Wobegon all coming up this week. You can hear A Prairie Home Companion Saturday at 5:00 on Wisconsin Public Radio. You're listening to Wisconsin Public Radio. It's from National Public Radio Just ahead more of election night

coverage from Wisconsin Public Radio in our weather. Mostly cloudy skies with areas of fog lows in the mid 20s to low 30s tomorrow and tomorrow night partly to mostly cloudy with a chance of rain or snow in the north. Highs from the mid 30s to mid 40s lows in the upper teens and 20s for Thursday and Thursday night partly to mostly cloudy and warmer highs in the 40s to around 50 lows in the 30s for Friday partly to mostly cloudy highs in the mid 40s to mid 50s lows in the 30s and for Saturday mostly cloudy a chance of rain mainly in the north and west. Highs from the mid 40s to mid 50s lows in the 30s. Clouds and fog around Wisconsin at this hour are superior 34 degrees Auclair 33 Rhinelander 32 Wausau 33. Green Bay and Appleton both 37 36 lacrosse 36. Madison also 36 and in Milwaukee fog and 39 degrees. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Corey Flintoff. Americans are voting today in a midterm election that will determine which party will control the House the Senate and the majority of the state governorships at stake are all

435 seats in the house 34 seats in the Senate and state houses in 36 states. NPR's Craig Windham has the latest from those Senate races. What can you tell us now Craig. Well Corey some of the night's most closely watched Senate races are starting to come in North Carolina Elizabeth Dole the former Cabinet secretary and former head of the Red Cross is now projected the winner of the Senate seat that's being vacated by Jesse Helms. Dole defeated Democrat Riskin Bowles the former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. It was the most expensive Senate race in the nation. Former New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is going back to the Senate. The 78 year old Democrat was tapped to replace Senator Bob Torricelli who dropped out amid an ethics scandal. Some other incumbents headed for re-election GOP Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed and Delaware Democrat Joe Biden. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he'll be entering his sixth term in office. In Minnesota there's word that some polling places were kept open late because they ran out of the new ballots that had to be printed up after the

death of Senator Paul Wellstone. Thank you Craig Wyndham. We've also got some interesting results in the governor's races. NPR's Barbara Bradley Haggerty is watching those numbers Barbara any big surprises yet. Well some some interesting results. It looks as if four governor's races have been decided in Illinois Democrat Rod Blagojevich is projected to win this really tight race against a Republican state attorney general Jim Ryan Ryan suffered from name confusion the governor George Ryan has been tainted by scandal and a lot of experts believe that that hurt the Republican candidate. In New Hampshire Republican Craig Benson beat Democrat STATE SENATOR MARK FURNER old money was a key here. Benson who's a millionaire cable TV executive spent more than 10 million dollars of his own money on this campaign in Pennsylvania. We have Ed Rendell a Republican who beat Mike Fisher. Now this was an open seat. Republican Tom Ridge held this job until the attacks on September 11th 2001. And then of course Ridge was brought to Washington. And finally in

Ohio Republican Bob Taft the incumbent beat his Democratic challenger Tim Hagan. Now Taft comes from a long line of politicians His father was a senator as was his grandfather and his great grandfather was president of the United States. Thank you. NPR's Barbara Bradley Haggerty President Bush is watching the results of tonight's election from the White House he's invested a lot of political energy in an effort to get Republicans elected to campaigning hard over the past week. And stocks today the Dow gained 106 points or one point two percent to close at eighty six hundred seventy eight in heavy trading. This is NPR News. Media projections about the results of this election have been slow and cautious after the nation's largest exit polling service said it would not be able to provide reliable data. Voter News Service said it was unable to correct problems with its exit polling system especially the part that provides information about people's views on specific issues and the voting