Justin's Political Corner

he numbers are crazy.

Dane County (home of Madison):

Voters and public officials are reporting long lines at many Wisconsin polling places Tuesday — with Dane County Clerk Karen Peters calling the local turnout “just wild” so far.

“It ranges from 28 to 42 percent already; it is a huge turnout. We could hit 80 to 88 percent,” Peters said of Dane County’s turnout. At midday, she was fielding calls wrapping up a status report from local clerks.

Democrats need to run up huge margins in Dane in order to have any chance of success. Hitting 88 percent would go a long ways toward victory.

But the bigger issue is Milwaukee, where African American and other Democratic-leaning voters stayed home in 2010 and cost Democrats the governor’s mansion. Madison can’t make up the margins that Gov. Scott Walker will run up in rural Red Wisconsin. We need Milwaukee to come in big. On that front, things are looking promising:

Heavy turnout in Milwaukee led the city Election Commission to call out the reserves Tuesday.

Extra poll workers were sent to polling places at Becher Terrace, Bradley Tech High School, Keenan Health Center, Morse Middle School, Rufus King International School Middle Years Campus and Cass Street, 53rd Street, Grantosa and Parkview schools, said Sue Edman, the election commission’s executive director.

The backup workers were needed to handle long lines, partly because a significant number of new voters were registering at the polls, Edman said.

“We knew things would be busy, but we didn’t know how busy,” Edman said.

State elections officials predicted that between 60-65 percent of eligible voters would turn out. We need that number to be around 65-70 percent to win.

h/t: Markos Moulitsas (Kos) at Daily Kos