Democratic Green Bay

In an oddity of screen scraping and the recent Press Gannett website redesign, I ended up re-reading an article about former Aldperperson and current Supervisor Vander Leest's lawsuit that was thrown out last year. It brought to mind a comment John once emphatically made to me, "Green Bay is a CONSERVATIVE TOWN!" Well, let's check the truth of that statement for Green Bay's district 11 in this last election where Republicans won big:

Walker won:
42                     364     426
43                     358     457
44                     347     417
45                     354     340

Johnson won:
42                     342     457
43                     355     470
44                     348     421
45                     350     353

Ribble won:
42                     379     421
43                     377     450
44                     361     412
45                     360     344

After looking at two others, we come upon our first district that went Republican. Perhaps this helps explain Vander Leest's perspective. Interesting that the ward that borders Howard actually went Democratic in two races. What about previous years? Looking back to 2008:

Kagen won:
42                     575     482
43                     599     509
44                     591     486
45                     691     431

And Hansen won huge:
42                     703     337
43                     711     382
44                     708     348
45                     760     326

So, in the most blue of blue years, the district went to the Democrats and by a larger margin than the Republicans had in 2010. Perhaps some Democrats only come out for the presidentials, maybe it's a swing district, or something else is going on. What if we go back one more election to 2006, how did folks vote in district 11?

Doyle barely won:
42                     429     469
43                     445     485
44                     397     438
45                     514     369

Kohl won big:
42                     608     291
43                     648     269
44                     584     234
45                     640     227

Kagen won too:
42                     430     470
43                     463     484
44                     422     418
45                     497     390

Is Green Bay a "conservative town" as Aldervisor Vander Leest suggested? This series of posts entitled "Democratic Green Bay" should make obvious my views. So, I'll just point out that we live in the City of Green Bay. The Town of Green Bay is along the bay to the north-east on the other side of the Town of Scott.

As far as the views of the voters of district 11? Comparing 2006 to 2010 because they are both non-presidential years, it looks to me that the Replublican vote was about the same and Democratic voters turned out in 2006 but not in 2010. The 2008 Democratic blowout is consistent with this. In my view, even though the conservative Vander Leest family dynasty has won more elections than not, their views, values and attitudes are likely not consistent with the majority of the voters they represent.