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Wisconsin Used to be a Player How We Lost Our Place in the Presidential Primary?
BY MICHAEL CARRIERE
On April 7, 2020, Wisconsin voters aligned with the Democratic Party headed to the polls to cast a vote for their preferred presidential candidate. Of course, there were other candidates to vote for that day, including Jill Karofsky, who ended up defeating Daniel Kelly in a closely watched Supreme Court race. But many Wisconsinites turned out to voice their support for who would ultimately take on Donald Trump in November, an election whose importance for the future of the United States cannot be overstated. sion was the fact that, as media outlets around the world pointed out with equal parts incredulity and derision, the Wisconsin primary was taking place during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos—while wearing a full-on hazmat suit—told prospective voters it was perfectly safe to stand in line for hours to cast their vote. And many such voters did have to wait in line for hours, particularly in Milwaukee. The pandemic forced the city to close 175 of its 180 polling places. Thousands of voters thus flocked to just five locations to exercise their voting rights. Needless to say, social distancing was not an option for such individuals.
On the one hand, it is quite inspiring that so many voters risked their health to cast their ballot under such stressful—and potentially dangerous—conditions. Yet the presidential race was already decided by that date, with Joe Biden using a strong showing in the 16 primaries held on March 3, 2020, or “Super Tuesday,” to pull ahead of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (Sanders would formally suspend his campaign on April 8, 2020). In fact, Super Tuesday primaries—including such prizes
as Texas and California—now account for about one-third of total delegate allocation for both political parties. Ultimately, such a reality made Wisconsinites’ choice for the Democratic nominee for president irrelevant.
Wisconsin Leads the Nation with the Innovative Direct Primary
Such an ignominious ending obfuscates the oversized role Wisconsin has played in the evolution of the presidential primary. Starting in the late 19th century, Wisconsin played a crucial role in the development of what came to be known as the direct primary, or an election in which voters decide their party’s candidate. Candidates from both parties, as well as national media outlets, saw the Wisconsin primary as an early proving ground for anyone vying for the presidency. At the same time, the growing popularity of such a tool in states across the nation weakened the power of Wisconsin’s presidential primaries, at one point the second series of primaries held in the country. After its creation, the direct primary became a way for states to jockey for influence in the realm of presidential politics. Wisconsin, indeed, the nation as a whole, continues to live with this turbulent history.
The story of the modern Wisconsin presidential primary begins in earnest in 1891. In light of the intense political corruption and extreme wealth inequality that marked the Gilded Age (sound familiar?), a cadre of progressive Wisconsin leaders looked for ways to make politics more democratic. That year, the Wisconsin legislation passed a law that sought to eliminate the caucus and convention system that chose candidates for local office. Under such a system, party insiders had close to absolute control over which individuals would vie for elected office. The primary law of 1891 allowed electors to choose candidates, with information on this process published in newspapers in English, German and Polish. Yet, this law applied to counties with 150,000 or more residents, which at the time included only Milwaukee County.
By the mid-1890s the desire for further primary reform was gathering steam across the state. Looking for a way to get back into politics—he had lost his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890—Robert M. La Follette Sr. saw the issue as a way to prove his
progressive bona fides. “At that time,” explained La Follette, “I had never heard of the direct primary. Indeed, there was no direct primary statute in any state excepting a weak optional law in Kentucky… I had resolved to attack and, if possible, overthrow the whole system in Wisconsin.” La Follette became governor of Wisconsin in 1900; direct primaries came to the state through legislation passed in 1903 and confirmed by public referendum in 1904. Wisconsin voters now had a direct say in which candidates would run for all state positions, including those allotting congressional representation.
Wisconsin Becomes a Major Player as an Early Primary State
As the Progressive Era continued to exert influence on American politics— and as La Follette considered a bid for the White House—Wisconsin legislators extended primary reform to presidential primaries in 1911. Wisconsin held its first direct presidential primary on April 2, 1912, with La Follette defeating William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination. Wisconsin was third on the presidential primary in 1912, following North Dakota and New York. As more states adopted presidential primaries, many of them came to schedule these events before April. Wisconsin would not be third on the primary calendar again until 1936 (and again in 1940, 1944 and 1948). It was second on the calendar in 1960, 1964 and 1968.
For The New York Times, such an early position in the primary calendar made Wisconsin an important bellwether state, “recognized as the first important, perhaps crucial, test of the primary season, a Northern state with a sizable population… and swing-voting tendencies.” Wisconsin’s place in the primary calendar could help solidify the national viability of a relatively unproven candidate, as it did for John F. Kennedy in 1960. “Wisconsin voters,” the Times reported following Kennedy’s April 6, 1960, victory over Hubert H. Humphrey, “stirred by the primary campaign and the realization that their choice might determine the next Democratic Presidential nominee, turned out in a flood.” For Kennedy youth organizer Fred Kessler—who would go on to serve in the state Assembly—the primary process was “very exciting… We had a huge presence of Kennedys in the state. We were almost like Iowa [now].”
The Wisconsin Direct Primary Produced Some Questionable Results
But the Wisconsin primary could also provide a boost to unconventional candidates, giving them an early national platform. This was the case with the presidential campaign of racist demagogue George Wallace in 1964. The segregationist governor of Alabama, while coming in second in the state’s Democratic presidential primary, won 20% of the total vote, “rolling up,” as the Los Angeles Times noted, “twice as many voters as his opponents had predicted.” Such numbers were fueled by Wisconsin’s use of the open primary, or an election in which voters are not required to declare party affiliation; this had been a component of Wisconsin’s presidential primaries since 1912 (by 2020, more than 20 states employed some type of open presidential primary). Many Republican voters therefore “crossed over” to vote for Wallace in 1964. Despite such a reality, the fact remained that Wisconsin allowed Wallace—and, more importantly, his ideas on race—to find an audience in the white ethnic neighborhoods that had been a part of the Democratic New Deal coalition for decades.
In 1968, Republican presidential can
didate Richard M. Nixon would draw from Wallace’s strategy to appeal to disaffected white primary voters in both Wisconsin and across the country. In fact, as baseball legend and budding political commentator Jackie Robinson noted in the Chicago Defender, Wisconsin was actually crucial to the northernization of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” or the use of racial issues to turn more whites to the Republican Party. “Perhaps in Wisconsin’s history of warmth toward Wallace,” wrote Robinson, “the ex-Vice President sees hope for a ‘write off the black vote’ policy.” And Nixon himself saw the importance of Wisconsin for his presidential ambitions. In July 1967, he informed the national media that his campaign would flounder without success in such early primaries as the one to be held in Wisconsin in April 1968. Following his decisive win in that contest, Nixon commented that his “total vote” in the state was a “certain sign that Wisconsin will be in the Republican column in November.”
1968 was an important year for more than just the Nixon campaign. In fact, that tumultuous year would prove to be pivotal in the evolution of the presidential primary for both major parties. Between 1912 and 1968, only a handful of states made the transition to direct primaries; on both the Democratic and Republican side, just 15 states made use of such a mechanism. Instead, many states continued to employ systems that allowed party insiders the ability to pick candidates. Such a system reached a breaking point during the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. As protesters were met by state violence on the streets of Chicago, Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination without participating in any primaries; he was able to win by currying favor with party leaders in states that had yet to make the move to direct primaries.
The Infamous 1968 Democratic
Convention Lead to Major Changes
The turmoil unleashed by the outcome of the 1968 Democratic National Convention led to the creation of the McGovern-Fraser Commission, chaired by Sen. George McGovern and U.S. Rep. Donald Fraser. This commission called for reforms that the Democratic Party chose to enact by the time of the 1972 nomination season. At their heart, such reforms sought to simultaneously limit the influence of party insiders
during primary season while prodding states to make the transition to direct primaries. Candidate George McGovern’s landslide loss in the 1972 presidential election led some Democratic Party leaders to question the value of certain types of primaries, but Wisconsin—under the leadership of Gov. Patrick Lucey— mounted a spirited defense of such elections. And this argument appeared to carry the day: Between 1968 and 1992, the number of states holding direct primaries for Democratic presidential nominations, for example, increased from 15 to 40. A similar trend was seen on the Republican side as well. By 1992, 39 states were holding direct primaries for GOP presidential candidates.
Yet, the turn to direct primaries was not without problems. The desire to allow for people to have a say in the primary process was always countered by the perceived need among party officials to ultimately end up with a candidate that was viable in a general election. To many such leaders, this meant working towards a system that would produce a winner earlier in the primary season, thereby minimizing intraparty conflict. Such a reality led to the “front loading” of primaries, the scheduling of larger, more important states earlier in the primary season. This movement reached its apex in 1996 when California moved its presidential primaries from June 9 to March 26.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the 21st century has seen attempts by both parties to address this phenomenon of front loading. The need to address the situation became glaring in 2008, when about 60% of Democratic delegates for the presidential race—and 55% of Republican delegates—had been decided by February 5. For the 2012 election, both Democrats and Republicans agreed to a calendar, under threat of penalty, that would limit most state primaries until after the first Tuesday of March, with the exceptions of New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina.
Such a rule, however, did not diminish the influence that a handful of places— including lily-white New Hampshire and Iowa—had on the selection of candidates that must be able to speak to a diverse country. Nor did this attempt at reform preclude state legislatures, those that usually set the primary date, from moving their primaries to March 1, 2016, (11 states held Democratic primaries that day, while 14 held Republican races).
And here we see why Wisconsin Democratic voters found themselves in such a powerless role this past April. For the Republican-controlled state legislature, an earlier 2020 primary date for the state would have made little sense. Greater excitement for a primary— through its ability to influence a general election, for example—increases voter turnout, which then has an impact on “down-ticket” local races. For a party whose candidate faced no competition, the Republicans had no practical need to adjust the state’s April primary date. Direct primaries may allow the people to have a direct say in the selection of presidential candidates, but the actions of state legislatures around the country have the potential to limit the clout of such voices.
As the Democratic National Convention nominates Joe Biden as their candidate for president in August, it may be time to revisit how we got to such a place. Is it time for a system based on regional primaries, in which the United States is divided up into a number of zones, which then vote on certain days? Or
should the country move to a national primary model, one in which all voters get to have their voices heard on the same day? There is little doubt, as the debacle that faced Wisconsin voters in April illustrates, that the presidential primary system needs, once again, to be reformed. It is on policymakers in both parties to ensure that the presidential election of 2024 takes such a call seriously.
Michael Carriere is an associate professor in the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s humanities department.
