Update: See the full local results here.
South Milwaukeeans turned out in huge numbers to vote in Tuesday’s primary.
Turnout was 35.3 percent, as 4,664 of the city’s 13,196 registered voters came out to the polls, according to totals from the South Milwaukee city clerk’s office.
That is a pretty amazing number for a primary election, and it’s clearly a reflection of the bitterly contested 7th Senate District race between incumbent Jeff Plale and challenger Chris Larson, among others.
Plale easily beat Larson in the city (see post below).
So, how did South Milwaukeeans vote in the other races?
- For starters, 1,740 people voted in the Republican primary on Tuesday, compared with 1,443 in the Democratic primary. That means 1,740 people did not vote in the Plale-Larson race … voters that would have probably leaned toward the more centrist Plale and led to an even wider margin in South Milwaukee for him.
- As he did in other areas in southeastern Wisconsin, Scott Walker scored a big victory over Mark Neumann in South Milwaukee, 75.2 to 23.4 percent (1,874 votes to 585).
- Republican Rebecca Kleefisch and Democrat Tom Nelson, candidates for lieutenant governor, each scored big victories in South Milwaukee, easily tallying more than twice as many votes as their next competitors.
- The race for Milwaukee County sheriff was much closer here than in the rest of the county, as incumbent David Clarke tallied 931 votes to Chris Moews’ 886 in the Democratic primary.
- U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore easily beat Paul Morel in South Milwaukee but by a smaller margin (66.1 to 33.8 percent) than the overall spread of 84 to 16 percent as of 11:15 p.m.
I’ll post more details on the election as I get them. Check out voting totals on the Journal Sentinel website.
South Milwaukee Blog 