Dems might win the Senate this year but have entirely new leadership in 2027. When has that happened before?

The US is off the regressions line: an extremely high income country where residents think politics need big changes www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

This week in the USA

* The President attacked the Pope and posted an image of himself as Jesus, part of scattered overnight social media posting

* The Secretary of Defense hosted another Christian prayer service in the Pentagon, complete with preacher, scripture, and hymns

Why you might face IRS penalties if you mail your taxes on April 15 Wondering if you can mail your tax return on April 15? What the IRS says about postmarks and penalties.

Your tax returns only need to be postmarked—not received by the IRS—by April 15. That is also the rule for ballots in many states, unless the RNC case at SCOTUS changes things www.dispatch.com/story/news/2...

I know the business in Iran is serious but I see this with every mention of a minesweeper

This week in the USA

* VP visited home country of autocrat and gave campaign speech for him
* President Trump threatened to commit war crimes and wipe out a civilization of 90 million people
* President Trump posted a video of a person murdering another person with a hammer

Special character on The Pitt tonight

I believe the right approach is to remove the DKs and compute a new two-party margin based on respondents who express candidate preferences. (There might also be defensible ways to allocate some of the DKs.) This approach suggests the polls were not far off, esp. given the margin of error.

How did you come up with this stat? The only public polls I saw were from Marquette and they had the the 2-candidate vote shares pretty close to the actual outcome.

Replacing the previous figure, which mistakenly omitted 2020 & underestimated 2016 when the prez primary drove up turnout (and Kloppenburg was again a candidate)

Voter turnout in the WI Supreme Court election fell from last year’s record high, but still one the highest since the 2011 nail-biter between Kloppenburg & Prosser

Madison friends: register now for this event taking place on campus next week.

Taylor’s romp is not merely the result of high D turnout in Madison & Milwaukee. Liberals gained the most in red, rural counties.

Wisconsin continues to be the state with the largest share of women on the top court. (The only man on the court won his seat by only half a percentage point.)

Need final results to be sure, but driftless region again looks a bit swingier than SE Wisconsin

Having let the court majority slip through their fingers, WI GOP will fight hard to win back the governorship & not lose the state legislature in a midterm year tilted in favor of Dems

Jefferson County is most complete in the state (>95% in) also has Taylor 5 points better than Crawford

Early results in city of Delafield (Waukesha County) show Taylor running five points ahead of Crawford’s 2025 showing

Voter 1,022 in my combined wards. The 2 school board races are in different columns with one hanging out by itself—easily overlooked by voters.

It’s definitely “subdued,” “quiet,” & “tame” compared to the last 2 record-setting races—but it’s nonetheless likely to outpace spending & maybe even turnout in races from the before times

This week in the USA

* Revealed Def Sec looked to invest in defense corps. in run up to Iran invasion
* Pres tried to intimidate justices by attending oral argument
* in midst of war, Pres spent time defending a pro golfer DUi, fussing over a ballroom, & belittling a rock star

True today as it was during the fall shutdown. Reconciliation means Republicans don’t actually need Dem votes to pass budgets.

The “somewhat disapprove” crowd rises again

This week in the USA

President Trump…

* made a campaign ad in the Oval Office for authoritarian candidate in Hungary

* celebrated death of Bronze Star Vietnam vet & FBI Director

* voted by mail (despite being at home near voting location) & called mail-in voting “cheating”

Here they come www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Wisconsin's outgoing Democratic governor pushes for a ban on gerrymandering The major political parties' redistricting battle has spread across the country. But Wisconsin may go the other direction. That's if the outgoing governor gets his way.

Me on @npr.org today about the possibility of ending gerrymandering in Wisconsin www.npr.org/2026/03/23/n...

Full-throated support of US action in Iran & criticism of Europe for standing down. A confusing message about the western alliance being stronger than ever.

Also knocks on Trump for tariffs, pursuing Greenland, not anticipating Iran response, & not backing Ukraine.

Waiting to see Boris Johnson speak at UW-Madison. Music is pumping like a campaign event. One of the most male-heavy audiences I’ve seen on campus.

Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights | CNN The world’s happiest countries for 2026, what travelers can expect in terms of rising air fares, plus United Airlines cracks down on noisy passengers. Here’s what’s happening in travel.

A winning campaign promise for 2026 www.cnn.com/2026/03/21/t...

This week in the USA

* FCC chair threatens licenses of media whose coverage he doesn’t like

* President calls SCOTUS unjust, inept

* DOJ does away with experience requirement for new attorneys

* 3 organizations report that US has fallen further from being a full democracy