Live Blog: Wisconsin Recall

The polls are still open until 8 pm in Wisconsin but exit polls and extraordinary turnout show the race is very close.  We’ll be updating this thread as the evening progresses so stay tuned.

Early exit polling of voters in the Wisconsin recall election showed a close contest, with a clear majority of voters having made up their minds well before the final weeks which saw intense campaigning on both sides of the aisle. The CNN exit polls showed that nearly nine of ten voters made their decisions prior to May, when Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett won the Democratic primary to challenge Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. Petitions for the recall election circulated after Walker signed a bill last spring which cut collective bargaining rights for many state employees, prompting massive protests at the state house.

Voters in line before 8 pm must be allowed to vote.  This could be a late night in precincts where turn out is at historic levels.

From Josh Marshall at TPM on the Exit polls.

First, exits show President Obama with a 6 point margin over Romney among this special election electorate. Big deal? Not necessarily. Most polls with showed Walker with a margin over Barrett showed Obama with an even bigger margin over Romney. Judged in partisan terms, voters were inconsistent, which they often are. No surprise there. So we shouldn’t be surprised by this finding.

Second and more significant, the percentage of union households in the electorate jumped 6 points since 2010. That’s significant and very welcome news for the Dems and for the Barrett campaign. Whether it’s enough is a whole different questions. But that’s significant.

Voters in this electorate also have a very narrowly positive take on unions. Again, encouraging for the Dems. But you need to see big numbers to think there’s a good chance of overcoming the advantage Walker had in the polls.

Next, absentee ballots. Chuck Todd says between 10% and 12% of the electorate voted absentee. What does that tell us? No idea. Only another big unpredictable and wild card.

Exit Poll Highlights from the NYT.

Preliminary exit poll results indicate an uptick in turnout among voters from union households – something Democrats were hoping for in their effort to oust Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday.

But whether that holds as voters continue to head to the polls, and whether it is enough to give Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee the edge, are open questions at this point.

About a third of voters in preliminary exit poll results say they or someone in their household belong to a labor union. That is an increase from 2010 and 2008, when 26 percent of voters in each of those elections were from a union household.

High union turnout is crucial for the Democrats. In 2010, 63 percent of voters in union households supported Mr. Barrett, compared with 37 percent for Mr. Walker.