April 10, 2019

There will be no recount in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

"Lisa Neubauer concedes to Brian Hagedorn in Wisconsin Supreme Court race," The Wisconsin State Journal reports.
The tally was close enough for Neubauer to have requested a recount, which she had considered up until today, but her campaign would have had to pay for it....

The outcome of last Tuesday's election means the Wisconsin Supreme Court will begin its new session later this year with a 5-2 conservative majority on the court. It ensures that, even if the conservative-backed Justice Dan Kelly runs and loses his race next year, the court will remain dominated by conservatives through at least 2023.
Thanks to Lisa Neubauer for her graceful concession.

ADDED: Meade tells me I should have written "gracious concession," not "graceful concession," and I can see the different meaning, "gracious" suggesting generosity and "graceful" suggesting aesthetically pleasing movement. But which is the standard expression? I googled and got approximately equal results for both phrases (600,000 or so). I will note that "gracious concession" was used by Tony Evers to compliment Scott Walker last fall...

40 comments:

Big Mike said...

Thanks to Lisa Neubauer for her graceful concession.

Agreed.

dreams said...

Yeah, thanks for behaving the way you should behave.

mccullough said...

As a judge already she had a lot to lose by asking for a recount.

Bay Area Guy said...

Sometimes a political loss, is just a political loss......

TJM said...

Awe, it was outside the margin of fraud. But she was gracious.

DarkHelmet said...

Good for her. I wish others would follow her example.

As a side note, looking at the picture of Evers I still can't quite believe this state tossed out one of the best governors in the nation for a non-entity hack.

TJM said...

Ann,

The corrupt national media did not bother to report on Candace Owen's award winning torching of the Dems yesterday.


https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/04/candace-owens-nukes-the-democrats.php

Anonymous said...

Have that for lunch, Wisconsin Democrats.

MadisonMan said...

a non-entity hack.

A boring non-entity hack. Boring is good sometimes. The only Democrat who will beat Trump will be boring.

Congrats to Neubauer on running a good race, and knowing to bow out with grace.

dreams said...

"The only Democrat who will beat Trump will be boring."

LOL. Hope springs eternal.

Amadeus 48 said...

I didn't follow this at all, but I believe Hagedorn did not have a good press, and the smart people thought Neubauer was a cinch to win. Yipes!

The Wisconsin GOP is not dead yet.

gerry said...

Say both sentences audibly.

Thanks to Lisa Neubauer for her graceful concession.

Thanks to Lisa Neubauer for her gracious concession.

Gracious sounds and simply functions more gracefully in this case.

DarkHelmet said...

"A boring non-entity hack. Boring is good sometimes. The only Democrat who will beat Trump will be boring."

I'm fine with boring if it goes along with capable. Evers is worse than boring. He's generic.

I doubt that a boring Democrat will beat Trump. One of the reasons Trump was is because he's interesting. Now, it's true that one can be TOO interesting for the public taste, but in a contest between gilded insult comic and boring scold the gilded insult comic will win again.

Tommy Duncan said...

Let's note what didn't happen: Republicans did not criticize Neubauer for taking her time conceding.

Nonapod said...

A boring non-entity hack. Boring is good sometimes. The only Democrat who will beat Trump will be boring.

Personally, I think that's probably true.

But Scott Adams seems to believe the opposite, that the Dem candidate can't be boring, that Trump has changed the rules of the game.

Johnathan Birks said...

There is an antonym for "graceful" that describes a lot of our politics today. But I see both "ingracious" and "ungracious" listed in M-W. I can't recall ever hearing either word in conversation.

tim maguire said...

IMO, a concession speech could be graceful, but concessions (and most speeches as well) are probably more gracious than graceful.

Curious George said...

Don't know if gracious or grateful is correct, just glad we have another conservative on the Wisco court. Notice how drama free the court is when it's full of conservatives?

Yancey Ward said...

I prefer "gracious" concession mostly because it is a closer synonym to civil and courteous in this context. To me, "graceful" would say the concession is elegant and I tend to use the word more in describing physical motions in most cases.

Yancey Ward said...

Count me very surprised that the Democrats didn't fight this to the bitter end- I thought they would do so and actually win by hook or by crook. I was wrong.

gerry said...

From the article; That outcome will likely extinguish the possibility of the expansion of voter rights

I suppose the Wisconsin State Journal by "expansion of voting rights" means expansion of voting fraud?

Ann Althouse said...

"There is an antonym for "graceful" that describes a lot of our politics today. But I see both "ingracious" and "ungracious" listed in M-W. I can't recall ever hearing either word in conversation."

This is a good way to test the two words: look at the antonym to decide what idea you mean to express.

For "graceful," I'd pick "awkward." Did I want to say it was un-awkward to concede the way LN did? For "gracious," I'd pick "stinting." Did I want to say that LN was good because she wasn't withholding and stingy? I think I picked "graceful" because I meant to convey that it would have been awkward not to concede. It looked better.

Jake said...

Graciously graceful.

Drago said...

I was "expertly" informed that a victory by this type of conservative judge was not possible in WI.

Very similar to the MI presidential contest in 2016.

Go figure, lefties get things wrong.

Skyler said...

Definitely “gracious.”

Ann Althouse said...

"Graciously graceful."

Helplessly hoping
Her harlequin hovers nearby
Awaiting a word
Gasping at glimpses
Of gentle true spirit
He runs, wishing he could fly...
Love isn't lying
It's loose in a lady who lingers
Saying she is lost
And choking on hello

eric said...

Democrats are pissed.

They were supposed to have this one in the bag.

Christy said...

Query. Assuming funds were available from the campaign, who keeps the money now that it isn't being used? Hard not to be gracious if you're a judge getting to take home all that leftover money. Graceful would be harder.

Sounds to me as though no big Democrat were throwing money into the fight.

--Christy, ungraciously suspicious

Greg Q said...

A "gracious concession" is one where you say nice things about the person who won.

A "graceful concession" is one where you say "I'm pissed I lost to that buffoon, but I did, so let's get on with our lives" in a classy and genteel manner.

Lee Moore said...

I see both "ingracious" and "ungracious" listed in M-W. I can't recall ever hearing either word in conversation.

I think I've heard ungracious, but it's hardly graceful.

Non clunky ways of expressing "not gracious" concession speeches (or apologies) ?

Sulky, reluctant, pro forma, grudging, mechanical, truculent, au façon Hillary, perfunctory.

whitney said...

So civilized. Stacey Abrams is still claiming that she had the governorship of Georgia stolen from her and is refusing to concede. Not that it matters particularly except showing what an awful woman she is. I'm sure she'll go far in politics

Francisco D said...

What is going in here?

My Wisconsin cousins said the state was going blue. They heard that at a Tammy Baldwin rally.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...


I'm encouraged by the voters trending away from activist judges.
It's about time.

Bodes well for POTUS.

Jim at said...

Once again, another nail in the coffin of Donald J. Trump.
Wisconsin is lost.

So we've been told.

Drago said...

Jim at: "Wisconsin is lost.
So we've been told."

Indeed.

Back to the lefty narrative chalkboard for Inga and LLR Chuck.

rcocean said...

I'm shocked a liberal would pass up a chance to win power by "finding" some "lost" ballots. This would never happen in NYC or California. The votes would "materialize".

Of course, it doesn't look good if you're a supposedly non-partisan JUDGE and you're demanding a recount like a Chicago ward boss - or Al Gore. It looks political as opposed to Judicial.

purplepenquin said...

"This would never happen in NYC or California. The votes would 'materialize' "


Exact same game here in Wisconsin, but different players - look at how a box of ballots in Waukesha County suddenly "materialized" in the 2011 Supreme Court election as an example.

That same county, which btw, allegedly had 99.5% of all eligible voters registered to vote for the 2004 election and supposedly ended up with over 97% turnout for that race.

Greg Q said...

Blogger purplepenquin said...
"This would never happen in NYC or California. The votes would 'materialize' "

Exact same game here in Wisconsin, but different players - look at how a box of ballots in Waukesha County suddenly "materialized" in the 2011 Supreme Court election as an example.


That's a flat out lie.

The clerk screwed up her data entry, and as such a large number of precincts had NO votes entered. This was commented on by people the night of the voting. Two days later, she realized her error, and reported the votes.

To quote from Wikipedia's entry on the subject:
As of April 8, 2011, Waukesha County's turnout was officially 47% (increased from 42% before the correction).[38] Statewide turnout during the election was officially 33%. On election day, Deputy Clerk Gina Kozlik had estimated turnout in the county to be 20-25%,[39] with up to 35% turnout in some polling locations within the county.[40] Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com did an analysis on the turnout numbers and found the Waukesha results to be in line with previous elections.[41]


97%? 47%? That's close, right!


You want "boxes of votes appearing when needed"? That's Milwaukee "finding" ~40,000 votes, that came in with Walker getting 1/2 the percentage he was getting in the rest of their votes, the night of the election, to push Evers over the top.

Vote fraud is a game of the Left

purplepenquin said...

It ain't no lie to say that 97% turnout was reported by the county...'cause such a thing truly did happen. John Wasburn, of Fair Election Wisconsin, in trying to explain on how such a high number stated "I don't know, Stalin came to Waukesha and got the compulsory vote there too?"

Nickolaus never disputed that she reported a 97% turnout, but rather she made several different excuses as to why that number appeared in her official results.

https://truthout.org/articles/waukesha-wi-follies-9763-percent-turnout-in-2004-20000-more-votes-than-ballots-cast-in-2006/



Claiming that vote fraud only happens by the Left is a game of the Right.

Greg Q said...

So sorry, i thought you were attempting to make a reasonable point about the 2011 judicial election that you lost, rather than whining about a past election (2004) that your side won.

If you wish to Talk about "impossible" election results, we can have that talk. Let's start here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/romney-earned-zero-votes-in-some-urban-precincts/

The Phildadelphia Inquirer reported today that, in 59 precincts in inner-city Philadelphia, the GOP nominee received not a single vote. And according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, nine precincts in Cleveland returned zero Romney votes.


Here's reality: voters screw up. Even if 100% of the voters actually DID vote for the Democrat, one or two of them would have screwed up and hit the wrong candidate.

The only way you can get a large number of people voting, and 0% voting for a non-write in candidate, is malfeasance by the vote "counters".

So, let's sum up, shall we?


The "box of votes appearing" was in Milwaukee, in the 2018 election, it was by Democrats, and votes "discovered" were a significant part of Democrat Ever's "victory."

The voting "issue" in Waukesha in 2011 involved a data entry error, one that was commented on the night of the election before the counting ended (I know this because I was on Twitter for that election, and read the discussion about it).

And the only not totally laudable complaint you have is about a 2004 election where the Democrats still won the WI races