MADISON, Wis. — Adam Steen, who narrowly lost to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the primary, launched his rematch Thursday via a write-in campaign — which experts say is certainly a long shot but not impossible.
“It is a very different order of magnitude,” said UW-Milwaukee political expert Mordecai Lee.
What makes the general election that much more difficult for Steen is the difference in turnout — a low-turnout election could favor those who are long-shot candidates like Steen. November’s election is expected to have significantly higher turnout than the August primary.
Despite this, Steen — who has the backing of former President Donald Trump — thinks he has a distinct path forward.
RELATED: Republican who narrowly lost to Vos in primary election launches write-in bid
“I was endorsed by President Donald Trump on August the second, and that means that approximately 2,500 people in this district did not know that endorsement had happened when they had voted on August 9,” Steen said.
Vos defeated Steen by a mere 260 votes.
Wis. State Assembly Dist. 63–Republican
Wis. State Assembly District 63
-
Robin Vos *WinnerR
51.3%
5,084 -
Adam Steen R
48.7%
4,824
Steen hopes the momentum of the Trump endorsement could carry him through the general election. By the metrics of the primary, he is within striking distance — having only lost by a few hundred votes.
“I think Vos got the scare of his life,” Lee said. “I thought it was jaw-dropping.”
He added that Trump can take some credit for how close that race was.
“The bumps that we saw in the turnout in partisan primary earlier this month, I think we can call it the Trump bump. In other words, people who generally don’t vote in partisan primaries,” Lee said.
Steen’s name will not physically be on the ballot in November — hence the need for voters to write him in — which means he will need to encourage some of those Trump-aligned voters who are usually unlikely to turn out and take the extra step to write his name in. That means increasing his notoriety.
“I once saw a candidate who was running a write-in for a primary, and what he did is he went door to door and he handed out pencils, and he said, ‘Please write me in,’” Lee said.
“Now, that was cute, and it was funny, but more importantly, it was memorable,” Lee added, “and what you want to do is you want to reach voters on that kind of level.”
He added that might look like getting voter rolls from the 2018 election — conservative voters who are known to vote in the midterms who could be ripe for swaying.
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