Question: If Evers won by four percentage points and Barnes lost by one, that means we had a bunch of people split their ticket. What sunk Barnes?

I was canvassing before the election and one woman got mad at me. She said they are killing him! (Barnes) She said she watches the shows on youtube with ads and the Dems were getting killed ten to one in negative ads. She said, "when are we going to answer them?" She said they went after Barnes non-stop saying that he would be light on crime and he would let people out of jail.

I don't watch or listen to any media that has ads, so I missed out on all the attacks on Barnes, but I can see that going after a Black man as being soft on crime and letting criminals out is a coded racist play on stereotypes. Here is a Black man who is going to let other Black men out of prison so they can go rape white women. They were also going after him for being a tax evader. Here is the pot calling the kettle black, but no matter, if you label a Black man as a grifter, then it fits the stereotypes whereas if you label a white rich dude as a grifter he can just say "so what?"

So my take is that Barnes failed (1) because Wisconsin is racist if nothing else and (2) because campaign finance is completely fucked since Citizens United and you can buy an election with enough negative ads.

But I could be wrong. Wisconsinites are notorious ticket-splitters and Johnson is the incumbent. We like incumbents. Perhaps enough people could see that Michels is actually a resident of fucking CT and/or they voted for Evers in favor of gridlock in Madison (Republicans don't actually want to govern - they just want to say no - and it is easier to not govern if you have divided power in Madison).

Anyway, you have more experience looking at Wisconsin politics and might be able to illuminate this situation. Also looking to see what Walter Rhein has to say on the subject.

By the way. We need fair maps.