Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:24 and sunset is 7:29 for 13 hours 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 65.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1820, a Greek farmer discovers the Venus de Milo on the Aegean island of Milos.
With Wisconsin’s Spring Election now over, I’ll offer preliminary remarks (beginning locally from the City of Whitewater and moving outward). Unofficial local results for all precincts below are from the election websites of Walworth, Jefferson, and Rock counties. Unofficial results for the Wisconsin Supreme Court race for >95% of the vote are from The New York Times.
Whitewater Common Council. Three Common Council contests for the City of Whitewater saw two incumbents (Orin Smith and Brian Schanen) re-elected and one new member (Gavin Kelleher) earning a seat on the council:
Whitewater Council At Large
| Orin Smith | 1,081 (Walworth 920, Jefferson 161) |
| Aubrey Thompson | 861 (Walworth 700, Jefferson 161) |
Whitewater Council District 2
| Gavin Kelleher | 190 |
| Sean Liebherr | 46 |
Whitewater Council District 4
| Brian Schanen | 375 |
| Chuck Mills | 210 |
Whitewater’s local government has been on the right path these last three years. Re-electing Smith and Schanen and electing Kelleher most effectively preserves the positive momentum the city has seen since 2022. This was the best possible outcome for Whitewater.
A ceaseless effort to deny evident municipal progress, sometimes relying on the use of non-residents’ false and ludicrous claims, did not obscure the progress that actual residents saw with their own eyes. In the end, truth is the most skillful advocate, achievement the finest rhetorician.
Doubt not, however, that the special interest men will say whatever they can, and do whatever they can, to control this city to their particular benefit. There are long years, and important work, yet ahead. One wakes up every day as a dark-horse underdog.
Whitewater Unified School District. In this race, four candidates (incumbents Stephanie Hicks, Lisa Huempfner, Christy Linse, and first-time candidate Terri Jones) sought three seats. Unofficial results show Huempfner and Hicks returned to office, joined by newcomer Jones.
| Lisa Huempfner | 2,053 (Walworth 1614, Jefferson 297, Rock 142) |
| Stephanie Hicks | 2,044 (Walworth 1543, Jefferson 321, Rock 180) |
| Terri Jones | 1,849 (Walworth 1447, Jefferson 279, Rock 123) |
| Christy Linse | 1,707 (Walworth 1289, Jefferson 272, Rock 146) |
I’ve been a critic of our school board, and I’ll leave more particular remarks on that matter for another time. Whether there will be a change of board direction, toward a genuine embrace of open government, I’ll not venture beyond the expression that hope springs eternal.
Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Statewide:
| Chris Taylor | 905,155 — 60.1% |
| Maria Lazar | 600,044 — 39.9% |
In Whitewater:
| Chris Taylor | 1,749 (Walworth 1,431, Jefferson 318) — 74.7% |
| Maria Lazar | 591 (Walworth 489, Jefferson 102) — 23.4% |
Judge Taylor ran even better in Whitewater than statewide.
Hers was also a more lopsided contest than even favorable polling (albeit admittedly sparse) suggested. Consider these figures from the Times website:
County type Leader margin Who is ahead of their benchmark? Large cities 391,831 votes in Taylor +60 Taylor by 12 pts. Needed at least +48 Smaller cities and suburbs 645,852 votes in Taylor +7 Taylor by 21 pts. Lazar needed at least +14 Rural 337,810 votes in Taylor +4 Taylor by 23 pts. Lazar needed at least +19
In each geographic category — for cities, suburbs, and rural areas — Taylor significantly exceeded the benchmark vote that she needed to win. In Walworth County, where Trump won by 22 points in 2024, Maria Lazar only won by 0.9 points in 2026 (that’s zero point nine, an amount less than one percent).
Here’s the Wisconsin vote by county from November 2024 and April 2026:
I know it's risky to read much into state-level elections, but the difference in these two maps is pretty striking. The left shows county-level votes for Trump and Harris in 2024 in Wisconsin. The right shows the results of yesterday's Supreme Court race, where the Democrat won in a landslide.
— Jess Calarco (@jessicacalarco.com) April 8, 2026 at 8:35 AM
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Yard Signs, Newspapers, the Regents, Economic Demand, Trump on Daycare, Claims of Legacy, and a Particular Species of Democrat.
Whitewater is the work — and adventure — of a lifetime.
Artemis 2 captures views of a solar eclipse during lunar flyby: