A great post-primary review of two SE Wisconsin races

With the partisan primary elections officially largely in the books (with a few races left to recounts), there’s no shortage of post-primary reviews. This post-primary review from the Root River Siren is definitely worth a read, as it breaks down the race between Democrats Rob Zerban and Amar Kaleka in the 1^st Congressional district, as well as the race between Republicans Van Wanggaard and Jonathan Steitz in the 21>sup>st State Senate district.

Here’s a snippet from Root River Siren’s review.

The two biggest primary races in SE Wisconsin yesterday, Zerban v. Kaleka and Wanggaard v. Steitz, proved in the end, to be a tempest in a teapot.

Both upstart candidates got a shellacking.

With nearly the same spread – Zerban besting Kaleka with 78% of the vote and Wanggaard sending Stietz home with 71% – the better known guys strolled to the finish line.

While both losers could not be further apart in ideology, their campaigns shared one similar trait: big mouths, little juice.

The Kaleka campaign was quixotic from the start. Candidate, Amar Kaleka, declined advice from experienced folks in the district, focusing on gimmicks and swag instead of campaign fundamentals. He had plenty of high quality,YouTube videos (film production is his trade), billboards and buttons and bracelets galore – but not much in the way of a ground game plan outside of running his campaign through a network of his family’s gas stations.