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Though Ms. Karofsky’s victory caught members of both parties by surprise, it was not a fluke. Perhaps the best comparison point to the race is a similar State Supreme Court election in April 2019, which Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative, won by 6,000 votes.
Ms. Karofsky improved on the performance by the liberal candidate in that race in 71 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. She flipped three counties near Green Bay, a key swing area of the state, and cut into conservative margins of victory by at least 13 percentage points in each of the three suburban Milwaukee counties that represent the state’s Republican heartland.
“The last two statewide elections where they have made it a referendum on President Trump, they’ve gotten beat pretty handily,” said Matt Lowe, the Waukesha County Democratic chairman, referring to Mr. Walker’s 2018 re-election bid and Mr. Kelly’s Supreme Court race.
There is little history in the state of voting by mail, leaving Democrats to improvise as the virus transformed the election, while contending with onerous restrictions put in place by the Republicans in power. Early results suggest Democrats have been effective in having party volunteers help voters navigate a complicated process to request and return mail ballots, an online system that required uploading a copy of their photo identification. The sessions were often conducted through one-on-one video calls.
“The work we did wasn’t about taking unmotivated people and trying to prod them to cast a ballot,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “It was about taking highly motivated people and helping them navigate a maze to help them safely and legally cast a vote.”
