On November 4, Wisconsin voters of the 67th Assembly district re-elected Jeff Wood to his fourth term. His first three terms were as a Republican, but this year, he ran as an independent. Wood had a ballot-listed Republican opponent, Don Moga, and the November vote was close. The unofficial results are: Wood 12,388, Moga 12,213.
Wood became disenchanted with the Republican Party in July 2008, so when he filed for re-election, he did so as an independent. Since the Republican Party had expected him to file as a Republican, it had not recruited anyone else to run, and no one appeared on the Republican primary ballot in September. However, Wisconsin permits write-in votes in primaries, and Moga launched a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination. Wisconsin law makes it difficult for any write-in candidate to win a partisan primary. Moga needed a number of write-ins equal to 5% of the Republican gubernatorial vote in November 2006, which was 485 write-ins. However, he met that goal with 1,184 write-ins, and thus was on the November ballot. But, he lost to the independent nominee.
No independent had been elected to either branch of the Wisconsin legislature since 1932. However, there were many Progressive Party nominees elected to the Wisconsin legislature during the period 1934-1944, and Socialists during the same decade. Here is a newspaper story about the Wood victory.
