Nate Cohn has supported this argument using results from governors' elections across the nation in 2010 and 2014. The Wisconsin contest sits nicely in the middle of the pack, smack on a regression line when results are plotted against Romney's percentage.
But wait! Scott Walker is no ordinary Republican! He is especially conservative—the second-most conservative governor to run for re-election in 2014, according to CFscores presented by Harry Enten. So achieving an ordinary win in a blue state for an extraordinarily conservative governor was an extraordinary feat!
In fact, on the topic of Walker's conservatism, Jason McDaniel, as quoted by Kevin Drum, says "it is not a stretch to argue that if nominated, Walker would be the most conservative Republican nominee since Barry Goldwater."
But Sean Trende and David Byler took exception to that argument, and with good reason. The CFscore is, after all, a campaign finance score, based not on the politician's words or actions but on who is donating to his or her campaigns. These numbers can change based on who is "hot" among nationwide conservative donors, among other reasons to be careful with them. Trende and Byler give the example of Mitt Romney, who had a CFscore of 0.88 before winning the GOP nomination, and 1.18 after. (More positive is more conservative.) Adam Bonica, who created the metric, has a similar example for the infamous Joe Wilson, whose numbers made a similar leap after his outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress.
The arguments are truly dizzying. So what are we to do?
The results are summarized in the graph above (Walker is smack in the middle of the pack), with details and explanations below the fold.
