Given my vast experience, yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm going to predict State Representative Dan Vrakas defeats County Supervisor Jim Dwyer with 65% of the vote, for two reasons.
One, is the relative size of Vrakas' district compared to Dwyers. Vrakas represents a much larger area in the state assembly than Dwyer represents in the county. Dwyer may serve as county board chairman (a relatively anonymous position in the Finley shadow) but he's only campaigned in his district until now, a fraction of Menomonee Falls. You could pick up Dwyer's district and drop it something like 72 times* in Vrakas' Assembly District and not hit a single Dwyer voter.
The other reason is the relative conservative, or at least partisan Republican, nature of the county. If you want irony, every Dwyer whine about the partisan nature of this race has probably fueled the Vrakas campaign by reminding voters who the Republican is. At times, the letters to the editors from both sides could hardly be distinguished from one another in mentioning the Republican support for Vrakas.
Where this all could founder on the rocks is the Vrakas campaign itself. It clearly was run with an incumbent, front-runner attitude. No shots at Dwyer. No last minute, controversial direct mail hit pieces or radio ads. Vrakas ran a warm fuzzy campaign counting on the sheer numbers to carry him to victory.** We'll see if it was the right strategy in this very low turnout election where less than 10% are expected to show up.
*I may be exaggerating. I think maybe that's the amount of times Earth can be swallowed by Jupiter, or the number of times I ran to the bathroom after eating at a Polish/Mexican restaraunt.
**I hate warm, fuzzy campaigns.
