The chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was near Johnson. He is the reason why a heavily favored mayor was campaigning for volunteers. A bespectacled 6-foot-4 man with a notebook in his hand, he has built a state party that is not only relevant but a powerhouse of organizing.
He has raised nearly $100 million since taking over as chair, which is believed to be a fundraising record for a Democratic state party, and helped President Joe Biden win the tipping point state of the 2020 election, which helped Democrats rebuild their Midwestern blue wall. The party is using this moment to warm up for the upcoming elections.
Evers, a democrat, is up for another term in 2022. Ron Johnson will be on the ballot, too, as he has amplified misinformation around the 2020 election. Wisconsin Republicans deny the results of the 2020 election because of baseless claims. Public polling shows that Evers is somewhat popular, but Johnson's personal numbers aren't great, which is playing out against Biden's sagging approval ratings, sky-high gas prices and historical data that strikes against Democrats.
I see this election as a clash between the national momentum and atmosphere against us and everything in Wisconsin, more than I could have hoped for.
Will the national dynamics prevail over the in-state dynamics?
Wisconsin is dead even. Donald Trump won it by a large margin. Biden won it by 20,000 votes. Wisconsin Democrats had their back broken during the GOP Gov., according to Brian Reisinger, a top Republican consultant in the state. They never got back up after Scott Walker.
The true test of the party is whether you can win big when the wind is at your back or not. This is his big test because Democrats haven't yet.
Now, in preparation for yet more races that could be decided by thousands of votes, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is using Tuesday's elections for a variety of local races.
“He’s completely redefined what a party chair, what a state party, can be.”
For the first time since the coronaviruses outbreak, the party returned to in-person door-knocking statewide in September of 2021. Absentee voters can request mail ballots for both the spring and fall elections. 350,000 voters have been reached so far.
Gloria Reyes is the president of the Madison Metropolitan School Board.
They are also message testing, collecting valuable data on what might move independent voters back into their column. Infrastructure and education are the focus of paid communications by the Wisconsin party. They plan to spend a lot more time talking to voters about how Johnson gave himself a tax cut and how he wants to repeal the health care law.
Threats to democracy are an issue for the party and for the base, but not part of its message to swing voters.
If you care about democracy, talk about roads.
A broad turnout program is being run by the state party. Bill Crawford, the former chair of a four-county coalition of rural communities, said that the Democrats don't pay enough attention to rural America.
Only a very well-funded state party could run this kind of statewide testing. When he first ran for chair, he wanted to raise money to professionalize the operation with better-paid staffers, build on the neighborhood organizing program started by his predecessor, and stand up an all-year organization.
It requires a large bank account. The former senior adviser at MoveOn brought a national fundraising network to tap, as well as a penchant for using social media to drive small-dollar donations. His long Twitter threads, which are unspooling the stakes and narratives around elections, often go viral. He said that a single thread raised six figures in small-dollar donations.
Facebook is how you talk to voters, but it is not the best way to talk to people in politics.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin hosted virtual, grassroots fundraisers that featured celebrity TV shows and movie reunions at the height of the coronaviruses epidemic in 2020.
At the same time, he has become a star of the high-dollar donor set. Scott Anderson, a Democratic strategist who coordinates major donors around state races, said that the state chair is the best in the country, and the drop off to the next tier is steep.
Mike Tate, the former chair of the state party from 2009 to 2015, said that what a party chair can be has been redefined by him.
It is a far cry from the park in Madison, Wis., where he began his career. Four people showed up.
Wisconsin Democrats outraised their Republican counterparts in the year 2020. Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, made a statement in an email.
They have a tough job, and they need to toot their own horns as much as they can before they start defending a weak governor who isn't really up to the job.
Some of the changes have not met with unanimous praise in-state. One Wisconsin Democrat, an elected official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, complained that Wikler has ignored hometown talent, hiring staffers who weren't from Wisconsin and who didn't know how to pronounce the names of our elected.
For the first time, the party isn't completely starving for resources, but some felt they weren't seeing enough investment in state legislative races and county parties.
The state party is doubling its funding for county parties for the two months leading up to the spring elections.
It's important to have an actual theory for how you're going to invest resources, not just based on which wheels are squeakiest, but also have an ability to listen and see where there are opportunities that people have detected.
The majority of the leadership team hail from Wisconsin, and they put a lot of work into changing the culture of hiring.
It is a hard, thankless job. The former chair of Wisconsin's Republican Party said that no one would ever be happy with him.
One of the key ingredients of the recent rise of the state party was the ability of the first Black mayor in Wisconsin to take input and criticism and then do something constructive with it.
Either the party listens or they don't. The former mayor of Fitchburg, Wis., said that word gets around. Huntley-Cooper said, "every time you saw him, he had his notebook and he was taking notes." He wasn't just taking notes, he was following through.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
