Democrats in Wisconsin and across the country are celebrating the results of the midterm elections. After hearing dire predictions for months, Democratic candidates won an historically high number of contested offices in a midterm election, bucking the longstanding trend of voters turning against the party occupying the White House.

Wisconsin Democrats earned wins for Governor Tony Evers/Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez and Attorney General Josh Kaul, with apparent victories by Secretary of State Doug La Follette and La Crosse County Sheriff candidate John Siegel.  Brad Pfaff, whom the Republicans expected to trounce, turned in a strong performance, getting 48% of the vote in his 3^rd Congressional District race against insurrectionist Derrick van Orden.

Mandela Barnes lost an extremely close race to incumbent Senator Ron Johnson—see Ben Wikler’s analysis below.

Nationwide, the predicted red wave simply did not happen. Democrats will again control the US Senate;  their bid for retaining control of the House is still alive, although likely to fall just short. This is an outstanding performance given the history cited above.

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Here is DPW Chair Ben Wikler’s response to the election results:

Dear fellow Wisconsin Democrats,  

Wow. We did it. You, Tony Evers, all of us—we did it.  

We can finally exhale.  

Governor Evers won a second term, now joined by Sara Rodriguez. Dems in the State Legislature blocked the GOP’s quest for supermajorities in the State Legislature, and the Governor’s veto pen is intact. 

Against overwhelming odds, the path to democracy in Wisconsin survived. 

Mandela Barnes, written off as doomed by national observers, soared above the polls and came within one percentage point of defeating Ron Johnson—in a year when, it appears, every single incumbent senator in both parties will win re-election, and after three self-serving billionaires poured $29 million into some of the most vicious, racist attack ads our state has ever seen. It’s wrenching to fall just short—but Mandela surged in the final weeks, and did better than experts thought possible.  

In fact, experts underestimated Wisconsin Democrats’ strength across the board this year.  

The last time a Democrat won a governor’s race in our state during a Democratic presidency was sixty years ago, by a single percentage point. Governor Evers and Lt. Governor Rodriguez won by 3.4%. Attorney General Josh Kaul and Secretary of State Doug La Follette won statewide as well. Ask any political scientist: in 50-50 Wisconsin, where midterms nearly always swing against the president’s party, these things aren’t supposed to happen.  

There are many reasons why this came to pass. Republicans ripped away a basic freedom—the power to make decisions over one’s own body—and threatened many more. The GOP’s open hostility to democracy galvanized a counterreaction. Our candidates lived their values, which matched Wisconsin’s values. 

———————————————————————————————   Many thanks to each and every volunteer who knocked doors, made phonecalls, or texted to make sure that we got out the vote. And thanks to all DPW Field Staff who put in a lot of hard work to help make these victories possible!

Here’s to victory in Wisconsin’s Spring 2023 Supreme Court Justice election!

Dear fellow Wisconsin Democrats,  It’s time to cancel everything and go knock on doors.

With 18 days to go, we’re in a statistical dead heat in our statewide elections—and a red alert in the fight against Republican supermajorities in the state legislature. That means it’s time to pull out all the stops. How many volunteer shifts can you complete before the polls close? How many voters can you talk to? Find your local canvass launches—they’re happening everywhere, every week, now through November 8—and sign up at this link!

Every time I’ve knocked on doors this fall, I’ve found at least one voter who either wasn’t sure if they’d vote or wasn’t sure whom they’d vote for—but by the end of the conversation, committed to voting for Democrats.

If everyone receiving this email completes three volunteer shifts between now and Election Day and convinces one voter per shift, we’ll win more votes than the statewide margin of victory in the 2018 Governor’s race, or the 2020 presidential race, or the 2016 presidential race, or the 2019 state Supreme Court race. (And that list goes on and on.) 

There’s a lot that will happen between now and Election Day that we can’t control. We can’t control the global economy for the next 18 days. We can’t control gas prices for the next 18 days. We can’t control the weather for the next 18 days. But we can decide how we use our time.

And this is the time to do everything we can to bring victories in November.

While you’re driving to your nearest Democratic Party of Wisconsin canvass launch to knock on doors for Evers, Barnes, Kaul, and the other Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, listen to the newest episode of The Run-Up, a podcast by the New York Times. It’s about the impact of gerrymandering and Republican attacks on democracy in Wisconsin.

It’s not easy listening. But at the end of the episode, it makes a critical point.

We don’t live in a functioning democracy at this moment. But there’s a path to creating one. If we win the governorship, if we prevent GOP supermajorities, and if we win the majority on the state Supreme Court next spring, there’s a path to true democracy in Wisconsin. It doesn’t mention it in the podcast, but there’s another path as well: if we hold the House and expand the Democratic Senate majority by two seats—a goal that absolutely requires a victory for Mandela Barnes—then we could pass national pro-democracy legislation that would end partisan gerrymandering and bring full voting rights to our state and every other.

There is hope. There is peril. It’s all on the line. We have 18 days to do everything we can.

Choose hope.

In solidarity,

Ben

by Ben Wikler, Chair, Democratic Party of Wisconsin