Surf's up

Democrats hope to ride a wave through Wisconsin

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When Democrats gathered from all over the state in Oshkosh for their annual convention, speakers rallied delegates for what they hope will be a new era in Democratic rule.

Over two days of speeches in June, they attacked Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans on everything from Walker’s failure to create the 250,000 new jobs he promised when he first ran eight years ago to his administration’s handling of roads, health care, public education and workers’ rights.

Speaker after speaker condemned the $4.5 billion in state and local incentives for the Foxconn manufacturing complex in Racine County. Speaker after speaker vowed to rein in or even repudiate the deal. And, sooner or later, speaker after speaker got around to a ringing denunciation of President Donald Trump.

But with virtually every exhortation came warnings against complacency. “Are you ready for a blue wave?” U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) called out to the crowd at the climax of her Friday night stemwinder. “Yeah!” came the reply.

“Well I’m telling you, we’ve got to part the Red Sea!” Moore admonished them. “We’ve got to register people to vote, because they’ve kicked people off the rolls. We’ve got to call, we’ve got to canvas, we’ve got to work, we’ve got to raise money.”

In the hallway Saturday morning, one convention newcomer confided his apprehension.

“I fear it’s a blue trickle,” said the first-time delegate, speaking anonymously in return for greater candor. But he suggested his pessimism is preferable to getting his hopes dashed on Election Day. “The good news is it’s a long way from here to November — and things are very likely going to change.”

The promise of a November “Blue Wave” to upend the Republican hegemony in Washington has been energizing Democrats and progressives across the country this year. Republicans have been deploying the same oceanic metaphor as a warning, hoping to create a sturdy enough breakwater to blunt its impact.

“Tonight’s results show we are at risk of a #BlueWave in WI,” Walker tweeted on April 3 after Milwaukee Judge Rebecca Dallet, backed by liberals and Democrats, swept to victory in the officially nonpartisan state Supreme Court race. “We have a positive story to tell & we need conservatives to take action and stop a #BlueWave by getting out there and telling it.”

Two years after Trump’s 2016 upset Electoral College win over Hillary Clinton, recent national surveys have shown a consistent Democratic advantage in this year’s midterm elections.

For Democrats to recapture the U.S. Senate, they have to win two more seats and reelect all of their incumbents, including first-term Sen. Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin. To take over the House of Representatives, where Republicans command a 47-seat lead, they will have to gain a net 24 seats.

Some indicators suggest that might not be such a far-fetched prospect. In surveys this year that ask voters, without naming candidates, whether they prefer a Democrat or a Republican for Congress, they’ve consistently favored the generic Democrat by a 5- to 10-percent margin, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Robert Kraig, executive director of Wisconsin Citizen Action, has seen that enthusiasm up close while traveling the state on behalf of his organization’s campaign to expand health insurance coverage by extending the reach of the state’s BadgerCare program.

After years of many Democrats and their allies feeling “beaten down” by recurring defeats in Madison and now Washington, says Kraig, “there’s a lot more excitement and enthusiasm than there has been in a long time.”

But state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout from Alma, who lost her bid to be the Democratic candidate for governor to Tony Evers this week, admits it won’t be easy.

“We have to earn the Blue Wave,” she says. “We can’t sit home and hope that it happens.”

The stakes for Wisconsin’s 2018 midterms include the governor’s office, where Democrats hope to block Walker from a third term, as well as Baldwin’s Senate seat. All eight Wisconsin Congressional seats — five Republican and three Democratic — are up, although only two, both held by the GOP, are seen as vulnerable.

In the state Legislature, Republicans control the 33-member Senate 18-15 and the 99-member Assembly 64-35. For the Democrats to flip the Assembly, they would need to turn at least 15 seats from red to blue, which for all the bravado of campaign season seems close to impossible. An easier prize may be to gain at least two more seats in the Senate.

So if the Blue Wave crashes across Wisconsin, the best-case scenario for the Democrats would be to make the Dairy State the home of the Purple Cow, with Evers governor and a divided Legislature, as well as a more evenly divided Congressional delegation.

But that’s easier said than done.

Of the 17 state Senate seats on the ballot, seven are held by Democrats and 10 by Republicans. Democrats would have to reelect all six incumbents up for reelection. That includes the 1st district, extending from Brown County to the Door Peninsula, where Caleb Frostman is aiming for a repeat victory after narrowly winning a special election in June to become the first Democratic senator from the area in 40 years.

Then there’s the 31st district seat that Kathleen Vinehout gave up to run for governor. Jeff Smith won a three-way Democratic primary and will face Republican Mel Pittman, whom Vinehout beat by five points four years ago.

But Democrats also need two Republican pickups, and they’re casting their eyes on several potential targets in search of them.

State Rep. Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee) says the 17th in southwestern Wisconsin, represented by Howard Marklein, might be among the most promising. There he faces Kriss Marion, a farmer and business owner who serves on the Lafayette County Board. Another prospect is the 23rd to the northwest, where Terry Moulton opted not to run for a third term. In that district, Democrat Chris Kapsner, a doctor, is running against state Rep. Kathy Bernier, a Republican.

Kessler hears fellow Democrats talking up the open 5th district seat in suburban Milwaukee, which Leah Vukmir gave up to challenge Baldwin, but he isn’t optimistic about that one. And the 19th district in the Fox Valley, home to Senate President Roger Roth, is on some lists, Kessler adds, “but I don’t know if that’s possible.”

What all of these putatively vulnerable Senate districts have in common is their suburban pockets. Kessler says the strong suburban turnout for Frostman in June in a district that Trump carried by 17 points suggests those voters may hold a key to winning at least some of those other races.

In the Assembly, meanwhile, the barrier isn’t just that Democrats would have to turn more than a dozen seats. Wisconsin electoral maps from 2011 are still in effect — maps that Republicans drew in order to concentrate some likely Democratic voters into a small number of districts while spreading the rest among Republican-majority districts. The resulting gerrymander was so lopsided that in 2012, 51 percent of the state’s voters cast their ballots for Democrats, but the party came away with only 39 out of 99 seats.

A group of plaintiffs that Kessler helped organize sued and won a federal ruling ordering the state to draw fairer maps, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that order and, in June, tossed the case back to lower courts with no chance that new maps would be ordered before this year’s election.

Had the high court upheld the lower court’s order for new maps, Kessler thinks Democrats would have had a shot at winning an Assembly majority of 55 or 56 seats. Now, he says, the most they’re likely to gain in the Assembly is eight or nine seats. That would give them 44 seats — six short of a majority.

It’s also possible that 2012 could repeat itself, with a majority of the state’s votes for the Assembly being cast for Democrats while Republicans retain control.

Democrats are mounting challenges in each of the five U.S. House of Representatives districts with a Republican incumbent. Just two, though, have shown enough promise for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to add them to its “Red to Blue” list.

In the 1st, ironworker and union activist Randy Bryce sparked national excitement when he entered the race, originally challenging incumbent and House Speaker Paul Ryan and subsequently taking credit for driving Ryan to retire (a claim Ryan’s camp denies). Bryce won a primary challenge against Janesville teacher and school board member Cathy Myers. He’s raised $6 million through June.

Democrats are also eying the 6th District, where Republican Glenn Grothman is vying for a third term. He’s being challenged by former Sen. Herb Kohl’s nephew, Dan Kohl.

Grothman acknowledges the wealth and resources behind Kohl. “My opponent sold his house for $5 million, and I have never faced anyone with that financial backing before,” he tells Isthmus. “So it’s a new experience for me, and concerning.”

But he adds, “I think I have an independent record. I’ve shown I’m not afraid to buck party leaders. I’m frugal, and feel on that and other issues am in tune with my voters and my district.”

National forecasters are still rating the 6th District as likely to stay Republican. Some, such as the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, who runs Sabato’s Crystal Ball blog, are now calling the 1st a toss-up due to Bryce’s fundraising and the national attention the race has gotten.

But Kessler suggests that Bryce will have a harder time winning the district than some expect.

For one thing, Republicans will match Bryce’s fundraising. Kessler also points to April’s nonpartisan state Supreme Court race. While the the progressive-backed Dallet carried parts of the state that in past elections, including in 2016, had gone to Republicans, the first district wasn’t one of them.

Midterm elections “almost always” favor whichever party doesn’t have the White House, said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School Poll, in a presentation at the law school earlier this summer. On average, out-parties have gained 24 seats in previous midterms, he noted — which happens to be the number Democrats would need to flip the House in 2018.

Recent forecasts from The Economist and Sabato suggest that possibility could be within reach.

But depending on the indicators, the picture is still ambiguous. Trump’s approval rating — stuck at around 41 percent of voters over the last several months — could translate into a Republican loss of as many as 35 House seats nationwide based on past elections, Franklin said.

On the other hand, economic data — specifically the jobless rate — paints a rosier picture for Republicans. With national unemployment hovering at just below 4 percent, past experience suggests the Republicans might lose only 15 seats, letting them narrowly cling to the House majority, Franklin said.

The GOP is banking on that. “Right now the national economy is good and the state economy is better,” says Grothman. “So it would seem strange if the voters would punish Scott Walker for a strong economy and lower taxes.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are drawing comfort from upset victories in two out of three special legislative elections this year, along with Dallet’s defeat of conservative judge Michael Screnock in the state Supreme Court race, with 53.5 percent of the vote.

Dallet made significant inroads into northern and central areas of the state, both Franklin and Kessler observed — including in the Fox Valley and around Wausau, which Hillary Clinton lost.

Franklin’s latest Marquette Law School Poll, released July 18, showed a small but distinct enthusiasm gap, with 69 percent of Democratic voters reporting they were “very enthusiastic” about this year’s election, compared with 62 percent of Republicans. It’s a wider margin in Democrats’ favor than the poll found a month earlier.

Yet other data from the same poll suggests the average voter still hasn’t fully engaged with the election. A month before this week’s primary, nearly two-thirds or more of those surveyed said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion about any of Walker’s eight Democratic challengers or the two Republicans vying to run against Baldwin.

Primary voters selected Evers to face Walker and Vukmir to take on Baldwin.

After the 2016 election, Democrats agonized over what went wrong. Different strategies emerged for how to win back power.

Sen. Vinehout researched the state’s voting records after the 2016 election. In Trempealeau County — which had flipped from “solid Obama to solid Trump” — she discovered that 12 percent of voters in the county and 24 percent of voters in the county seat of Whitehall hadn’t voted in previous elections.

Data from elsewhere around the state convinced her that once-reliable Democratic voters had stayed home on Election Day — they hadn’t switched their allegiance. She argues that the key to winning is to fire up the base and make sure they get to the polls.

Others believe that Democrats have simply ceded too many voters to Republicans, like in rural areas where Democrats long ago gave up on winning.

Wisconsin Citizen Action has been pushing a progressive message in places that have long leaned Republican, says executive director Kraig. The group has a project to expand organizing in rural areas, and it’s making activists of people like convention delegate Don Dunphy, a retired prosecutor from Merrill.

Dunphy says he was “raised in a Democratic household, in a blue collar family.” But when he ran for district attorney in Lincoln County in 2004, it was as a Republican — in part because he considered himself more conservative on criminal justice matters, but also because Republicans tend to prevail in the county’s politics.

He defected from the party after Trump was nominated, and, although still technically a Republican office holder, he campaigned door to door for Hillary Clinton in the fall, having decided to not run for reelection. Dunphy retired in January 2017.

Trump carried the county, but Dunphy points out, “Lincoln County has the ability to go back and forth.” Barack Obama won there in both 2008 and 2012, he notes, and Dallet carried it in the Supreme Court race.

Independent voters Dunphy meets appear to be leaning Democratic this year, driven by concerns about the environment, job opportunities for young people who are fleeing the rural Northwoods county, education, health care and roads. He also believes that Republican dominance is breeding backlash. “There are a lot of people who are frustrated with the fact that the state is completely locked up.”

Jolie Lizotte, a 28-year-old who has organized activists for Citizen Action across the Fox Valley, has seen the area’s politics shaped by years of economic dislocation: “We’ve been having plants closing for a decade or two now,” she says.

Opposition to Walker’s Act 10 as well as the 2016 primary campaign of Bernie Sanders galvanized residents of the region, she believes, especially younger voters. Even some moderates were drawn to Trump’s presidential campaign on the strength of his rhetoric aimed at the plight of manufacturing workers: “He was speaking about things that some of the other candidates weren’t talking about.”

The election of progressive candidates to the Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago county boards in the spring suggests to her that energy and engagement are on the rise, and make the Fox Valley area potentially winnable with the right appeal. “It’s going to be really important for candidates running in this area to have a really good grasp of economic issues and be able to talk to people about them.”

Over toward the other end of the state in Richland Center, former state Sen. Dale Schultz says the people he encounters often complain “that the political process no longer serves the majority of people in our state. It’s wound up with a lot of ideological nonsense and cronyism.”

A maverick Republican who bucked Walker on Act 10 and other issues before retiring from the Legislature, Schultz this year has endorsed Democrat Tony Evers for governor.

“Out my way the overwhelming civic engagement is by Democrats right now,” says Schultz. Neither Trump nor Walker appear to be very popular with many of those he meets. “The antics of both of them have turned a lot of people off.”

Chronic underemployment, even with low unemployment, struggling businesses and persistent deterioration of roads exacerbate the discontent he encounters. “People out here are upset about Foxconn,” he adds, quoting one business owner who told him, “I feel like I’m being bribed with my own money.”

With the right message and sufficient engagement, he believes the Democrats could make headway in communities like his, where, he says, “I think there’s been more willingness to listen” to the Democrats than he’s seen in the past. “Somebody’s going to have to do more than just be critical of the other side; they’re going to have to offer solutions.” 

The map depicting possible swing districts in the state Senate mistakenly represented the 1st Senate District as red for Republican. As the story notes, Caleb Frostman, flipped the district from red to blue in a June special election to become the first Democrat in 40 years to win there. He faces a rematch for the seat in November against Republican André Jacque. The map has been corrected.