David Michael Miller
Democrats are celebrating Doug Jones’ victory in last week’s special election in Alabama, but those who want to interpret that vote as portending victory for the Democrat in next year’s Wisconsin governor’s race might need to curb their enthusiasm.
Jones won his Senate race for two reasons: African Americans turned out for him and suburban women didn’t show up for his Republican opponent, Roy Moore.
But here in Wisconsin, Republican incumbent Gov. Scott Walker has not shown any signs of losing steam in his Milwaukee suburban base. Even when he ran against businesswoman Mary Burke in 2014, Walker performed as strong as ever in the Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington collar counties surrounding the city. There’s no reason to think that anyone in the small army of Democrats lining up to challenge him next year could perform better than Burke there.
In contrast, Republican women in Alabama’s suburbs stayed home or voted for Jones because they were repulsed by credible charges from women who said that Moore dated them as young teenagers when he was in his 30s. Whatever you might think of Scott Walker, the chances that he will face similar charges seem pretty remote. The guy has already been through three tough statewide races in which personal weaknesses of those kinds probably would have been brought to light by now.
But even more significant is the black vote — or, in Wisconsin, the lack of it. African Americans make up 26 percent of the population in Alabama, while they constitute just 6 percent here. And in last Tuesday’s election, black voters overperformed, making up 28 percent of all voters who showed up at the polls and delivering 95 percent of their votes to the Democrat. When a quarter of a state’s population is motivated they can move mountains. When it’s only 6 percent, they need a lot of help just to nudge a sizable hill.
Which is why it’s important that Wisconsin Democrats don’t take the wrong lesson from Alabama. Their nominee is not going to face a candidate with Roy Moore’s monster flaws, and they are running in a state where the African American vote is about a fifth the size of what it is Alabama.
Of course the Democrats need to turn out people of color and younger voters, but identity politics remains a disastrous strategy in the Upper Midwest. In order to prevail here, a Democrat needs to do better with white voters, and especially white men, simply because they still make up such a large portion of the overall vote.
Democrats can’t afford to think of this as a zero-sum game where they go all-in on minority voters at the expense of appealing to the majority. Instead, they need a more encompassing message that isn’t dependent on personal identity.
And ironically, if they do that, all of a sudden that 6 percent African American vote here will matter. That’s because another big difference between Wisconsin and Alabama is that Wisconsin starts out purple while Alabama is deep red.
Consider the 2016 presidential race. (I know you’d rather not, but do it anyway.) Donald Trump won Alabama by 28 points, while he beat Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by less than one percent. And it’s entirely possible that lack of enthusiasm for Clinton combined with voter suppression in Milwaukee cost Clinton the election. She lost the whole state by only 22,000 votes and she trailed Barack Obama’s 2012 numbers in Milwaukee by 40,000 votes.
Simply put, Doug Jones had a lot more headwind to overcome than whoever wins his party’s nomination here. It’s very unlikely that Jones could have defeated any Republican other than Roy Moore. But virtually any Democrat with a chance of winning the primary would have a fair shot at Walker and if they can make it close enough in the rest of the state, then a big turnout in the African American community could make all the difference.
So, ironically, in order for black votes to matter here the way they did down South, the Democrat first has to do much better with voters who aren’t black.
Feed the legion of Democrats lining up to take on Walker through this analysis and the one who comes out looking the best is Mahlon Mitchell. The firefighter and union leader has Obama-like charisma that could sway white voters all over the state. Obama won here twice and he carried 33 almost entirely white counties that Clinton found a way to lose. And because Mitchell would also be the first African American major-party nominee for governor in our state, he could easily stir up Obama’s numbers in that community.
So far, Mitchell hasn’t made a lot of noise in the Democratic primary, where the solid state public schools Superintendent Tony Evers seems to have staked out an early lead. But in Wisconsin, where the suburban-women portion of the winning equation won’t likely occur, the small African American vote could still be crucial. But only for a candidate who can do well elsewhere. The path to victory here was lit more by Obama than by Doug Jones.
It was sweet, but Alabama isn’t like home.
