It was a shocking margin of victory in what was expected to be a close race: an 11-point blowout by a liberal judge over a conservative incumbent for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Now Wisconsin Democrats are working to export their template for success intense digital outreach and a well-coordinated vote-by-mail operation to other states in the hope that it will improve the partys chances in local and statewide elections and in the quest to unseat President Trump in November.
Their top officials have gone on a virtual nationwide tour, extolling the virtues of their digital campaign efforts in hopes Democrats and liberal activists elsewhere can replicate their victory, when Jill Karofsky, a liberal judge, ousted State Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly.
The first chance comes Tuesday in a special election for a Republican-heavy House district that covers the northern third of the state. It is the nations first partisan contest since Wisconsins April 7 election, and it will provide more evidence as to whether Democratic vote-by-mail success in that race is repeatable.
State party officials have spoken regularly with counterparts in other states, addressed a national virtual gathering of union activists and wrote a public memo with Stacey Abramss Fair Fight Action detailing lessons learned that can be applied elsewhere.
You do get to learn from these things, said Ramsey Reid, the battleground states director for the Democratic National Committee, who has facilitated calls between Wisconsin officials and their counterparts in other states. You get to train more volunteers, you get to build habits around voters and apply lessons learned to states that have challenges.
While officials are publicly bragging about tactics like video calls with voters who need hand-holding to navigate often-cumbersome absentee ballot request forms, theyve been more circumspect about efforts theyve employed in the event of a narrow defeat.
In Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states with upcoming June primary elections, state parties, along with Ms. Abramss organization, are collecting hundreds of legal affidavits from Democratic voters who have trouble acquiring and casting a ballot. The documents are intended to be used for court battles ahead of the November general election and in Wisconsin that tactic would have been employed to challenge the results of the Supreme Court race had the conservative candidate prevailed.
Like in Wisconsin, Democrats in other battleground states with virtually no history of mail voting have for now shifted overnight to an all-mail get-out-the-vote effort. President Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly attacked mail voting, and Republicans have said they would push ahead with plans to limit its expansion in Michigan, Minnesota and other key states.
In Georgia, more than 1.2 million people have requested absentee ballots for the states June 9 primary compared to just 36,200 requests for the 2016 presidential primary. Nearly as many Georgians have applied to vote by mail in the Democratic primary as cast ballots in the partys 2016 contest, when there were still competitive races for both parties nominations.
New Hampshire has no history of significant numbers of voting by mail. The state has no online portal to request an absentee ballot some municipal clerks accept requests via email while others do not. Democratic Party officials have been warned by their Wisconsin counterparts that, if hundreds of thousands of voters seek to vote by mail, local clerks will quickly become overwhelmed by the volume.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party has always run a voter protection hotline on Election Day and the few days before, but we are going to need to have that running for a much longer period of time, said Liz Wester, the director of the New Hampshire Democrats coordinated campaign, who has spoken extensively with officials in Wisconsin since April 7. It will be for months.
And Pennsylvania Democrats have found themselves struggling to convince wary voters that sending ballots through the mail is safe.
There is something about voting on Election Day, said Sincer Harris, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. Its something theyve known, theyre comfortable doing it, especially in the African-American community, you can count on it. Theres a little hesitancy when it comes to the mail system.
Last month in Wisconsin, a New York Times analysis found that Ms. Karofsky, the liberal candidate in the states nonpartisan Supreme Court race, performed about 10 percentage points better in mail voting than she did at the polls, suggesting Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans to request and return absentee ballots.
Republicans who control the state legislature have refused to allow all-mail elections, despite the pandemic. Health officials in Milwaukee said this week that 26 voters may have contracted the coronavirus while voting in April though the study said it was unclear precisely how they became infected.
The first test of whether Wisconsin Democrats April 7 methods can be repeated comes Tuesday, in the special House election that pits the Democrat Tricia Zunker, a school board president from Wausau who is an associate justice on the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court, against Tom Tiffany, a two-term Republican state senator who has campaigned as a supporter of President Trump.
Officials say the contest is less about which candidate will hold the seat for eight months the two candidates are expected to face off again in November for a full two-year term than it is an exercise in training volunteers and voters in how to vote by mail. Each of the 110,000 voters who requested an absentee ballot for the Tuesday election had the chance to opt in to receive a mail ballot for the November general election. Its not known how many Wisconsin voters have already requested ballots for November, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission said.
Our county only had four cases of Covid-19 and I think they are recovered by now, said Jim Kurz, the Democratic Party chairman in Rusk County. Most other counties in this district also had few cases, so I dont think fear of disease will keep voter turnout down.
Neither party considers the Wisconsin congressional election to be one Democrats have much chance of winning both Democratic and Republican internal polling shows Mr. Tiffany with a double-digit advantage but the margin between the two candidates could serve as an indicator of the state of the two parties enthusiasm.
In 2016, President Trump carried the district by 20 percentage points. But in last months Supreme Court race, the conservative candidate won the district by just 6 points while losing statewide by 11, according to an analysis by the University of Virginias Center for Politics.
Like the April 7 election, Tuesdays special election will take place with polling places open across the districts 700 municipalities in 26 counties. The Wisconsin National Guard will once again dispatch its members to help communities staff poll sites.
Mr. Tiffany, a two-term state senator who works as a dam tender on the Willow Flowage in northern Wisconsin, served as a poll worker during the April 7 election and said voters across the congressional district are less afraid of contracting and spreading the coronavirus than their counterparts in the states urban centers to the south.
People in the cities and suburban areas tend to vote more absentee, he said. With this being a more rural district, youll probably see fewer absentees than you did in the April 7 election.
Ms. Zunker had put thousands of miles on her car driving across the 26-county district before travel and public gatherings were restricted. Her campaign manager only moved to Wausau three days before Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin implemented the states Safer at Home ordinance that effectively ended all in-person campaigning.
She painted her race Tuesday as the first step toward former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. carrying Wisconsin in November.
When we put this seat back to blue, the state is blue again. The pathway to winning the presidential race starts on May 12, Ms. Zunker said in an interview last week.
Anything less than a double-digit victory for Mr. Tiffany will be seen as yet another indicator of Democratic momentum in what is certain to be among the most contested states on the presidential map.
The district is loaded with people who became tired of being looked down upon by urban people and so that has been exploitable by the Republican candidates in the past three elections or so, said David R. Obey, a Democrat who represented northern Wisconsin in Congress for 42 years before retiring after the 2010 election. Trump, he turns the dial a little bit, and I just dont know how much.
Read the rest here:
Democrats Vote-By-Mail Effort Won in Wisconsin: Will It Work Elsewhere? - The New York Times
- Sen. Chris Murphy urges Democrats to follow Tom Suozzi and go on the offensive on the border - NBC News - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- New Mexico's Democrat-led House rejects proposal for paid family and medical leave - The Seattle Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrats see 2024 blueprint in N.Y. election that centered on immigration - The Washington Post - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrats cheer New York win as good omen for November. But is it enough to calm anxiety over Biden? - The Associated Press - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Leaning Into Migrant Woes, Suozzi Paves Election-Year Path for Democrats - The New York Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- New York Special Election Live Results: Tom Suozzi Wins George Santos's Seat - The New York Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrats win another special election, and 4 more takeaways from New York's House race - ABC News - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- NY Special Election Winner Tom Suozzi to Fill Santos Seat - Bloomberg - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrat Suozzi wins special election to replace Santos in New York - NPR - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- New House lines in New York would boost 2 Democrats and a Republican - POLITICO - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrats win back George Santos seat in hotly contested election - POLITICO - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrats and Republicans hold Black History Month celebrations with an eye on November's election - The Associated Press - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- NY-03 Special: Four Takeaways from Suozzi and Democrats' Decisive Win - The Cook Political Report - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- New York special election results: The Democrats flipped George Santos' old seat. But here's the real story. - Slate - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- West Virginia bill defining gender is transphobic and 'political rubbish,' Democrats say - The Associated Press - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Biden isn't leaving the 2024 race, but how would Democrats pick a nominee if he did? - ABC News - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Proposed TikTok ban dies in Virginias Democratic-controlled House - The Hill - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Opinion | Tom Suozzi Makes the Democrats Look Good for a New York Minute - The New York Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Tom Suozzi buoyed by higher Democratic turnout, decline in GOP voting - Newsday - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- We asked young Black voters about Biden and the Democrats. Here's what we learned - NPR - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- New York Special Election: Tom Suozzi Wins House Seat Vacated by George Santos - The New York Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrat Tom Suozzi to replace republican George Santos in U.S. House of Representatives - 13newsnow.com WVEC - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Who is Tom Suozzi, Democrat in New York's special election - The Washington Post - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrat Tom Suozzi wins special election to fill George Santos's House seat. Here's why it matters beyond New York. - Yahoo News - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Democrat Wins Special Election for George Santos' House Seat Mother Jones - Mother Jones - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Not an Ordinary Special Election, and Yet a Typical Result - The New York Times - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Trump slams Democrat Nikki Haley on home turf ahead of South Carolina primary: Shes finished - Washington Examiner - February 14th, 2024 [February 14th, 2024]
- Senate Democrat calls GOP hostage-taking in debt ceiling deal making dangerous: This cannot be the norm - The Hill - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Scoop: Dems told to say debt ceiling bill rejects GOP's "extreme demands" - Axios - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Debt Ceiling Is First Big Test for Hakeem Jeffries, the Top House Democrat - The New York Times - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Does the debt deal have enough GOP support? This Democratic senator says he's worried. - POLITICO - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Delbert the Democrat and his friends in the liberal media - leader-call.com - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Why I believe RFK Jr. will be the 2024 Democratic nominee - The Hill - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Republican blitz on LGBTQ issues exposes fractures among Texas ... - The Texas Tribune - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Texas Passes Bills Targeting Elections in Democratic Stronghold - The New York Times - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- The Rise of Religious 'Nones' Won't Save Democrats - New York Magazine - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Democrats trade insults over bill at committee meeting - Spectrum News NY1 - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Kentucky Democrat Who Lost Bid to Unseat McConnell Fined $10K ... - Heritage.org - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Mississippi Democrats improperly excluded candidate for governor ... - The Associated Press - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Asian voters in the U.S. tend to be Democratic, but Vietnamese ... - Pew Research Center - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Gilbert, Mesa lawmakers unimpressed with Democrat's reason for ... - Daily Independent - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- Former Republican and Democratic Governors from Alabama ... - Death Penalty Information Center - May 30th, 2023 [May 30th, 2023]
- 3 Tennessee Democrats face removal from office in Thursday vote after gun control protest on state House floor - CNN - April 6th, 2023 [April 6th, 2023]
- Democrat or Republican: The Official Differences | Merriam-Webster - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- Truck driver who upset top N.J. Democrat in 2021 faces GOP primary challenge in big election year - NJ.com - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- A top Democrats radical plan to deal with Trumps worst judge and protect abortion rights - Vox.com - February 20th, 2023 [February 20th, 2023]
- About the Democratic Party - Democrats - February 7th, 2023 [February 7th, 2023]
- Democratic Party (United States) - Simple English Wikipedia, the free ... - February 2nd, 2023 [February 2nd, 2023]
- Democrat NYC Mayor Adams calls on federal government to play more proactive role to secure border - Fox News - January 17th, 2023 [January 17th, 2023]
- Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin announces he has 'serious but curable form of cancer' - CNN - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Sen. Sinema's switch to Independent will not impact Democrats' control of the chamber, representatives say - CNBC - December 12th, 2022 [December 12th, 2022]
- 'People are fed up': As NC Democrats reflect on election missteps, a party shake-up is underway - WRAL News - December 12th, 2022 [December 12th, 2022]
- What is a Democrat? (with pictures) - Historical Index - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- This is the late message some Democrats believe could make a difference in close elections - CNN - November 1st, 2022 [November 1st, 2022]
- Dylan Roberts in his words: The Democrat running for a seat in Senate District 8 promises to focus on living affordability, the environment and rural... - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- POLITICO Playbook: Where Democrats can find some good news - POLITICO - POLITICO - October 21st, 2022 [October 21st, 2022]
- Kill the babies to curb inflation? Democrats are the real abortion extremists - Washington Examiner - October 21st, 2022 [October 21st, 2022]
- The vote to subpoena Trump shows Democrats have found their fighting spirit - The Guardian US - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Cameron Smith: Is the worst Republican better than the best Democrat? - AL.com - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Inflation report is bad news for Democrats - The Hill - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Democrats try to break through on drug pricing message - The Hill - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Meet the Black Republican whos aiming to flip a Democratic held House seat in heavily blue Connecticut - Yahoo News - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Democrats Worry They're Being Overshadowed in Arizona's Governor Race - Yahoo News - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Democrats suggest shifting weapons from Saudi Arabia to Ukraine - The Guardian US - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- WATCH: Voters react to Nancy Pelosi claiming Democrats will win midterm elections without Trump on the ballot - Fox News - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard says she is leaving the Democratic Party - NPR - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Oregon could elect a non-Democrat governor for the first time in 40 years - Statesman Journal - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- 'The Great Realignment': Democrats Leave Party in Droves, and What It Could Mean for GOP in November - CBN.com - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Texas Democrat uses edited photo of GOP opponent in campaign ad that makes her appear more aggressive - Washington Examiner - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- This Democrat Living On Nearly $400,000 Is Frustrated By Inflation - Washington Free Beacon - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Why Kansass Democratic Governor Isnt Talking About Abortion But Her GOP Opponent Is - FiveThirtyEight - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Can Democrats Win 52 Senate Seats And Kill The Filibuster? - FiveThirtyEight - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Ricky Jones: Black men are not the problem for Stacey Abrams and Democrats - Courier Journal - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- How Democrats are trying to counter a wave of GOP attacks on crime - POLITICO - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Why Democrats' midterm optimism could be misguided - The Hill - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Will The Polls Overestimate Democrats Again? - FiveThirtyEight - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Lauren Boebert's Democratic opponent forgot he was previously registered as a Democrat - Washington Examiner - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Democrats' No. 1 fall goal: Try not to 'poke the bear' - POLITICO - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Is This When Democrats Finally Learn How to Message? - The New Republic - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Meet the Democrat on a Six-Figure Income Who Cant Afford To Buy Her Kids Shoes - Washington Free Beacon - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]