Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) may feel cautiously optimistic about next year’s election.
Almost a decade after she soundly defeated former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson in a contest for Democrat Herb Kohl’s old seat, she stands out as a not-unpopular liberal senator in America’s Dairyland. Think Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) without the clear presidential aspirations.
What’s more, although Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) won his 2022 reelection bid against Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, his margin of victory was narrow; just 1 percentage point separated the two. By contrast, Ms. Baldwin beat her 2018 opponent, Leah Vukmir, by more than 10 points.
Yet, while some Democratic achievements in Wisconsin have made headlines, other, less well-publicized indicators signal strength on the Republican side.
The GOP has maintained its hold over the state Senate and Assembly since 2018. The state Senate is now made up of 22 Republicans and 11 Democrats, a decided change from 18 and 15, respectively, before the 2018 election. In the state Assembly, meanwhile, there are 64 Republicans and 35 Democrats—the same makeup as before the 2018 election, when the GOP lost some ground while still commanding a strong majority.
The GOP also dominates the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives. Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s 2022 victory flipped another blue seat red, leaving six Republicans and just two Democrats.
While the past few years have seen some victories by Democrats, the state’s party has mostly regained ground that it lost to the GOP in the recent past. At one point during the George W. Bush administration, the state where the Republican Party was born had two Democratic senators, a Democratic secretary of state, a majority Democratic House delegation, and a state senate narrowly controlled by Democrats.
Finally, although President Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin surprised some, it’s worth remembering that President Trump’s 2016 victory marked the first time a Republican presidential candidate claimed the state since Ronald Reagan.
‘Wisconsin Nice’
The upcoming battle to challenge the incumbent Ms. Baldwin comes as national Republicans make Wisconsin a focal point.Ahead of next year, it’s clear that voters in the Upper Midwest matter to both parties, but perhaps especially to Republicans eager to avoid a repeat of 2020 and the unimpressive “red trickle” of 2022.
“We are perhaps the most important, or one of the top-five most important states in the country in terms of who’s going to be the next president, and I want to make sure that we win the presidency in 2024,” Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said in an Aug. 17 interview with The Epoch Times.
If Wisconsinites vote red, it’s not because they always see red.
“We’re Wisconsin nice. We’re not fire breathers. We’re not bomb throwers,” Mr. Westrate said.
By his account, the party has been able to make a particularly strong case to “Cheeseheads” on economic issues.
“If you can acknowledge that two plus two equals four, I think we can get you to see how our economic policies lead to prosperity,” he said.
Social issues might be a different story in the moderate state.
“If you have a loved one who’s part of the LGBT community, or if you have a loved one who you know had an abortion for one reason or another, or if you’re not a person of faith, those things are going to define your own personal social issues,” Mr. Westrate said.
Mr. Tiffany laid out how he thinks Republicans can make a convincing argument for themselves, particularly after the 2020 reelection contest saw President Trump’s support apparently erode relative to that of his Democratic competition.
“Set the personalities aside for those people that simply want to talk about Donald Trump and personalities,” he said.
He listed government spending, energy independence, and the border among the issues he sees as “powerful for the voters of the state of Wisconsin.”
Both Mr. Tiffany and Mr. Westrate mentioned education as an area in which Republicans can shine, with the lawmaker suggesting that student performance in Dane County, a Democratic stronghold, opened up an opportunity for Republicans.
“When you look at student achievement, especially the racial disparity, in Madison, that should be a three-alarm fire for people in Dane County,” he said.
“You can’t concede Dane County because it’s the fastest-growing county in the state,” Mr. Tiffany continued.
Mr. Tiffany said that Ms. Baldwin’s long history in government, beginning with her election to the Dane County Board of Supervisors at age 24, could harm her reelection bid.
“She’s a career politician, and people are just tired of them,” he said.
He also characterized Ms. Baldwin as “a rubber stamp for President Biden.”
Yet Mr. Westrate acknowledged that Ms. Baldwin’s record has relatively few obvious vulnerabilities as she prepares to seek a third term.
“Senator Baldwin doesn’t appear to have done a lot of things that might have turned the middle off,” he said, referring to the vast number of middle-of-the-road voters who, in his words, “win the election.”
Mr. Tiffany suggested that the Wisconsin contest may be a low priority for the National Republican Senate Committee’s (NRSC’s) resources as against other likely critical contests, such as in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, and Arizona.
Potential Candidates
Mr. Tiffany spoke with The Epoch Times weeks after he turned down the chance to run against Ms. Baldwin.“I thought that I could do the most good for the people in the State of Wisconsin staying put in the 7th Congressional District because the most important race that is going to happen in 2024 is the presidential campaign,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Walker, the state’s former governor, and GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher are among the other Wisconsin politicians who have also declined to challenge Ms. Baldwin.
Longshot Republican candidate Rejani Raveendran entered contention in early August. For now, more plausible Republican hopefuls haven’t yet joined the race.
“We are optimistic that we’re going to have an excellent candidate step forward or candidates, and then through the primary process, that people will choose the person they want to ultimately face Senator Baldwin,” Mr. Westrate said.
“Sheriff Clarke certainly has a certain notoriety within some elements of the right side of the aisle. I would tend to look maybe at some folks who have run statewide races previously, who have a good sense of what that takes to at least be competitive in a statewide race,” Mr. Westrate said.
Asked to name contenders who would warrant attention from national media, he mentioned Will Martin, who ran in the state’s 2022 Republican lieutenant governor primary. He also drew attention to that year’s Republican lieutenant governor candidate, Roger Roth, who lost to Democrat Sara Rodriguez and to former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
“I don’t think [Ms. Kleefisch] has any interest in federal office. But she’s somebody that I think should certainly be in the conversation if we’re talking about statewide candidates,” Mr. Westrate said.
TV host Rachel Campos-Duffy, the wife of former congressman and “Real World” star Sean Duffy and the mother of Chicago Thinker co-founder Evita Duffy, has also come up as a possible opponent of Ms. Baldwin.
“I think she would be a very strong candidate,” Mr. Tiffany said, adding that he thinks Mr. Duffy also would also “be a very strong candidate” to challenge Ms. Baldwin.
Big Money and ‘Small Ball’
After the disputed 2020 presidential election and an underwhelming midterm performance, and as the most recent Republican president faces multiple indictments, many Republicans may feel demoralized ahead of 2024.Mr. Westrate argued that the GOP, though buffeted by those headwinds, should look forward rather than backward.
“We have to focus on this U.S. Senate election, on the presidential election, and within the laws that currently exist, make sure that we’re using all legal means to get our people to the polls to counter the efforts that the left is making,” he said.
Mr. Westrate said that Republicans in the state are “working hard to adapt all new technologies into the battle to try and turn out conservative voters.”
“We want anyone who agrees with us 50%-plus-one of the time to get out and vote with us on not only the general election day but on primary election days,” he added.
Mr. Tiffany stressed that any Republican nominee must be “prepared to be competitive from day one after the primary.”
“Tammy Baldwin is going to have an enormous amount of money,” he said.
“She is Hollywood’s U.S. senator,” Mr. Tiffany added.
And Ms. Baldwin’s strengths go beyond access to the Jane Fondas of the world.
“Tammy Baldwin’s staff does a really good job of playing small ball. They’re out at all these town meetings, they show up for stuff,” Mr. Tiffany said.
He argued that candidates need to link their funding for local projects to the big spending packages through which that money was delivered.
“While she takes credit for that little project, in the scheme of things, being built, what has been the cost of it?” Mr. Tiffany said.
“You have to connect the failure of Bidenomics to Tammy Baldwin’s votes,” he continued.
In his August interview, Mr. Tiffany predicted that candidates would “need to make that decision probably by Labor Day.”
Mr. Westrate said, “Like everyone else, I just have to wait and find out which individual or individuals are willing to run.”
