By Tiffany Li
For WisPolitics
CHICAGO — Wisconsin Dems at the DNC spent four days basking in the excitement of seeing new momentum with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at the top of the ticket.
Now they’re aiming to convert that excitement into energy that will fuel victories up and down the ballot.
“This campaign has already been shot out of a rocket. Now it’s entering warp speed,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said. “I didn’t know they had afterburners on this rocket, but you can see the energy that’s gonna propel this campaign all the way through to the finish line.”
However, he emphasized that the winning margin in the presidential race could be very narrow. He declared Wisconsin Democrats would need to work hard and campaign “in every square inch of our state,” including in rural areas.
Four of the past six presidential campaigns in Wisconsin have been decided by less than 23,000 votes each.
Wikler said Wisconsin Democrats would use a “surround sound” strategy, where voters would hear about candidates from multiple messengers.
“Voters are going to hear from a state legislative candidate who knocks on their door, from a volunteer who knocks on the door, from a text message they get from a friend,’’ Wikler said. “They’re going to see… a unified message about freedom and opportunity and joy and hope.’’
State GOP Chair Brian Schimming argued voters aren’t going to forget Dems’ record on inflation and the border just because they’re emerging from the national convention with some positive feelings.
“While rosy vibes and empty platitudes may excite a liberal audience in Chicago, working families in Wisconsin deserve actual substance and policy from their candidates,” Schimming said. “The sugar-high honeymoon for Democrats coming out of their convention will inevitably run headfirst into the unforgiving reality of their abysmal record.
Sarah Godlewski, Wisconsin secretary of state, said Harris and Walz understand how to win over Wisconsinites despite the high likelihood of a close race.
“We only know close elections in Wisconsin. It doesn’t matter how popular you are or how unpopular you are, it’s going to be close. So the one thing that we know is that you can’t take your foot off the gas in our state. So how do you do that? You got to meet folks where they are,” Godlewski said. “I think that’s a real big differentiator to me, is how Tim Walz and Kamala Harris are meeting Wisconsinites where they are. They’re listening. They’re showing up and showing that they care.”
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said the high turnout in the August primaries was a reflection of the excitement around the new Dem ticket, but warned Dems not to be complacent.
“We have a little bit of momentum going on. Now, we don’t want to take it for granted. We got to do the work,” Rhodes-Conway said.
She added that she wanted to see high turnout not only in the highly liberal city of Madison, but throughout Wisconsin.
“Everybody should vote,” Rhodes-Conway said. “I think we have a motivated community. I think we’re going to see really high turnout, and I think that’s the way it should be, everywhere.”
Sheboygan Mayor Ryan Sorenson, who was a delegate to the convention, said he didn’t think Democrats were overconfident coming out of the convention.
“I think it’s excitement. I think there’s momentum,” Sorenson said, adding that the new ticket with Harris and Walz was bringing new energy to the state.
Delegate Gary Hawley, chair of the Portage County Dems, said he felt “really good” about the party’s chances in November.
“We’ve got three times as many people coming in, asking for yard signs and asking to volunteer and make phone calls,” Hawley said.
Optimistic about Dems’ prospects for turning energy into action, Secretary of the DNC Jason Rae, a Rice Lake native, said the fact that both the DNC and Harris’ Milwaukee rally on Tuesday night could “max out” their attendance showed how “people are ready to elect someone who isn’t Donald Trump.”
“I’m really excited for the energy and the enthusiasm that we’re seeing. I think that we’re going to take what we’re seeing here in the United Center in Chicago and translate that for the next 70 plus days onto the campaign trail, to knock on doors, to take that energy and to really win up and down the ballot,” Rae said.
Deon Canon, a first-time delegate from Milwaukee who works in U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore’s office, said he thought the Black vote plateauing the past few election cycles was due to voters’ disappointment in not seeing immediate results.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris have done a lot of work … but some of it is very much more of a long-term thing,” Canon said. “So people are like, ‘Oh, I voted, but I don’t see anything immediately happen.’ And unfortunately, that’s not how the federal government works … You won’t see the full outcomes and the full things until much later on.”
At the same time, Canon said he was “super excited” about what could happen in the Black community in terms of voting. He pointed to the crowd at Tuesday’s Milwaukee rally as an example of the energy Harris elicited from Black voters.
“I was like, the crowd is packed. The excitement is there,” he said. “That shows the enthusiasm that people have for this new ticket.”
Linda Wilkens, a delegate from Green Lake County, said she thought Wisconsin Dems’ memory of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016 would remind them not to “let our guard down.”
Nineteen-year-old first-time delegate Ana Wilson from Wauwatosa said she thought young Wisconsin voters would show up at the polls for Harris and Walz.
“I think everyone’s excited, and especially young voters too,” Wilson said. “We have to continue to tell young voters to vote and to register. And I think that the youth vote will be up there a lot for this next election.”
Korbey White, a delegate from Dane County, said the convention had built up delegates’ energy to work toward a Democratic victory.
“All I hear from other delegates is they can’t wait to go back to their states, their cities, and mobilize, knock on the doors, get their friends politically active,” White said. “Like the first lady (Jill Biden) said, ‘Do something.’ That’s the call to action. Let’s do something.”
See WisPolitics coverage of the DNC and the RNC at the WisPolitics Convention Corridor.
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