In campaign postmortems, there's the usual angst-filled punditry out there that says nothing the Dems did, and especially nothing the grassroots did, mattered at all.
Bull-bleep. As the season geared up, I described what we were going to see as a "hot and cold running volunteer" election and I stand by that. Vast numbers of people turned out to do the difficult job of direct voter contact in various forms. That's what happens when people really care and/or feel truly threatened.
And their efforts show up in the results. Where there wasn't much of a Harris-Walz campaign -- in the reliable blue states which saw only national ads and online media -- the shift toward Trump from 2020 was in the 6 percent range. Lots of Dems and Dem leaners didn't vote. But in the battleground states where money was invested and activism thrived, the shift was closer to 3 percent. Still too much obviously, but quite different. Yes, there was a red tide coming in, but some places Democratic (and small "d" democratic) activism came much closer to stemming that tide.
... The shift here was just one quarter the size [of the national deficit]: a 1.5% swing from 2020. Not because Trump was weaker here than elsewhere, but because we were stronger.
Thanks to tens of thousands of heroes—our candidates, the campaign, party infrastructure, allies, and volunteers—we persuaded and turned out even more voters for Harris than we did for Biden in 2020. We lost Wisconsin by just 0.9%—the smallest margin of any state in America.
2024 was a high turnout year, second only to 2020 nationwide. But in most states, turnout went down slightly. In Wisconsin, overall turnout went up—by 1.3%, the most in the country.
He describes the configuration of forces, groups, and miscellaneous people who made up the Wisconsin campaign:
... Roughly 100,000 volunteers this year took part in the fight in Wisconsin.
The presidential campaign in Wisconsin and the WisDems core team worked together, hand in glove, on a constant basis. That integration was the product of years of work, relationships, and strategy. It was also made possible by the powerhouse Coordinated Campaign. ...
Every one of the 100,000 people who volunteered, including tens of thousands who knocked on doors and made phone calls in Wisconsin this year, helped Tammy Baldwin win Wisconsin, helped make huge gains downballot, and helped ensure that Harris came closer to winning here than any other battleground state.
The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class. ... Enormous thanks to all the groups involved in mounting an absolutely blockbuster field and communications operation in Wisconsin.
Elections rely on a three-legged stool: the candidate campaigns, the party and volunteers—and allied groups. ...
Wikler's picture of the three-legged stool may be particular to Wisconsin. He heads one of the most effective Democratic parties in the country. In much of the country, especially bluer states, the three legged stool of progressive campaigning probably looks more like 1) candidates and party infrastructure of varying quality; 2) union workers where such exist; and 3) para-campaign and civil society groups like Seed the Vote, the ACLU, and enviros who've internalized that they have to play in elections to survive.
But whatever organizational form that the wider democracy campaign assumes in the future, it will demand what Wikler enjoins:
... we organize in every corner and every community in Wisconsin, year-round.
Under-recognized is that the experiences and connections made when literally millions of people are activated in a campaign changes many of the people who participate. As legendary California organizer Fred Ross asserted:
No good organizing is ever lost.
The period ahead may seem bleak, but there are a hell of a lot of us, we've seen each other, and we can get organized and feisty.
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