(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The WisDems To-do List: [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-13 Photo: Ruthie Hauge via The Capital Times As goes Wisconsin, so goes the nation—and there are no off years here. This article (and this post) lays out what’s coming up, starting with our blockbuster state Supreme Court race—and then other huge under-the-radar fights. Priority #1: The Wisconsin state Supreme Court election. This race is for all the marbles. It’s the most important election in the country in 2023. And it’s just 53 days away. How do we win? Organize and communicate. The biggest lesson from 2022 is that whoever defines the race first wins. Last fall, Governor Tony Evers defined GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels—and Evers’ own campaign—before Michels got going. Tony Evers won, tripling his 2018 margin. Meanwhile, Wisconsinites painfully and vividly remember the post-primary period when Ron Johnson and his mega-billionaire allies flooded the airwaves and defined the Senate race against Mandela Barnes. Mandela’s message was stronger, but funds came late. It will be no different in this Supreme Court race. Our job—your job, mine, all of us—is to make sure that, from the February 21 primary until the general election on April 4, the race is about freedom, from reproductive freedom to the freedom of democratic self-government. Voters who want freedom over their own bodies and who want to live in a democracy—and who don’t want a right-wing Supreme Court that entertains the idea of overturning elections—need to define the terrain on which this election is fought. There’s no time to waste. That’s why we’re organizing statewide, and raising funds to be ready for the moment the general election begins. You can sign up to volunteer here. For more on why the Wisconsin Supreme Court race is so astonishingly high-stakes, read this post. #2: Ozaukee County state Senate race, SD 8. This is our chance to flip a state Senate District where the GOP incumbent retired—and stop Republicans from getting a supermajority in the Wisconsin state Senate. The backstory here illustrates why the state Supreme Court race is so critical. Before 2022, the GOP was one vote shy of a supermajority in the state Senate. But in the redistricting process, the Supreme Court rigged the maps so the GOP could win a ⅔ supermajority despite losing statewide. As expected, Republicans picked up the seat they’d rigged—Senate District 25, which had been bright purple, became deep red. So the GOP was on track to seat 22 senators out of 33. But then came a twist: a different GOP Senator resigned effective last December 1. Sen. Alberta Darling’s resignation meant that when the new legislators took office in January, the GOP only had 21/33 seats. This April 4, a special election will determine whether the GOP number ticks up to 22—or if it becomes 21-12. Senate District 8, a northern suburb of Milwaukee, leans Republican. But this will be a competitive race, because the GOP candidates (there are several in a primary) are so extreme. Just one Democrat is running: Jodi Habush Sinykin, who is tremendous. She’s a business owner, an attorney, and a mom who raised her kids to adulthood right there in the district. She’d represent it well, carrying forward her predecessor’s bipartisan reasonableness. The Republicans in the race, by contrast, would jerk the steering wheel hard to the right. That’s a bad match for the voters. If Republicans get a ⅔ supermajority in the state Senate, they’ll have the votes to override Gov. Evers’ vetoes. At that point, our only defense is the state Assembly—where the GOP is only two votes short of a supermajority. That’s too narrow a margin. A couple of family emergencies and we’d be in trouble. In the 8th Senate District, the message of a commonsense Democrat who believes in reproductive freedom is a powerful antidote to the ultra-ultra-MAGAism of the GOP candidates. It’s all hands on deck to support Jodi Habush Synikin. #3: Local elections—especially Green Bay Mayor. A fringe element of the GOP, led by Steve Bannon, is still working to twist, wrench, and mess up our democracy by seizing local offices—particularly those that play a role in election administration. They want to stomp on the turnout of voters they don’t like. Let’s specifically look at the Green Bay mayor’s race. On ultra-MAGA-vs-everyone-else questions, the city council is evenly split 6/6. That means the mayor has the tie-breaking vote on the most controversial election decisions. Republicans have their sights set on Democratic Mayor Eric Genrich, who believes in democracy. He’s taken a lot of arrows for refusing to knuckle down for people like Michael Gableman, the conspiracy theorist who ran a sham $1 million-plus taxpayer-funded investigation into the 2020 election. We’ll be working hard to support Mayor Genrich and ensure that Wisconsin’s third-largest city doesn’t fall into the hands of the far right. You can help too: chip in here! And to support our work in many, many local elections across Wisconsin, sign up to volunteer. We’ll be getting out the vote in every corner of Wisconsin. #4: Getting ready for 2024—from the Presidential to Tammy Baldwin to so much more! Right after this year’s spring elections, it’s off to the races to gear up for 2024. This is the “R” in our BADGER plan for this election cycle. We’ll be looking at the 2024 presidential race, Senator Tammy Baldwin’s reelection campaign, and the chance to flip two competitive congressional seats: CD1 (southeast Wisconsin, including Racine and Kenosha) and CD3 (western Wisconsin, including La Crosse and Eau Claire). If we’re running on the same legislative maps, we’ll be working to fend off GOP supermajorities yet again, and to gain ground. If our current legislative maps are struck down by the courts, we might be able to dream much bigger than that. We’ll need to recruit and support local candidates and build the party everywhere—in rural areas, suburbs, and cities alike—and across lines of race, ethnicity, generation, and gender. Organizing everywhere, all the time. That’s how WisDems do it. That’s our party’s four-part to-do list. That’s what we’re working on. If you’d like to be part of it and you’re in Wisconsin, join the party. And no matter where you are, you can help by becoming a sustaining monthly donor. This isn’t easy, and it’s not cheap—but the impact, in Wisconsin and nationwide, is massive. Sign up to chip in here. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/13/2152759/-The-WisDems-To-do-List Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/