Thread by @benwikler

DEADLINE: Our quarter ends at midnight Thursday. Wisconsin now faces Trump-obsessed Rebecca Kleefisch (formerly Scott Walker’s lt.) running for gov. If she wins, Trump’s path to steal 2024 is clear. Help us hit our goal of 106 new monthly donors & read on: secure.actblue.com/donate/trump20…

Wisconsin is the closest state in the country. 4 of the last 6 presidential elections have come down to less than 1%. And it isn’t just close—it’s decisive. Wisconsin was the “tipping point” state in both 2016 & 2020. Win Wisconsin, you win the presidency.
nationalreview.com/2020/12/wiscon…

That’s why Wisconsin’s governorship is one of the most critical jobs in American politics. Re-elect a champion of democracy like @Tony4WI and we have a fighting chance to win in 2024. But if Kleefisch gets in, she’s promised to sign drastic restrictions on voting.

Let’s go back in time. How did Trump win in ’16? It was incredibly close—a margin of just 22,748 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. One key factor: prior to ’16, GOP Gov Scott Walker signed voter suppression laws that particularly hurt Democratic voters. madison.com/ct/news/local/…

As Scott Walker’s Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Kleefisch cheered on all of Walker’s extremist policies. She personally promoted the massive attempted giveaway to Foxconn. Here she is standing with Trump in 2017.
facebook.com/Rebeccaforreal…

In 2018, Wisconsin Dems and allies overcame the voter suppression and defeated the Walker-Kleefisch machine—in an election where turnout shot way up on both sides. Voters sent @Tony4WI to the Governor’s residence by a 1.1% margin.

If Republicans had controlled WI’s governorship in 2020, it’s a near-certainty they would’ve restricted the right to vote—as did GOP-controlled states like Ohio, which radically cut down on drop boxes for mail ballots. Instead, @Tony4WI was here to defend the right to vote.

In the end, Biden won WI by just 20,621 votes—a 0.6% margin. If Walker/Kleefisch had been in office, they would've had all kinds of ways to suppress that many ballots. In other words, without Gov. Evers, Trump could very well have won. With Evers, democracy—and Biden—prevailed.

Now the GOP wants its revenge. The GOP-controlled state legislature keeps passing voter suppression bills, and Gov. Evers keeps vetoing them. But Rebecca Kleefisch has promised, since her very first campaign stop, to sign those bills if she’s elected.

Walker won in 2014, Walker suppressed votes, Trump won in 2016. Evers won in 2018, Evers defended democracy, Biden won in 2020. Now we need to make sure Evers wins in 2022 so we can run a free and fair election in 2024—instead of a voter-suppressed return to the Trump nightmare.

The GOP has been steadily passing voter suppression laws state by state so they can suppress and steal their way to victory in 2024. They did it in GA. AZ. TX. FL. But they can’t win unless they add Wisconsin. If we reelect Gov. Evers, their plot fails.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1416140507311480835

So those are the stakes in this race. The presidency. Democracy itself.

But how does Kleefisch think she can win?

The answer is right before our eyes: Kleefisch is patterning her campaign on Trump’s.

Trump used dog-whistle lies about the aftermath of Jacob Blake’s shooting in Kenosha as a centerpiece of his 2020 campaign here. Rebecca Kleefisch did the exact same thing, from the opening moments of her launch video.
politifact.com/factchecks/202…

In fact, Kleefisch embraced a toxic stew of Trumpist extremism in just about every way—the viciousness, the radical-right positions on issues, the dishonesty, and the deliberate attempts to incite and exploit racial division.
madison.com/ct/opinion/col…

The policy platform Kleefisch laid out envisions a radical right turn in our state. That’s why we’re calling her #RadicalRebecca. (Learn more at radicalrebecca.com.)

But look: just because her policies are way out of line with Wisconsin doesn’t mean we can take her defeat for granted.
madison.com/ct/opinion/col…

It’s not just that Kleefisch is imitating Trump. The next step in her plan is to get Trump personally involved. She’s literally saying it in interviews: “I hope that Donald Trump gets involved in this race.”
washingtonexaminer.com/washington-sec…

Trump is watching Wisconsin intently. Ron Johnson already has Trump’s endorsement, and he hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet. And remember last month: Republican Speaker Robin Vos publicized his private-plane visit with Trump & fealty to the Big Lie. wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/vos-kiss…

What Kleefisch, Johnson, and Vos all know is that Trump set a record for Republican votes in Wisconsin. He racked up 1,610,184. The Republican calculus is—if they get those voters to vote for *them*, they’re set. It’s not dumb.

That’s why we need to make absolutely sure that the *even larger* number of WI Biden voters understand that Trumpism is very much on the line in Wisconsin in 2022. Biden earned 1,630,866. If they vote for Gov. Evers, Kleefisch loses.

With Rebecca Kleefisch, Trumpism is poised to be on the ballot in Wisconsin in 2022. So we’ve got to organize accordingly and make sure our voters know about it. Can you become a monthly donor to help us scale up? wisdems.org/stop-trump

By communicating clearly and intensively right from the beginning, we have the chance to reintroduce #RadicalRebecca Kleefisch to Wisconsin on our terms—the accurate ones!—and educate the public about what a horrific choice she would be for governor.

We’re doing statewide door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, and relational organizing. Our organizing team is second to none. But to prevent the typical mid-term drop-off in turnout, we need to ramp up even further.

This is where monthly donors come in. We’ll put monthly dollars to work. Monthly donations don’t fund one-time ads—they fund staff positions. With your help, we can hire more organizers and build out our communications and digital operations.

Because of early investment on our part, we had radicalrebecca.com ready to go the day she announced her candidacy. We’ve been talking to voters all over the state about this race. We can see the impact of early work vividly. Help us do more of it to defeat her next year.

If you’re #AllinForTony to reelect our terrific Democratic governor, if you’re ready to fight for our democracy, if you’re ready to reject Trump & his allies in Wisconsin once and for all, become a @WisDems monthly donor today. Any recurring amount counts! wisdems.org/stop-trump

And if you can’t become a monthly donor today, help spread the word by sharing this thread! It makes a big difference to carry our message and strategy to crush extreme-right Trumpism here in Wisconsin. Hitting our end-of-quarter deadline depends on everyone pitching in.

We’re up against Republican backlash to steal 2024. And our work to stop that starts now. Help defeat #RadicalRebecca and her radical agenda from dividing and destroying Wisconsin. Start a monthly donation before 9/30 midnight: wisdems.org/stop-trump

If you sign up to become a new monthly donor today, can you please let me know below? 👇 I would love to personally thank you for your support. (Some of you have already started doing this, thank you!)

🚨 ~30 mins until midnight in Wisconsin 🚨

Start a monthly donation; help stop Trump from stealing the 2024 Presidential election.

Help us hit our goal—we're very close!

wisdems.org/stop-trump