Thread by @benwikler

Here’s what happened in Wisconsin. And a note of gratitude. 🧵

On Election Day, I thought we were winning the presidential race.

We came up short. Losing was a gut punch. Enormous peril lies ahead.

As we prepare for what’s next, we also have to find space for curiosity about what just happened.

We’re beginning to see the outlines: a red wave. A nationwide shift toward Trump of 6%.

But in Wisconsin, we nearly defeated that wave.

The shift here was just one quarter the size: 1.5%. 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.

All of your work had a critical impact. You helped @TammyBaldwin win re-election. You flipped four state Senate and ten state Assembly seats on our new fair maps, setting the stage for majorities in 2026.

The reality of our wins in WI doesn’t lessen the blow of knowing what Trump is poised to inflict on the country. But it fills me with profound gratitude for your work. To everyone involved in this fight, thank you.

Here’s my first-pass analysis of what just happened, and a note of appreciation.

In 2024, voters nationwide—across, from what we can tell, geography, gender, generation, race, & ethnicity—shifted towards Trump. This wasn’t any one group’s “fault.” Don’t fall for that trap.

We’re just at the beginning of figuring out what happened. Be wary of anyone who tells you that X, Y, or Z thing would have changed the outcome.

Two things are very clear from the big picture.

The first key thing is that the post-COVID inflation era has marked a global wave against incumbent parties.

https://x.com/robfordmancs/status/1854214807047860418

In 2024, for the 1st year on record (w/120 yrs of data), every wealthy-country ruling party has lost ground, regardless of whether it was L or R of center. Across Belgium, France, Japan, Austria, Portugal, the US, and the UK, the average swing was 20 pts.
ft.com/content/e8ac09…

Worldwide, political scientists are arguing, this is a reaction to high prices. Inflation leads voters to punish whoever’s in power, even if they didn’t have control over it.

The fact that US voters swung less hard against Dems may be due to the greater success in the US, relative to other countries, in bringing inflation down.

https://x.com/johnmsides/status/1854262928943517860

This tracks with what we’ve heard consistently for the last 2 years—in polls, in exit polls, and on doors. Many voters have been furious about high prices.

The question was whether we could win the presidential race despite that headwind, given everything else (and yes, there was so much else). Like other parties worldwide, we didn’t.

https://x.com/lucas_chancel/status/1854209432210796982?s=46&t=UojN8_oZGqjTkozFvu8tzQ

The second thing that jumps out is that, in the states where Harris and Trump campaigned the hardest, Harris overperformed. And she overperformed in Wisconsin most of all.

Trump and his allies poured hundreds of millions of dollars into vicious attack ads in the seven battleground states. They did all they could to drive up their vote share, knowing that these states would determine the Electoral College.

Harris and her allies—including all of us—poured our hearts and souls into the battle here too.

If Trump’s campaign had been more effective than Harris’, he would have swung the vote in the battleground states by more than the nationwide shift.

Instead, it was the exact opposite. Harris’s campaign had a bigger effect than Trump’s.

As Dave Wasserman of @CookPolitical, one of the nation’s most clear-eyed analysts, puts it:

https://x.com/Redistrict/status/1854613790345904302

You can see the same thing in turnout numbers.

Nationally, based on numbers tallied by the Univ. of FL Election Lab, turnout in 2024 is ~62.3% of eligible voters. That’s higher than any election in the last half-century—except 2020, when it hit 66.4%.
election.lab.ufl.edu/2024-general-e…

But, as with the swing in margins, this is a tale of two elections—because while turnout dropped slightly in non-battleground states, it actually went UP, very slightly, in the seven battlegrounds.

And it rose most of all in WI: turnout here rose 1.3%, the highest in the US.

In other words, that feeling so many of us had—that energy on the ground was explosive, that the campaign was soaring, that we were finding new Harris voters all over the state—that was real.

Harris earned more than 30,000 more raw votes than Biden. She earned more votes than Obama in 2012, and almost as many as Obama in 2008—when he won a 14-point landslide victory.

She added votes in 46 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties—rural, urban, suburban, and small-town alike.

It’s just that there was an even larger group of voters, a quieter group, that turned out and voted for Trump.

The Washington Post analyzed county by county results to look at what happened in different types of geographies nationally and in the swing states. This year, unlike past years, was not a situation where the blue got bluer and the red got redder.
washingtonpost.com/elections/inte…

Everywhere got redder, and once-blue cities and suburbs swung more towards Trump than rural areas:

But in Wisconsin, the shift was far smaller than the national picture—across types of geographies:

“Urban core” counties moved 8% towards Trump nationally—but Milwaukee only moved 1%.

Milwaukee County actually delivered more net votes (Dem votes minus Republican votes) for Harris than it did for Obama in 2008 or 2012.

“Major suburbs” moved 5.7% towards Trump nationally—but in Wisconsin, they moved 0.1% to Harris. Her margin grew, slightly, in each of the WOW counties.

“Medium metros”—counties with mid-sized cities—moved 4.9% towards Trump nationally, but in Wisconsin, just shifted 1% towards Trump. Dane County, the fastest-growing in the state, for the first time delivered the most net votes for Harris of any Wisconsin county.

And “Rural counties and small cities” nationally moved towards Trump by 4%.

In WI, these 57 counties accounted for 36% of the overall vote, and 29% of the vote for Harris.

But the Trumpward shift in rural Wisconsin counties—2%—was only half the national shift. And Harris racked up more raw votes than Biden in 35 of those counties, even though Trump added more.

This is why we organize in every corner and every community in Wisconsin, year-round.

Does this mean that there was no way we could have done better? Of course not.

There will be an enormous amount to learn, and the debates have, rightfully, already begun.

If about 125,000 Trump voters had instead chosen Harris across WI, MI, and PA, then Harris would have won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Same outcome if 250,000 more people had voted for Harris instead of voting third party or not voting at all.

We can, should, and must do all we can to think through, what, in small ways and big, we could have done better. And there is much to learn, perhaps painful lessons, about what led to this outcome.

But we can be rightly proud of what we achieved in Wisconsin.

It all mattered.

It mattered because @TammyBaldwin won her Senate race. This was another classic WI photo finish: a 0.9%, 28,958-vote margin, overcoming a horrendous $100M flood of attack ads. Baldwin ran a dynamite campaign.

All of our work to lift Democrats up and down the ballot played a critical role in Senator Baldwin’s race. You helped make that happen.

It mattered because, in the state legislature, Democrats flipped all four of our targeted State Senate seats, shattering the GOP’s supermajority and putting Democrats on track for a majority in 2026. Two seats to go.

Meanwhile, Dems picked up 10 Assembly districts—ending the massive Republican margin created by gerrymandered maps. If we flip five more seats, we’ll win an Assembly majority in 2026 as well.

And it mattered because of the way we won—by staying true to our values, by organizing, by building community and working together and taking nobody for granted and counting nobody out.

So: some thanks are in order.

First, to our candidates.

Thanks first and foremost to @KamalaHarris and @Tim_Walz—for running with heart and soul in extraordinarily challenging circumstances. To @JoeBiden. And to @TammyBaldwin, Wisconsin’s triumphant Senate champion.

Thanks to @GovEvers, who fought for and won fair maps, has consistently championed the @WisDems, raised resources for state legislative candidates, and campaigned all over the state in support of other Democrats. We owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.

Huge thanks for their enormous efforts, and congratulations on their reelection, to @MarkPocan and @Gwen4Congress. And thanks to @RebeccaforWI, @PeterWBarca, @KristinLyerly, @KilbournForWis, @JohnZarbano, & @wisconsinforben for pouring themselves into dynamite House campaigns.

The statewide elected officials who weren’t on the ballot this year nonetheless worked their hearts out to lift up other candidates. Huge thanks to @LGSaraRodriguez, Attorney General @JoshKaulWi, and Secretary of State @SarahforWI.

In the legislature, we’re spectacularly blessed to have the leadership of Senate Democratic Leader @SenHesselbein and Assembly leader @gretaneubauer, and their phenomenal leadership.

And to all of the Assembly incumbents and candidates who ran this year, win or lose, thank you—you helped drive out votes that ensured @TammyBaldwin could win her Senate race.

All you assembly candidates sharply narrowed the GOP’s majorities—either by flipping a seat or by ensuring that Republicans had to focus on their own districts—and you laid the groundwork for huge gains next cycle. This took a lot. We see it. We’re grateful.

To all the county and municipal leaders who helped out this year, going the extra mile to advance democracy, thank you. This includes Milwaukee County Executive @DavidCCrowley outgoing Dane County Executive Jamie Kuhn (and congratulations, Executive-Elect @melissakagard!)

Thanks to Outagamie County Executive @NelsonforWI, and mayors including Milwaukee’s @CavalierJohnson, Madison’s @SatyaforMadison, and Green Bay’s @MayorGenrich.

Also thanks to Racine’s @MayorCoryMason, Sheboygan’s @RyanSorensonWI, Superior’s Jim Paine, Waukesha’s Shawn Reilly, and La Crosse’s @mitchreynolds—and so many more.

It would be impossible to list all the elected officials from other states who came to WI and worked to help us win here up & down the ballot—so I’ll just mention the Governors! @JBPritzker, @GretchenWhitmer, @JoshShapiroPA, @IAmWesmoore, and of course @Tim_Walz—thank you!

To all the Senators, members of Congress (including Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Leader Jeffries), and others who lent your time and talents to Wisconsin’s cause, we’re in your debt.

To all of those who worked intensively to pass school funding, municipal funding, and other referenda—often making up for shortfalls caused by Republican legislators in Madison—thank you. And congratulations to the many who succeeded in securing critical resources.

Second, thank you to the campaign and party staff that worked themselves to the bone on this election. None of this would have been possible without you.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Executive Director this year has been Cassi Fenili, one of the most effective political professionals on Planet Earth. I’m so grateful for her relentless focus, drive, realism, strategic judgment, managerial skills, and partnership.

We’ve also been so lucky to have the help of Deputy Executive Director Sarah Abel, who resolved impossible challenges on a daily basis and helped so many colleagues step up their game.

And we’ve been lucky to have Senior Advisor Devin Remiker, an operative’s operative who level-headedly spotted and seized untold opportunities and defused untold problems.

.@WisDems benefited from a superb executive leadership team: Sr. Advisor & legislative program lead Hannah Mullen, Finance Dir. Tina Ignasiak, Operations Dir. Sal Cornacchione, Comms Dir. Joe Oslund, POP Dir. Leah Zine, Digital Dir. Chuck Engel, & Political Dir. Chandler Denhart.

Each of these @WisDems leaders oversaw teams of outstanding colleagues who moved mountains. To all WisDems team members at every level: thank you.

And special thanks to Chief of Staff Andrea Berkeland, who spun an impossible number of plates while making my work possible. As I tell people, she’s the chief, I’m the staff.

The Harris-Walz campaign in WI was managed by the extraordinary Garren Randolph, a stellar leader and strategist who navigated a world-class team at the center of the political universe. We’re so lucky to have had him on the case.

Garren’s leadership team in WI was phenomenal, including senior Advisor Tanya Bjork, senior Advisor Devin Remiker (doing double duty with the party), and Deputy Campaign Manager Iris Riis.

They worked with a crew of rock-star leaders: Sr. Advisor Shirley Ellis, Coalitions Dir. Darrol Gibson, COO Bethany Sorensen, Comms Dir. Brianna Johnson, Trips Advisor Jorna Taylor, Digital Dir. Sean McFeely, and Political Dir. Nick Truog. To them and their teams—thank you!

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.

The legend of Coordinated Campaign Director Anna Surrey has been growing ever since her first cycle as a Regional Organizing Director in Brookfield in 2016. Year over year, she’s risen in responsibility—and at every step, knocked it out of the park.

Anna’s coordinated leadership team is also amazing: Organizing Dir. Gabbie Stasson, Voter Protection Dir. Caroline Hutton, Dir. Ari Ghasemian, and GOTV Dir. Marquise Roberson-Bester, & Training & Leadership Directors Breanna Flowers & John Mayo, blew their goals out of the water.

This group led a team of hundreds of people with dozens of job titles in every part of Wisconsin who exceeded what anyone thought would be possible this year. They set a new standard for coordinated campaigns in the Badger State. I can’t thank you enough.

The staffers on each of the campaigns did amazing work.

Tammy Baldwin’s campaign, led by Scott Spector, won a staggeringly tough race by being the best at what they do.

The legislative caucuses—led by Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee’s Executive Director Morgan Hess & the State Senate Democratic Committee’s Andrew Whitley—fielded bigger teams, bigger budgets, and better campaigns than our state has ever seen, and delivered amazing results.

And every person who worked on the Senate campaign, the eight House races, the 112 state legislative races, and the other referendum and local elections this fall deserves our gratitude. You contributed to change that will echo through this state for years to come.

Thanks also to our national counterparts at the DNC, starting with Chair @harrisonjaime, who has been unstoppable in his support for work in Wisconsin.

Thanks to Executive Director (and Sconnie!) @SamCornale, Deputy Executive Director @RogerLau, our great regional desk Mikayla Lee, and the whole team.

Thanks also to @DemStateParties Chair Ken Martin, ASDC ED Maureen Garde, and ASDC regional Karyn Bradford Coleman. And thanks to my predecessor chairs, especially Martha Laning (now leading SPAN) and Mike Tate (involved in many ways)—for all you’ve done and continue to do.

I’ve been lucky to work closely with fellow state chairs around the US, most of all MI’s @LavoraBarnes, NC’s @abreezeclayton, AZ’s Yoli Bejarano, OH’s @LizMWalters, NE’s @JaneKleeb, IL’s Lisa Hernandez, and GA’s @NikemaWilliams—among others. Thanks for your dedication & support.

There are candidates, there are staffers—and then there are the volunteers who make everything possible for the party and for campaigns.

Roughly 100,000 volunteers this year took part in the fight in Wisconsin.

Let’s thank them all—a few of them by name.

As chair, I’m the only elected leader of @WisDems for whom party work is a full-time job. The other leaders volunteer their time out of sheer patriotism and commitment to change.

At @WisDems, thanks first to Vice Chair Felesia Martin, Second Vice Chair Tricia Zunker, Secretary Kim Butler, and Treasurer Randy Udell—who was just elected to the State Assembly. Congratulations, Randy! And thanks to all.

Thanks also to our DNC members: Andrew Werthmann, Alex Lasry, Tomika Vukovic, Arvina Margin, Mahlon Mitchell, and DNC Secretary Jason Rae, who oversaw the best roll call in American history during the national Convention.

And thanks so much to departing DNC members Martha Love, Janet Bewley, and Henry Pahlow—and to all of the dedicated Democrats who made up our delegation and served on standing committees at the Democratic National Convention.

Huge thanks to all the standing committees, caucuses, Congressional District parties, youth wings, county chairs and leadership teams, and other bodies that make the Democratic Party of Wisconsin work.

Special thanks to Green County Chair Sandy Rindy, chair of the County Chair Association and all of the CCA officers.

Thanks also to the neighborhood team leaders and members, the leaders of the signage distribution network run by the Rural Caucus (no yard left unsigned!), and the many out of state volunteers who traveled to knock doors in Wisconsin.

Every one of the 100K folks who volunteered, including 10s of 1000s who knocked on doors & made phone calls in WI this year, helped @TammyBaldwin win WI, helped make huge gains downballot, & helped ensure that Harris came closer to winning here than any other battleground state.

Elections rely on a three-legged stool: the candidate campaigns, the party and volunteers—and allied groups. So many organizations played a huge role in Wisconsin’s outcomes this year.

The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class. They also built our democracy, they’re the essential and eternal partner of the Democratic Party.

Huge thanks to the @AFLCIO, @WEAC, @NEAToday, @SEIUWIS, @IBEW, @CWG_Workers, @AFSCME, @AFTWisconsin, @LiUNA, Wisconsin @Teamsters, @iuoe_union, @UFCW, @UAPipeTrades, @PlumbersLocal75, @IUPAT, @TransportWorker, @IAFFofficial, and @UAW.

And thanks to all the unions who fight for working people and for a government that serves them.

Thanks also to the stunning array of labor leaders who visited Wisconsin this year to campaign for Democrats.

Enormous thanks to all the groups involved in mounting an absolutely blockbuster field and communications operation in Wisconsin.

Particular thanks to @LCVoters and @WIConservation, @PowertothePollsWI, @FamFriendlyEcon, @ForOurFutureWI, @WorkingAmerica, @Lit_WI, @WIWorkingFam, @VDLF_Action, @SomosVotantes, and @WisdomWisconsin.

Thanks also to the @C4racial_gender, @PPact, @PPAWI, Standing Up for Racial Justice, the Wisconsin Education Association, @CitizenActionWI, @ProgressNorthWI, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, 350 WI Action, Indivisible, and Southeast Asian Action.

So many groups did critical work—organizing, coordinating, communicating, analyzing, and activating networks. Thanks to @AmericaVotes, @ABWTInstitute, @ABWT_PF, the Empower Project, @centervoterinfo, @VoterCenter, @NAACP, @CommChangeAct, and @cpthealthcare.

Enormous gratitude to @StatesProjectUS, @DLCC, @ForwardMajority, @EMILYsList, the Wisconsin Initiative, @mainstreetweets, SEIU Blue, the Freedom Action Network, @CollectivePAC, Communities Organizing Latine Power and Action (COPAL), and Blue Sky Waukesha.

Also enormous thanks to @WIMuslims, @VotingWhileBk, @BlackVotersMatr, @USJewishDems, @StandUpAmerica, @HRC, @ACLU, MAP USA, and @SchoolsMakeMSN.

Also enormous thanks to @WIMuslims, @VotingWhileBlk, @BlackVotersMatr, @USJewishDems, @StandUpAmerica, @HRC, @ACLU, MAP USA, and @SchoolsMakeMSN.

Thanks to Future Forward, @MajorityPAC, @DSCC, Women Vote, Project 72, @HouseMajPAC, Galvanize, @PrioritiesUSA, @American_Bridge, Party to the Polls, Fight for Our Rights PAC, the Wisco Project and SVF Student Turnout Project.

Thanks also to the Democracy Alliance, the Committee on States, @Solidairetweets, @WayToWinAF, and the Movement Voter Project. Thanks to the Wisconsin Donor Table for pulling it all together, and the Strategic Victory Fund for your years-long dedication to Wisconsin.

And thanks to the many people, especially John Stocks and Teresa Vilmain, who’ve taken time to mentor me and many other people who’ve been working on this election.

Thanks to the team at @CrookedMedia & @VoteSaveAmerica; to @BradleyWhitford & the teams from VEEP & The West Wing, & to so many other cultural leaders who helped us energize voters to get involved.

So many other groups contributed their efforts. All of it is deeply appreciated.

This work takes resources. In the time between Wisconsin’s 2023 state Supreme Court race and now, more than 100,000 people have contributed to @WisDems. Thank you to all of them.

I will also say, on a personal note: my deepest joy, pride, and gratitude is for my family. My kids, Mac, Suzy, and Jack, have grown up so much this year. I’ve missed them so much during long nights on the road, and I relish every moment we spend together.

My wife Beth Wikler is my hero, my best friend, and the love of my life. I’m grateful to my mom, stepdad, dad, and stepmom for their constant support this year and always.

So many friends dropped off food, texted to check in, and otherwise took care of my family and me when our heads were spinning. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Pumpkin, our giant dog, even if she’s a rascal and even though she can’t read this.

Everyone who worked on this election has done so at personal cost. To all the family members of all the folks mentioned above: thank you.

There is so much to do in the months to come. We have to do all we can to stand in solidarity with communities now endangered by Trump’s presidency.

We have to learn from what took place, and plan how to prevail next time. And in Wisconsin, we have a state Supreme Court race—and a slew of other elections—coming up next April.

But before all that happens—and especially as we process the shock of a rough election—it’s important to thank the people we love, the people we’ve worked with, and all the people who did everything they could to advance the cause of progress and democracy this year.

We didn’t win all that we wanted to win. But the values that lead us to do this work will endure. We will keep striving to learn and improve. And together, in times to come, we will bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice.