Embracing right-wing Republicans won’t excite undecided voters. Contact a popular Democrat who understands states like Wisconsin.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a rally at Ripon College on October 3, 2024 in Ripon, Wisconsin.
(Jim Verulushka/Getty Images)
So many strategists, pundits and honest observers of the 2024 presidential campaign are baffled by the fact that Kamala Harris hasn’t opened up a convincing lead as Election Day nears. The Democratic nominee defeated Donald Trump in their only debate, and she ran a spirited, often inspiring campaign despite her opponent’s craziness and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Still, Harris maintains only a slim lead over the Republican at best, and at worst struggles to pull ahead of him in several battleground states that will determine the winner Electoral College.
There are many reasons for this, but one of the best explanations is that Harris hangs out with the wrong crowd.
Take the case of Wisconsin, a swing state Harris must win. She worked hard to do this. But her last major appearance – a visit to Ripon, birthplace of the Republican Party – was from Liz Chaney. The former member of the House of Representatives is a prominent far-right Republican who has done much to lay the groundwork for Trump and Trumpism. Chastened by the former president’s embrace of violent authoritarianism, Cheney is supporting Harris this year, as is her father, Dick. But Cheney is still Cheney.
Liz Cheney has championed right-wing politics for decades; a zealous republican who, besides campaigning for Trump in 2016 and 2020supported even more extreme members of the party caucus as he traded vile anti-immigrant, anti-labor and anti-suffrage rhetoric. As the leader of the House Republican caucus during Trump’s presidency, she made her party more violent, extreme and more threatening. Now the threats began to frighten even her; but that doesn’t change the fact that she helped set the GOP on its current trajectory.
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So did Dick Cheney, who was never even popular in Wisconsin. It should always be remembered that the former vice president was on the Republican ticket that lost Wisconsin in 2000 and 2004.
Hoping that the Cheney connection will swing the vote in Wisconsin in 2024 is foolish. Yes, there will be Republicans who switch and vote the Democratic ticket this year, but most of them decided to do so months ago. It’s hard to imagine anyone saying, “I was pro-Trump until I heard Dick Cheney was endorsing Harris.”
If Harris wants to win Wisconsin, she needs to stop talking about and appearing with Cheney and start talking about the support she’s received from Barack Obamawho is currently campaigning as a top surrogate for the Democratic presidential candidate.
The Obama connection has real resonance for Wisconsin. It’s a state that embraced the former Illinois senator with an enthusiasm unlike any Democratic candidate who followed him.
Obama is the last Democrat to win Wisconsin with more than 50 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton lost Wisconsin by 22,748 votes 2016 yearand Joe Biden won by 20,862 inches 2020 year. No candidate from either party won a majority in any of these Wisconsin elections. Compare that to Obama, who in 2008 year won 56 percent of the vote in Wisconsin, well above the 53 percent he won nationally. U 2012 yeartougher year for Democrats, Obama won 53 percent of the vote in Wisconsin, far more than the 51 percent he won nationally.
Obama’s victory in Wisconsin was the largest for Democrats in the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 year and Franklin Roosevelt at 1936 year. And Obama’s victories were truly statewide: he won in dozens of rural districts, as well as in urban centers where Democrats have traditionally been strong. In 2008, he carried seven of the state’s eight constituencies, including several that FDR lost in his later bids. In 2012, Obama won fewer congressional districts, but still won wide swathes of the state, including all of southwestern Wisconsin and much of the northwest.
Hardly any Democrat could have done as well in Wisconsin as Obama did in 2008. But Harris can and should aim to get as many votes in Wisconsin as Obama did in 2012, when the party also won the U.S. Senate and carried a solid statewide majority for congressional and legislative seats. Gerrymandering kept Democrats from picking up their fair share of seats that year. But the newly drawn fair cards could give the party much more traction this year.
With the right company, Harris, which is slightly ahead in recent polls The Wisconsinite could lead the Democrats to an equally significant victory.
But she won’t do that while talking about Dick and Liz Chaney.
It is Obama who has the potential to win over Wisconsin voters through targeted media advertising and, ideally, a high-profile statewide appearance with this year’s candidate.
Obama gets Wisconsin. He has always had a strategic understanding of how to campaign in a state where he won the 2008 Democratic presidential election against Hillary Clinton by a margin of 58 to 40.
Obama, who in his youth worked with a Chicago law firm that had an office in Madison, knows where to campaign in the Badger State. In 2008 and 2012, he conducted routine work with city voters in Milwaukee and Madison. But he also turned his attention to smaller cities such as Green Bay, Racine, Kenosha, Janesville, Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire, where he appeared and talked a lot about reviving manufacturing and increasing support for the country’s rural areas. state He also talked about the cost of bloated military budgets and unnecessary wars. In 2008, Obama positioned himself to the left of Clinton in the primaries, highlighting the fact that he opposed the rush to war in Iraq.
That stance appealed to voters in Wisconsin, which has historically been a hotbed of opposition not only to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s, but also to World War I. It was Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette who advised voters: “Stand firm against war, and the future will honor you. Mass murder cannot establish human rights.” Experts said these sentiments would destroy La Follette politically. Instead, he was re-elected in the largest landslide in the history of Wisconsin Senate contests. So was Senator Gaylord Nelson, who rode the Republican wave and won re-election in 1968 as a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War. And for Sen. Russ Feingold, who voted against the Iraq War in 2002, as he opposed the Patriot Act in 2001, and then won his biggest victory in history in 2004.
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Obama recognized this tradition and adopted it in 2008, breaking with leaders of both parties to condemn “Washington, where politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for a war in Iraq that should not have been authorized or started – a war that is costing us thousands of precious lives and billions of dollars a week that could have been used to rebuild the destroyed schools and bridges; roads and buildings; what could be invested in vocational training and child care; in making health care affordable or putting college within reach.”
It may be harder for Harris to break with the administration she works for. But she would be wise to recognize that a firmer stance on a Gaza ceasefire — and on limiting US military aid to Israel — would garner far more support in Wisconsin than a neoconservative militarist like Liz Cheney.
Indeed, if Harris appears with anyone in Wisconsin, it should be Obama. He knows how to speak to the mood of the state, how to campaign effectively in the communities and how to win big on election day.
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