This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Democratic Party’s rallying around Kamala Harris — the speed of it, the intensity, the joyfulness, the memes — has been head-spinning. Just a few weeks ago, she was widely seen in the party as a weak candidate and a risk to put on the top of the ticket. And while a lot of those concerns have dissipated, there’s one that still haunts a lot of Democrats: Can Harris win in Wisconsin? Democrats are still traumatized by Hillary Clinton’s loss in Wisconsin in 2016. It is a must-win state for both parties this year. And while Democrats have been on a fair winning streak in the state, they lost a Senate race there in 2022 — a race with some striking parallels to this election — which has made some Democrats uneasy. But Ben Wikler is unfazed. He’s chaired the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019 and knows what it takes for Democrats to win — and lose — in his state. In this conversation, he tells me what he learned from that loss two years ago, why he thinks Harris’s political profile will appeal to Wisconsin’s swing voters and how Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate has changed the dynamics of the race in his state. Mentioned: “The Democratic Party Is Having an ‘Identity Crisis’” by Ezra Klein Weekend Reading by Michael Podhorzer Book Recommendations: The Reasoning Voter by Samuel L. Popkin Finding Freedom by Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald The Princess Bride by William Goldman Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. What a month this week has been. I don't think I've ever lived through a period in
0:28.8	American politics that felt like as much changed as fast. On Sunday we got the news that Joe Biden was dropping out.
0:37.6	I was on a plane that night. I like feverishly wrote the audio essay that I then recorded Monday that came out
0:44.7	Tuesday and by Tuesday I felt like we were in a fully different world than when I
0:49.0	was writing. You know over the last kind of year that I've been working on some of these issues
0:55.0	the most common and dominant worry the Democrats had if something happened to
1:02.4	Joe Biden or if Joe Biden decided or was convinced to step aside,
1:06.5	is that they had so little confidence in Kamala Harris.
1:10.4	I mean, Sunday, I was still hearing from Democrats worried about Harris.
1:14.0	There was reporting of Nancy Pelosi wanting an open primary or an open convention.
1:18.0	And now, I mean, watching the party, not just converge around her but feel a real thrill around her
1:27.8	like really really become passionate Harris stands like watching the whole party fall out of the coconut tree
1:34.0	and live unburdened by what has been
1:37.0	and only in the imagining of what could be.
1:40.0	It's fun to watch Democrats have fun.
1:42.0	They have not had fun in a long time.
1:45.2	And it's also a good reminder that people don't know how something is going to feel
1:48.8	until it actually happens. At the same time, when things shift this much, it is reasonable to ask, is anything
1:57.3	being missed? Are things that people were legitimately worried about being suppressed.
2:03.2	Kamla Harris is a liberal black Democrat from San Francisco, California.
2:10.9	For many in the party, that is not the profile they would imagine or prefer for
2:16.1	Wisconsin for Michigan for Pennsylvania for Arizona for Georgia for for all these
	...

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