Why what’s happening today in Wisconsin is as important to the future of American democracy as what’s happening in Manhattan

Please pay attention

Friends,

One of the biggest challenges to the future of American democracy unfolded today in Wisconsin.

In the critical race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, liberal Protasiewicz demolished Kelly in a landslide victory (with 89% of votes counted, she has a 10-point lead over him), overcoming millions in crime-focused attack ads from Kelly and the Uihleins. (Kelly tonight refused to concede the race, saying that he "does not have a worthy opponent to concede to" and whining that Protasiewicz's campaign "politicized the court.”)

In the special Wisconsin state senate election, Republican Dan Knodl is on track to narrowly eke out a win, but by the slimmest of margins -- Democrat Jodi Sinykin is trailing by just under 1 point as of this writing.

(Meanwhile, the Chicago mayoral race marked a huge victory for progressives, with Brandon Johnson pulling off a David vs. Goliath win over Paul Vallas, overcoming relentless attacks on Johnson’s criminal justice reform views. It’s a huge setback for "tough on crime" conservative Democrats who are pushing the party to embrace Eric Adams-style politics.)

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Wisconsin is a key swing state in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Its Supreme Court and legislature could be critical to the outcome.

Wisconsin is the most gerrymandered state in the nation. Although voters in the state divide almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans hold 63 out of 99 seats in the state Assembly and 21 of 33 seats in the state Senate.

Four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to leave partisan gerrymandering cases to state courts. This means that Protasiewicz’s victory today alters the majority of the seven-person Wisconsin Supreme Court, enabling the court to strike down the state’s wildly gerrymandered voting maps — a major advance for democracy.

But even this might not be enough to restore democracy to Wisconsin. Today’s special election to fill an open Wisconsin Senate seat will decide whether Republicans gain a supermajority that could allow them to impeach the new state justice. The Republican candidate for that seat, Dan Knodl — who as I write this has a razor-thin lead — has suggested he might try to do so if he doesn’t like who’s elected to the court.

Not incidentally, Knodl was one of 15 Wisconsin Republican lawmakers who in January 2021 sent a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence asking him to delay certifying presidential results that showed Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

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The underlying issue in Wisconsin is the same threat to American democracy it’s been since Trump lied and smeared his way into national consciousness eight years ago: whether an authoritarian demagogue can take over a national political party and that party can then control enough state legislatures to elect that authoritarian — even though a large majority of voters reject him.

Trump lost his 2020 presidential bid by 7 million votes. But he could have won the Electoral College, and therefore been elected president, had he won just 42,918 more votes spread across just three swing states: Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin.  

So the rules about who gets to vote are crucial, especially in these swing states. And who sets those rules? State legislatures, along with state courts that decide whether the legislatures are acting constitutionally. Hence, the importance of today’s two races in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Republicans have already changed state law to make voting more onerous by enacting a strict voter ID requirement. And last year, the state’s conservative Supreme Court banned drop boxes for absentee ballots. Wisconsin now ranks 47th out of 50 states on how easy it is to vote.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was the only state supreme court in the nation that agreed to hear Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election, eventually rejecting — by a single vote — his attempt to throw out 200,000 ballots in the state’s two large Democratic counties.

Another way Trump could have won in 2020 was if the outcome of the election had been determined by Republican-controlled state legislatures in Wisconsin and other swing states — as Trump and many Republican members of Congress sought. Yet another reason today’s Wisconsin races are so important.

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Friends, this is how authoritarian minorities steal governments from democratic majorities: They do it step by step. They design voting districts to freeze out a majority of voters. They then gain legislative supermajorities that allow them to control the state executive and state courts. Then they capture Electoral College majorities despite the popular vote.

Or they sow so much doubt about the popular vote that they decide the outcome.

This was Trump’s playbook in 2020. He didn’t succeed then, but he might in 2024.

What’s happening today in Manhattan’s criminal court is important. Holding a former president accountable to the rule of law is essential.

But what’s happening today in Wisconsin may prove as, if not more, important to the future of American democracy. It will either strengthen or weaken the levers of self-government in a state where those levers could make all the difference.

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{Reminder to please join me here Friday for the first session of my last Wealth and Poverty course.}