Ben Wikler on 2024 RNC Impacts, Uncertainty of Democrats

Frederica Freyberg:
President Joe Biden is off the campaign trail for now with a case of COVID. There was already what’s described as rising anger and panic among many of his supporters about his ability to go on. What must this be like for state party leaders who help deliver Wisconsin to Joe Biden in 2020? We ask Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler, and thanks a lot for being here.

Ben Wikler:
Thanks so much for having me on, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is this like to watch the Republican National Convention with the growing number of Democrats calling for your candidate to step aside?

Ben Wikler:
What’s so striking this week is that the Republican Party has been completely subsumed by MAGA. There’s total unity within the Republican Party leaders around a candidate who selected one of the most outspoken proponents of a 100% national abortion ban as his vice-presidential candidate. There’s unity with people like Eric Hovde around Project 2025, Trump and J.D. Vance, their staffers going out and writing this playbook for not only ripping away access to abortion and emergency contraception, but eliminating the Department of Education, shredding any kind of protections for the environment and climate change. It’s a wholesale plan to kind of repeal the last 50 years of progress in this country. They didn’t talk about it from the convention stage, but they have written down what they want to do. And in this election, it’s a choice between a future where Trump’s vision of being a dictator on day one becomes a reality, or the vision that Biden and Harris have laid out that President Biden laid out in his speech in Detroit right before the RNC, of signing Roe v. Wade into law, of signing the PRO Act so workers can organize and unionize, of expanding Social Security and Medicare. I think I know which future most Wisconsinites and most Americans want.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your message to Wisconsin voters about Joe Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump with his poll numbers and money slipping?

Ben Wikler:
We’re at a moment where so much conversation in the press and, you know, around the state and around the country, it’s not about whether Democrats want to defeat Donald Trump. It’s about the best way to do it. And what I know from so many conversations is that there’s an enormous level of intensity and focus on making sure that we defeat MAGA this fall, and that President Biden’s vision for the next term is enormously popular in a way that unites Democrats. So I feel like, you know, debates happen, conversations happen. I think Democrats are going to come together. And I think that when we do that, we’re going to reelect President Biden and Vice President Harris and reelect Tammy Baldwin and flip House seats. And I think flip the state Assembly and break the supermajority in the state Senate, because what we are fighting for is much, much more popular than what Republicans are trying to inflict on the country.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you personally know about Joe Biden’s decision to stay in or step aside?

Ben Wikler:
I was speaking with my friends on the Biden campaign yesterday and others this morning. He is full steam ahead and organizing and working to make sure that this message carries out across the country. And, you know, of course, many people are trying to game out how the whole thing comes together. What we know is that when Democrats speak with one voice about the stakes for voters in their lives, then from President Biden down to local, state legislative candidates, we’re going to defeat MAGA this fall.

Frederica Freyberg:
So regardless of who is at the top of the ticket?

Ben Wikler:
Well, President Biden’s at the top of the ticket and Biden-Harris as a team won Wisconsin last time. We overcame the odds and Democrats won the governor’s race in 2022. We flipped the Supreme Court in the course of 1820 and 2023. And on the ground, we have volunteers going out every week, knocking on tens of thousands of doors, having conversations with voters. Ultimately, voters care about how politics affects their lives. And they know that President Biden isn’t trying to get into their doctor’s offices and override their personal medical decisions. They also have reason to fear J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. J.D. Vance has flirted with the idea of tracking menstrual cycles to figure out whether people are accessing abortion care against the law. Trump has floated the idea of punishing women who access abortions. Those ideas are politically toxic, and we have to defeat them this fall.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Ben Wikler, thanks very much.

Ben Wikler:
Thanks so much for having me on.