Here & Now

Wisconsin Group Prepares for 'Year of the Woman'

Frederica Freyberg:
A first look tonight at what people are calling the year of the woman in U.S. politics, but it’s not just an uptick in the number of women running at the federal level. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports the number of women running for state legislative seats is up 28% compared to 2016. Two-thirds of them are Democrats. Wisconsin is right in there with 62 women running for legislature. 50 of those are Democrats. “Here & Now” reporter Zac Schultz met up with some candidates in Wisconsin to find out what’s driving their run.

Alexandra Nugent:
Drink some more water sweeties. It’s so hot.

Zac Schultz:
When Alexandra Nugent and Emily Siegrist meet for playdates at the park, their conversations might sound a little different from the other parents.

Alexandra Nugent:
Did you do your 35 doors yesterday?

Emily Siegrist:
I think I hit 25.

Alexandra Nugent:
25?

Zac Schultz:
That’s because in between the park and the picnic.

Alexandra Nugent:
I have cookie on my arm. This is great.

Zac Schultz:
This is also a campaign strategy session.

Emily Siegrist:
I don’t know if I should order more yard signs.

Alexandra Nugent:
Wait till they’re gone, I would say.

Emily Siegrist:
And then order some?

Alexandra Nugent:
Yeah.

Zac Schultz:
Alexandra and Emily met in 2017 at a town hall for the Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman.

Emily Siegrist:
He had a town hall meeting in Sheboygan.

Zac Schultz:
They were among the hundreds of voters who showed up concerned about plans to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

Alexandra Nugent:
And we were both in the overflow area and just kind of kept nodding and then looking over at each other.

Emily Siegrist:
And that kind of stemmed our relationship of we should get together sometime.

Zac Schultz:
They kept meeting and kept talking politics. Then Emily heard about a program called Emerge, which trains progressive women to run for office.

Emily Siegrist:
You want to get more active, you should check out this program.

Alexandra Nugent:
I didn’t even know about Emerge, but Emily looked it up and saw it and then told me to apply with her.

Emily Siegrist:
Hi, we’re here. We’re ready to do this.

Zac Schultz:
On a beautiful summer day, Emily and Alexandra joined 23 other women in a windowless room to learn about campaigning for office.

Woman Trainer:
So this is an experience. This is behavior change. This is how do you get more people to hear you.

Zac Schultz:
A few months later, their names would be on the ballot. Emily Siegrist for the Wisconsin State Assembly.

Man Announcer:
My friend, Emily Siegrist.

[cheers and applause]

Zac Schultz:
And Alexandra Nugent for Town of Sheboygan Board of Supervisors.

Alexandra Nugent:
Well, thank you all so much for being here tonight.

Zac Schultz:
But this wasn’t the culmination of a lifelong goal for either Emily or Alexandra.

Emily Siegrist:
You see, I’ve never been particularly politically active before.

Zac Schultz:
In 2016, they were both mothers to young children, working and living a normal life.

Emily Siegrist:
And then the 2016 presidential election had happened. Yes.

Judy Woodruff:
The Associated Press is calling Wisconsin, so that puts him over the top.

Emily Siegrist:
I remember the day after he won.

Zac Schultz:
Emily’s biological mother emigrated from Mexico.

Emily Siegrist:
I can’t believe we elected an individual who doesn’t want me in this country and besides my children as well. Realized ok, what are you going to do about it?

Male Announcer:
The president-elect of the United States.

Alexandra Nugent:
The day of the inauguration I was just mad and fed up and I just wanted to burn the world down and rebuild it in the image of a powerful woman.

Zac Schultz:
They weren’t alone.

Erin Forrest:
It hurts.

Zac Schultz:
Erin Forrest is the executive director of Emerge Wisconsin. She says the election activated a lot of women politically.

Erin Forrest:
We had more applications come in in the next two weeks than we had in the previous month and a half of applications being open. It just went through the roof.

Zac Schultz:
Emerge was created in California in 2002 and has expanded to 25 states. It came to Wisconsin in 2007. The focus is on getting more women into public office.

Erin Forrest:
We win at the same rate as men. We’re just still only about 25% of the candidates.

Zac Schultz:
Forrest says there’s a political ambition gap between men and women.

Erin Forrest:
We’re more likely to need to be recruited. We’re less likely to hear that recruitment pitch as a recruitment pitch. We blow it off as like, oh, that’s someone trying to say something nice about me.

Zac Schultz:
Even at the Emerge training, some women weren’t sure they would run.

Chris Rahlf:
When I first signed up for Emerge, I didn’t know if I was going to run for office.

Zac Schultz:
Chris Rahlf decided to run for the State Assembly because no one had challenged the incumbent in her district in the last two elections.

Chris Rahlf:
I remember going in to vote in off year elections and there would only be one name in each office. That’s not exciting. That’s not democracy. You ought to have a choice.

Zac Schultz:
But some women knew exactly what they wanted. They just needed the training.

Rebecca Clarke:
When I ran in ’16, I didn’t know about anything. Has access to free, quality, public education.

Zac Schultz:
Rebecca Clarke made a late decision to run for the Assembly in 2016 and lost by 20 points.

Rebecca Clarke:
I’m sure a lot of people woke up the next day after the November election either in shock or depressed. And I woke up like, oh my gosh, we’re going to do this again, you know?

Erin Forrest:
Obviously, everybody’s here for not the exact same reason, but for the same reasons.

Zac Schultz:
Emerge gave these women training and technical advice.

Erin Forrest:
70% to 80% of your money will be spent in the last 30 days. Why? That’s when people care.

Zac Schultz:
But perhaps most important, Emerge gave them a support network.

Emily Siegrist:
The sisterhood is like amazing.

Chris Rahlf:
Having other people, especially other women that are going through the same thing that you go through, it’s just critical.

Zac Schultz:
There are Emerge alums all over Wisconsin running in races ranging from school board to Congress. Many of them are running against established incumbents in parts of the state where Democrats have not won in a long time.

Erin Forrest:
But for me it’s also important to have women running in places where maybe it’s harder for them to win.

Zac Schultz:
That’s the case with Alexandra, Rebecca, Chris and Emily.

Chris Rahlf:
It’s fairly conservative.

Zac Schultz:
They live on the eastern part of Wisconsin, along Lake Michigan, where Republicans often go unchallenged.

Emily Siegrist:
Someone needs to run against him, and here I am.

Zac Schultz:
Alexandra’s election was in the spring, because she ran for a seat on the Town of Sheboygan Board of Supervisors.

Woman:
All right. So final results. Dan Olsen got 585 votes. Alexandra Nugent, 806.

[cheers and applause]

Alexandra Nugent:
Yeah. It’s been really exciting. It’s everything I hoped for.

Zac Schultz:
Now she’s dealing with issues ranging from parks to drainage.

Alexandra Nugent:
As boring as drainage sounds, it’s a real issue to people. If your basement is flooding, you can’t really think about much else.

Zac Schultz:
Her win has resonated.

Rebecca Clarke:
It set the tone for me and I think probably some other Dems in the area. Like okay.

Emily Siegrist:
It kind of gives you this confidence.

Zac Schultz:
Polling has shown a surge in democratic enthusiasm to vote in this fall’s election.

Man at door:
Hello.

Emily Siegrist:
Hi. Hi. My name is Emily Siegrist and I am running for state Assembly in the 24th district and I’m just out knocking doors this afternoon.

Zac Schultz:
But first the voters need to know they’re in the race.

Emily Siegrist:
I just want to introduce myself.

Man at door:
Never heard of you.

Emily Siegrist:
That’s why I’m knocking doors so you can get to meet me.

Emily Siegrist:
It’s just all about doors and making that connection with people and saying there is another option out there.

Chris Rahlf:
I’m Chris Rahlf and I’m running for State Assembly. We can actually go out and knock doors that probably haven’t seen a Democratic candidate in more than ten years.

Rebecca Clarke:
I’m Rebecca Clarke. I’m running…

Man in driveway:
You are.

Rebecca Clarke:
I are.

Man in driveway:
And you are definitely not a Republican.

Rebecca Clarke:
No. All right, sir.

Zac Schultz:
But Democratic voters alone aren’t enough.

Emily Siegrist:
I’m not hitting strong Democrats. My universe is maybe lean Dems, independents, unknowns and lean Republicans. So that’s the persuadable universe we’re dealing with.

Rebecca Clarke:
We do have folks that will vote for Scott Walker, but they would vote for me.

Chris Rahlf:
I can’t run against Donald Trump. I can’t run against Scott Walker. I have to run as somebody that’s really going to represent the people of this district.

Zac Schultz:
Sometimes the person behind the door is perfectly satisfied with the way things are going.

Rebecca Clarke:
I’m running for State Assembly here in our district.

Woman at door:
As a Democrat?

Rebecca Clarke:
Yeah.

Woman at door:
Can’t handle that one.

Rebecca Clarke:
Really?

Emily Siegrist:
There might be a handful. There might be.

Man at door:
No.

Emily Siegrist:
Okay. All right. Well, have a good day. Those are hard doors.

Zac Schultz:
That’s when the Emerge sisterhood kicks in.

Chris Rahlf:
There’s also a lot of emotional support, because it is a very stressful process.

Emily Siegrist:
If you had a rough door and you’re just like you just need to vent, having someone there that you can call.

Chris Rahlf:
And I honestly think I would have really struggled trying to do this on my own.

Zac Schultz:
Nationally, there are a record number of women running for office, but their qualifications extend beyond their gender.

Chris Rahlf:
I don’t know of any of my Emerge sisters that say I’m going to run because I’m a woman. I think what’s happened now is women feel more empowered to run.

Rebecca Clarke:
I think other women are looking at this. You can have two kids and a job. You can do this.

Alexandra Nugent:
My end goal wasn’t to run for office. My end goal was to become elected.

Zac Schultz:
Emily and Alexandra felt their lives change on election day 2016. And they don’t expect to go back to the way things were.

Alexandra Nugent:
Are you registered to vote?

Woman on playground:
Yes.

Alexandra Nugent:
Okay. Good. I always ask people now. It’s like a weird question, but it’s one of the first things I ask people these days.

Zac Schultz:
Alexandra is already in office. Emily hopes to join her on election day 2018. Their children are used to seeing their names on yard signs.

Emily Siegrist:
It will be weird when we’re driving and she’s like, “Mommy, there’s your sign.”

Zac Schultz:
And sitting down for interviews.

Alexandra Nugent:
This is real life. This is being a politician with a baby.

Zac Schultz:
This is their new normal.

Alexandra Nugent:
She’s telling me she’s done right now. This is the done sign. But we’re just getting started Ruby.

Frederica Freyberg:
That was Zac Schultz reporting. Wisconsin Public Television asked the Republican Party of Wisconsin to allow us to follow some of their female candidates for office and we got no response. We also asked for a statement about their effort to get Republican women to run for office. We got that. It reads, in part, “The Republican Party of Wisconsin is working to elect two of the toughest conservative fighters running statewide this fall. Rebecca Kleefisch and Leah Vukmir. As strong Republican leaders, Kleefisch and Vukmir have been at the center of crucial reforms that cut taxes for families, balanced our state’s budget and put more money into our classrooms.”