Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production. You’re watching “Here & Now” 2024 election coverage.

Frederica Freyberg:
As predicted, it was a close election with winners and losers on both sides. But unforeseen were the MAGA gains across the country and across Wisconsin.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” reporter Zac Schultz on Wisconsin’s election results and the new landscape of the state legislature. Political scientist Anthony Chergosky on how Donald Trump defied demographics. And our political panelists, Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross give us their partisan takes. It’s “Here & Now” for November 8.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Wisconsin was the tipping point for Donald Trump’s victory. When our results came in, they pushed him over the top. Final results – Trump with 49.7% of the vote to Kamala Harris’s 48.8%. In Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin beat Republican Eric Hovde by a similarly close margin, with Baldwin at 49.4% to Hovde 48.5%. Senior political reporter Zac Schultz has more.

Zac Schultz:
Election day 2024 arrived with gray skies and a steady rain. As voters cast their ballots, Democrats were convinced Kamala Harris was pulling away in the final days of the election.

Brian Schimming:
There were a lot of people who didn’t think we could do this.

Zac Schultz:
Brian Schimming is the chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. He says it was the hard work of thousands of volunteers who convinced voters to send Donald Trump back to the White House.

Brian Schimming:
This got done because volunteers and staff across this state went out and talked to over a million and a half voters.

Zac Schultz:
As the polls closed, results started coming in and showed the race for president and U.S. Senate would be tight. The election night party for Democrat Tammy Baldwin was largely empty. Baldwin herself never showed. It was up to Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez to inform the handful of supporters it would be a late night.

Sara Rodriguez:
So we’re just starting to see some of these results roll in, and I want to level with you. We are likely not going to know the Senate results until much, much later in the evening.

Zac Schultz:
Republican Eric Hovde mingled with guests at his party, and at least they could celebrate as state after state was called for Donald Trump. Finally, when it was clear the absentee ballots out of the city of Milwaukee’s Central Count would not be enough for Harris to catch up to Trump in Wisconsin, the room erupted.

Brian Schimming:
Wisconsin is the state that put Donald Trump over 270 electoral votes last night.

Zac Schultz:
However, there were enough votes left for Baldwin to surpass Hovde, although she had to wait a long time to deliver her victory speech.

Tammy Baldwin:
And to the people of Wisconsin, thank you for putting your trust in me as your United States Senator. Let’s get to work.

Frederica Freyberg:
Even as Tammy Baldwin made her victory speech two days after the election, Eric Hovde demurred on conceding. Zac Schultz joins us now from the Capitol with more on this and a look at legislative races. Hey, Zac.

Zac Schultz:
Hello, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:
So for his part, Eric Hovde blames a third-party candidate on his loss. What is that about?

Zac Schultz:
Well, I’m sure for most of our viewers, this will be the first time they’ve heard of Thomas Leager. He really came out of nowhere. He doesn’t have any party. He didn’t really come as attached to run any ads or anything like that. But his name did appear on the ballot, and he did receive a significant number of votes for a third-party candidate. And it becomes more significant when you have a tighter race. However, even Brian Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said it’s incumbent on their candidate to let voters know who is the real Republican in the race and this isn’t the first time that third party candidates have played spoiler. The third-party candidates in the presidential race took a significant number of votes. In 2016, Democrats blamed Jill Stein and the Green Party for taking a significant number of votes away from Hillary Clinton. A lot of these cases, it’s simply people deciding to raise a protest vote. And when they’re voting third party, especially if they don’t know who the actual candidate is. And in fact, if Hovde had just ran closer to Trump, then perhaps he would have come out ahead of Baldwin. But he’s blaming it on a third-party candidate at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:
So meanwhile, new voting maps allowed a switch from the current 22 to 11 Republican majority in the state Senate to an election pickup of four seats for Democrats, narrowing the Republican majority in that chamber to 18 to 15. What are the implications of that?

Zac Schultz:
Well, it’s pretty big in the Senate. Republicans had a supermajority, which means they had the ability to constitutionally impeach people. We’ve seen them do that in the past. They refused to seat any of Governor Evers’ appointees and rejected quite a few of them. So with that large of a power imbalance in the state Senate, Republicans could do whatever they wanted. With a much more narrow majority, not only did they lose two incumbents, which is pretty significant. Duey Stroebel sits on Joint Finance and he was a big conservative figurehead in that party. And knocking him off is a pretty big accomplishment for Democrats. And just the implications of them running ahead and against these Republican headwinds that came everywhere else. These were four swing seats that they won and picked up in this race. And in prior years where we’ve seen a red wave election so to speak, 2010, 2014, Democrats down ballot were getting crushed. So the Democrats are, rightfully so, saying they did a really big job of winning these seats and putting themselves in position to possibly challenge for the majority in the Senate in 2026.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in the Assembly, the current Republican majority is 64 to 35, and Democrats picked up ten seats in that chamber, bringing their majority down to 54 to 45. Now that’s a smaller gain, but still potentially predictive for 2026.

Zac Schultz:
Well, it’s significant in a lot of ways, not — in the Assembly, Republicans were only two seats short of a supermajority, which meant in the last session, Democrats had to have every member there every session day, because if they shrunk their amount, then that reduced what the Republicans needed to possibly override some of Governor Evers’ vetoes. That threat is gone in this next session. And once again, it puts Democrats in position to challenge for the majorities in ’26. And most importantly, we should see shifts in what it means over the next two years of governing in this state. I don’t think anyone’s going to predict that Republicans and Governor Evers are suddenly going to have a great relationship. But every vote that these Republicans take, they’re going to have to think about their vulnerable members and what it might mean back in their district in the next election. In years and sessions past, Robin Vos, for example, the Assembly Speaker, has let some of his more vulnerable Republicans vote ‘no’ against some Republican legislation because it didn’t matter if it passed with 64 or 60 votes, it mattered that it passed. This time around with only a 54-seat majority, if he can’t let that many of these vulnerable members take really damaging votes. So you might see a shift in what actually comes to the floor over the next two years.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, we’re also just around the corner from a state Supreme Court spring election on April 1st. What are the stakes in that race?

Zac Schultz:
Well, every time we have an election in Wisconsin, people say it’s the most important election of your lifetime. And they’ll be saying that about this one again. Right now, the Supreme Court has a 4 to 3 liberal majority. The justice that is retiring is Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. She is part of that liberal majority. So with her out, it’s three-three. Whoever wins this, whether it’s a conservative candidate or a liberal candidate, will decide the makeup of the majority for the foreseeable future. So it actually is quite significant. Last time around with Janet Protasiewicz, we saw record national level spending. We’re probably going to see that again. That’s coming up in April. So people who thought the political ads were gone from their television, you may get a couple months off, but the ads are coming back and they’re going to come back in a big way.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the current liberal majority court is hearing oral arguments on Monday in the lawsuit over abortion in Wisconsin. What will that be deciding?

Zac Schultz:
Well, it will be deciding how we handle abortion in Wisconsin. Currently, the 1849 law that handles and regulates abortion in Wisconsin has been put on hold by a Dane County judge. So the Supreme Court is reviewing whether that’s appropriate. Whether abortion laws that have been passed since 1849 supersede and override that. And so we’re kind of in a Roe environment as far as what that matters. But they’ll also, at the same time, be deciding if there is a constitutional right to abortion health care in Wisconsin. So they could go either way. And as for what we should expect next Monday, there’s going to be increased security in the Capitol. We’ve already been told people will have to pass through metal detectors to get into the chamber. They’re expecting protesters. It’s also Veterans Day and we’ve been told in the middle of oral arguments, we can expect to hear a 21-gun salute for Veterans Day programing. So there will be a lot going on. The bigger question, especially tying it back to that election that we were just talking about, is when this decision might be released. Does it come down before that April Supreme Court election impacting it that way, or will it be released after that election so that we don’t know the fate of abortion rights in Wisconsin leading into that election next year?

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Zac Schultz, thanks very much. A lot of information. Appreciate it.

Zac Schultz:
Thanks, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:
Reproductive rights were said to be a primary driver for voters in Tuesday’s election. But were they? What was? We turn to UW-La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky for his take. And thanks for being here, professor.

Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is it fair to say that the main driver of Donald Trump’s win was voters’ unhappiness with the economy?

Anthony Chergosky:
I think so. Just general dissatisfaction with the Biden administration. And there could be different factors driving that dissatisfaction. But when we look across the country, there was this uniform swing towards the Trump ticket across all kinds of geographic areas, across all kinds of demographics. So it tells me that this election was bigger than any one specific region, any one specific geographic area, any one specific demographic. Though there are some demographics that do stand out as particularly significant. In general, this just seems to be a broad repudiation of the Biden administration.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah. So you’re quoted as saying that the results underscore Trump’s ability to make largely uniform gains across all types of geographic areas and all types of demographics. You say some of those demographics stand out. Like what?

Anthony Chergosky:
The Latino vote. When we look at areas with a concentrated Latino vote, we see a stark trend towards Donald Trump. So those states with high levels of the Latino population, that is a big part of the post-election analysis, I think. But of course Wisconsin, very much a majority white state. So the racial and ethnic politics of Wisconsin are different than, say, a state like Arizona or Nevada. So we did see Wisconsin follow slightly different trends than other states. In fact, the swing towards Trump was not as substantial in Wisconsin as in some other states. So I think all of that is relevant when we do that post-election analysis.

Frederica Freyberg:
Were you surprised at all by the gains on Trump’s part nationwide but even the smaller ones in Wisconsin?

Anthony Chergosky:
Yeah, he did make some small gains in Wisconsin, ultimately enough to put him over the top here, but it was still a really close election. And now, Fred, we get to say that the last three presidential elections in Wisconsin were each decided by fewer than 30,000 votes. So Wisconsin entered this election season as the ultimate swing state. I think we emerge from this election season as the ultimate swing state. There is always talk about states becoming swing states or states that were swing states no longer being swing states. Speculation about, say, if Wisconsin goes the direction of Ohio, going more Republican. Goes the direction of Virginia, going more Democratic. But I think we’re right back where we started, Wisconsin being that key swing state.

Frederica Freyberg:
So even though suburban Milwaukee continues to edge toward blue in parts of it, Donald Trump gained in places like Madison on the UW campus. Who are his voters helping him make those kinds of gains?

Anthony Chergosky:
There’s a lot of talk about young men, and the gender gap is a big storyline in this election. We’ve seen a gender gap in American elections for years and years and years where women are more likely to go for the Democratic Party, and men are more likely to go for the Republican Party. And we see that gender gap across all ages. But there are signs that the gender gap is particularly pronounced among young voters. And this fits into the lose buy less motto that Republicans had when it comes to Madison and Milwaukee. They know they’re going to lose those areas, but they wanted to lose them by less than they did before, and it seems like they accomplished that.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the gender gap, obviously again, was a big consideration. But some seem to be surprised by how many women actually then did go ahead and vote for Donald Trump.

Anthony Chergosky:
It’s a big part of the story, right? Because ultimately the Harris team could have benefited from an even larger gender gap. The big question going into this election, just how big that gender gap would be. The exit polls give us some indication. I think there’s going to be more data on that that gives us a clearer vision of what exactly that gender gap was. But watch that gender gap among young voters. I think that’s going to be really important in upcoming elections.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in your neck of the woods in the third congressional district, Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden won handily. What kind of coattails did he get from Trump and what was that race about?

Anthony Chergosky:
Yeah, as expected, Derrick Van Orden won by a bit. This was anticipated to be the most competitive U.S. House election in Wisconsin, and indeed, it was. A big part of the election was the spending on the Democratic Party side. Rebecca Cooke enjoyed much more spending to support her candidacy than the Democratic candidate in 2022, Brad Pfaff. So I think that contributed to the competitiveness of this election. Ultimately, Van Orden won this election by roughly the same margin that he did in 2022, and you can bet that the parties are wasting no time in looking ahead to 2026, as this is, I’m sure, once again anticipated to be the most competitive U.S. House district in Wisconsin. I think it’s going to stay that way for at least the next election cycle or two.

Frederica Freyberg:
You were saying that Rebecca Cooke did really well compared to the top of the ticket candidates?

Anthony Chergosky:
Yes. Here in La Crosse County and in some of the surrounding counties that I’ve been able to look at, Rebecca Cooke did better than Kamala Harris. In fact, there are places where Rebecca Cooke did better than Tammy Baldwin, and that is no easy feat in Wisconsin politics, because we know that Baldwin has a strong track record of electoral success. So I think that people are going to emerge from this election with a positive attitude towards the Cooke campaign. She didn’t quite win, but she was able, in key situations to do better, maybe even substantially better than the other Democrats on the ballot.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so you’re saying look ahead two years.

Anthony Chergosky:
Yup, yup. Do we get a rematch? I mean, we’re always looking ahead to the next election as political fanatics. But do we get a rematch? I mean, when Derrick Van Orden did really well in the 2020 election, he came up a little short, but it was clear that he could run for 2022 and do quite well that year. Are we in the same situation right now? I think there’s going to be a lot of focus on this congressional district moving forward. I don’t think the 2024 election does anything to change the fact that this third congressional district is a key one in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Anthony Chergosky, thanks very much.

Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
State Attorney General Josh Kaul held a press conference today stating the Department of Justice will protect the rights of Wisconsinites from the newly elected Trump administration.

Josh Kaul:
And let me say that if the new administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act. We will act to protect the best interests of the people of the state of Wisconsin. We’ll act to uphold equal justice under the law, and we will act to defend Wisconsinites’ freedoms.

Frederica Freyberg:
The attorney general also addressed targeted racist texts being sent to people across the country and here in Wisconsin.

Josh Kaul:
Anybody making racist statements or bigoted statements in text messages is something we cannot tolerate. I encourage anybody who has information about those texts to contact local law enforcement. I think it’s important that there’s an appropriate law enforcement response.

Frederica Freyberg:
A stunning win for Donald Trump, with Republicans also taking the U.S. Senate and probably the House. Our political panelists Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross weigh in and hello.

Bill McCoshen:
Good to be back.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, Bill, what is Donald Trump’s appeal to a wide swath of voters in Wisconsin and elsewhere?

Bill McCoshen:
So he grew his base with women, with men on college campuses, with Hispanics, with Blacks, with young voters. I think the appeal really revolves around the top issues that he discussed and that’s the economy and immigration. Those are the primary issues for all walks of life here in the state of Wisconsin and frankly, across the country. And I think that’s why he improved in 49 out of 50 states. In the state of Wisconsin, he now has the highest turnout ever at roughly 1.7 million. And frankly, to her credit, Kamala Harris has the third highest total ever. The only one who — Democrat who did better than her was Barack Obama in 2008. And there’s only 10,000 votes that separate them. So while overall turnout in the country was down considerably, it was up in the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, Scot, what do you make of Donald Trump’s appeal in Wisconsin and elsewhere?

Scot Ross:
Well, I think it’s unfortunate that America would rather put a racist rapist who’s been convicted of 34 felonies in the White House than a woman. And I think it came down to two things. I think it came down to sexism. And I think it came down to hundreds of millions of dollars in transphobic ads that were that were appealing to people’s worst natures. You know, if you want to talk about the economy, we lost 3 million jobs under Donald Trump. We gained 15 million jobs under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So it’s very clear that the economy was not at play here. As much as I appreciate what Bill is saying, it was very much a divisive, hate-filled campaign by Donald Trump. Kamala Harris tried to parry that with joy. It did not work in the end. And people are going to suffer all across Wisconsin, all across the United States for that. And our economy is certainly going to suffer.

Bill McCoshen:
I don’t think Democrats planned out the full switch after Joe Biden was displaced on July 23rd. I don’t think they had the next several steps figured out and there were some misses. The first miss was potentially having a competitive primary, albeit short, prior to the DNC. The second miss was there should have been some distance created between Harris and Biden, and they should have worked that out before this thing really got rolling and that ultimately really hurt her. Her interview on “The View” three weeks out is when I knew this thing was over, when she said she can’t think of anything that she would have done differently than Joe Biden. Well, this was a change election. So if you’re the same thing, you’re not going to win.

Frederica Freyberg:
How do you respond to what Scot said about Donald Trump?

Bill McCoshen:
People have factored that in. This is — I call him the Terminator. This guy has been whether it’s impeachment, indictments, they tried to bankrupt him. There were two assassination attempts on him. Every time one of those major events happened, he got stronger, not weaker. He got 72 million votes this time. He had 74 million last time. The big drop off actually came on the Democratic side. So the energy was with Donald Trump.

Scot Ross:
Yeah, and I don’t understand. I mean, I think that the Harris campaign, I thought they ran a really, really good campaign, but where it seemed to end, where the momentum seemed to end and, you know, looking back is honest to God, when Tim Walz stopped calling J.D. Vance weird, when Kamala Harris stopped saying they’re out of their minds. I mean, these were manifestly, you know, in some, you could argue, deranged position places that the Republicans wanted to put us in and not — and going after the Charlie Sykes/Liz Cheney voters.

Bill McCoshen:
I loved it.

Scot Ross:
I just, I mean, I — that one was, that one that baffled me. You know, I get, you know, it’s trying to bring everybody in, get enough people to get to 50%. But turning down the what the alarm at what actually is going to happen the next you know, four years, you know, things like the national abortion ban, $4 trillion in more tax cuts, mass deportations of human beings out of the United States of America. And this is going to be a disaster. We saw on Friday Donald Trump had Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, sitting on a call with, with, with, with Zelensky, for God’s sakes. I mean, this is scary stuff. You know, it’s going to be — it’s going to be a test. You know, we have failed this test of the American character. Now it’s time we’re going to have to like try and get back, back, to back to places and liberals and right-minded people are going to have to stand up to this guy. And the power that he now has, as you say, the U.S. Senate and possibly the House of Representatives.

Bill McCoshen:
I think the failure was with the liberal elites. When they called Trump supporters cultists, Nazis and garbage, that was fuel for Trump supporters to get to the polls and bring low propensity voters to the polls, in some cases, for the very first time, including in the state of Wisconsin.

Scot Ross:
And maybe that was unique for Trump because, again, we saw, you know, Senator Baldwin was returned to the U.S. Senate. We talked about the giant gains in the legislature here in the state of Wisconsin. We didn’t do well with the House, that’s for sure. And there’s a lot of improvement there. I don’t know when the DCCC is going to target Wisconsin again because of the performance of the two main candidates. But, you know, I think the one bright side, if you’re — you know, if you’re looking at Tammy Baldwin, the other bright side you’re looking at is you probably with this have guaranteed that Democrats in the state are going to control government sometime within the next four years, and we’re going to have a lock on the Supreme Court because 2025, 2026 and 2027 are going to be massive backlashes against the insanity of Project 2025 and what Donald Trump is going to do to destroy this country and play to people like Elon Musk, while people are suffering.

Bill McCoshen:
Let me pick up on one of his points. This was a Trump wave, not a red wave. And Republicans should be very careful how they interpret the results of this. The only way that this becomes durable going forward is if they actually enact the agenda that he ran on. So they have the House, they have the Senate, they have the tools and the levers to make this stuff happen. If they do not deliver, the Republicans who abandoned him will get primaried. There’s no doubt about it.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you think the Trump administration, Bill, is going to do on day one?

Bill McCoshen:
I think they’re so much further ahead. I know they are, than they were in 2016. They’ve been working on the transition since literally the day after the convention in Milwaukee. They will have those 5000 appointees ready to go on day one, and they will have a different caliber of cabinet than they had last time. There might be some similarities. We’ll see. But these are people that have very, very successful careers who are willing to leave those careers for a one term president to try and put this country on the right track. So I think the key criteria for the cabinet members is, are you here for the right reasons? Are you here to enact the agenda? If so, you make it to the next level. If you’re for here yourself, you’re out.

Scot Ross:
The guardrails are gone. I mean, just thinking about things like Aileen Cannon being made the attorney general, things like that, this is going to be punitive. He’s promised it. If he’s making good on his promises, he’s promised to punish his opponents and using the full force of the government to do that, including law enforcement. He’s going to do that. It’s going to be disastrous. It’s going to be corrupt. It’s going to be un-American. You know, if I’m — but again, if I’m a citizen out there and I’m thinking, what do I do? Use your voice, run for office and demand that your Democrats stand up to this guy and do communications every single day, because I think that’s one place where the Democrats fail. They don’t work the press like they should. They’re not out there fighting that way and it needs to because people sit and watch television. You need to make sure that television news is talking about what you want them to talk about.

Frederica Freyberg:
Bill, he’s expressing fear of what’s to come.

Bill McCoshen:
I think it’s misplaced. I think people are going to be excited about the changes that are coming. It’s common sense. It’s things that will benefit Democrats, independents and Republicans to get the government out of the way. Let’s not have Big Brother in Washington D.C. Let’s have the government that our founders intended. And I think that’s the government Donald Trump’s going to try and enact.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll see. Thanks both. Thanks for all your work with us this election cycle.

Bill McCoshen:
You bet.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSWisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. To see all of our election coverage, visit WisconsinVote.org. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.