Wisconsin, Booker boost Democrats
NEW YORK (AP) — For a day, at least, Democrats across the country have a sense that their comeback against President Donald Trump may have begun.
NEW YORK (AP) — For a day, at least, Democrats across the country have a sense that their comeback against President Donald Trump may have begun.
It wasn’t just about the election results in Wisconsin, where Democratic- backed Judge Susan Crawford won a 10-point victory against Trump and Elon Musk’s favored candidate for the state Supreme Court.
Some Democrats highlighted New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon, record-setting 25-hour Senate speech as a rallying point for frustrated voters. Others pointed to congressional Democrats lining up with a handful of House Republican lawmakers to oppose a procedural rule that would have stopped a proposal for new parents in Congress to able to vote by proxy.
The series of victories gave Democratic leaders moments of relief and vindication of their strategy to focus on Trump’s alliances with Musk and other billionaires. That’s even as some party officials warned that it was far too early to draw sweeping conclusions from a series of lower-turnout off-year elections with polls still showing that the party’s brand is deeply unpopular among key groups of voters.
“Elon Musk and Donald Trump are on the ropes,” charged Ken Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee. “We’re just getting started.”
Democrats have had little to cheer about in the five months since Trump won a decisive victory in November’s presidential election in which he peeled away a significant portion of working- class voters and people of color. And in more recent weeks, the party’s activist base has become increasingly frustrated that Democratic leaders have not done more to stop Trump’s unprecedented push to slash the federal government and the reshape the economy.
Democrats in Washington and in state capitals across the country privately conceded that a bad night, especially in Wisconsin, would have been devastating.
Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, lost to liberal-backed Crawford in a relative blowout, five months after Trump carried Wisconsin by less than 1 point.
And in Florida, Republicans won special elections in two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, but both candidates significantly underperformed Trump’s November margins.
“I went to bed last night feeling uplifted and relieved,” Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said Wednesday.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., predicted further political consequences for Republicans if they don’t resist the sweeping cuts to government services enacted by Musk and Trump.
