Wisconsin Republicans think they have a “deplorables” moment on their hands, courtesy of the state’s Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.
Speaking at a forum on Wednesday night with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers, Mandela Barnes claimed his party’s strategy this November is to specifically target Barack Obama voters who didn’t show up at the polls in 2016. But that wasn’t all he said about their strategy. “It’s not about the Obama-Trump voters. If they voted for Obama and they voted for Trump and they’re still with him, you can keep them,” Barnes asserted.
The problem for Barnes is that a lot of Wisconsin counties flipped from blue to red between 2012 and 2016, so that approach involves dismissing a fair amount of voters.
Granted, for President Trump to become the first Republican nominee to win the state since 1984, it probably took a lot of potential Democratic voters choosing to stay home rather than cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton (recall that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., handily won the Wisconsin primary). Winning over those voters is a perfectly logical strategy, but it’s interesting that Barnes seems to see this as an either/or scenario: play to liberal Democrats who couldn’t get excited about Clinton, while ignoring voters closer to the center who saw (and continue to see) positives in both Obama and his successor.
And language like “you can keep them,” is reasonably interpreted as dismissive. That fits right into a major narrative Trump voters identify heavily with— exclusionary Democrats casting them aside as unworthy or “irredeemable,” as the saying goes.
Accordingly, the Wisconsin Republican Party created a mash-up video between the Barnes and Clinton statements.
What do @TheOtherMandela and @Tony4WI have in common with @HillaryClinton? Apparently a similar world-view when it comes to Wisconsin voters… pic.twitter.com/6c13kjN9ro
— Wisconsin GOP (@wisgop) September 13, 2018
Note how the camera zooms in on Evers nodding along with Barnes’ statement: allies of Gov. Scott Walker hope to make the state superintendent answer for his ticket mate. For his part, Barnes seemed to allude to the controversy in a tweet on Thursday.
I’ve said the same thing for months, if we can’t get back people who voted for Obama, but didn’t show up in ’16 then we have a real problem. It takes a message that reaches all across Wisconsin.
— Mandela Barnes (@TheOtherMandela) September 14, 2018
It’s easy to see why Republicans saw an opening here. Walker and Evers are running neck-and-neck. And as the governor himself is eager to point out, the so-called “blue wave” looks very real in the Badger State.
