For Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the blue wave is both a credible threat and an effective campaign message.
As spring turns to summer, Walker remains one of the only major Republican lawmakers actively offering stark assessments of the political landscape this midterm season. And he got an early start too.
Back in January, after Democrats in Wisconsin managed to flip a reliably red state senate district, Walker took to Twitter to say the upset constituted a “wake up call” for the GOP. But by April, Badger State Republicans still hadn’t gotten the message, and liberal judge Rebecca Dallet won a seat on Wisconsin’s supreme court by a wide margin. That sent Walker back to Twitter, where he reacted immediately by warning, “Tonight’s results show we are at risk of a #BlueWave in WI.”
Walker used his platform at the Wisconsin GOP convention in May to sharpen that warning. “We need to wake up,” he told activists gathered in Milwaukee. “This election is going to be tougher than any we’ve faced so far — and the consequences are greater than ever,” said Walker, whose third term as governor is on the ballot this November. His remarks were met with a standing ovation.
According to a Walker insider, the governor and his team have transformed his canary-in-a-coalmine warnings into a “major campaign strategy,” sensing its powerful motivating effect.
As that disastrous state senate race unfolded in January, the source says Walker’s immediate instinct was, “We have to use this.” From there, his genuine concern evolved into a “major strategic initiative” that’s led operatives to alter everything from call scripts to fundraising emails to the state party’s direct mail strategy, “seep[ing] throughout the GOP infrastructure.” His campaign told the Washington Examiner that all voter contacts this cycle have been geared around the warning signs evidenced in those state senate and supreme court upsets, hoping to mobilize supporters early.
National Republicans and some allied conservative media have their reasons for downplaying the signs of a blue wave. They fear such talk could sound defeatist, and thus depress the base. “There have been some Republicans who have been a little nervous about” Walker’s approach, says one GOP strategist, hinting more towards DC GOPers than Badger State Republicans. But the early Democratic victories the governor is pointing to are very real, and having survived a recall, Walker is something of a case study in preventing his opponents from turning enthusiasm into electoral success. A recent Marquette Law School poll found a clear enthusiasm gap favoring Democrats, with 64 percent saying they were excited to vote this year, ten points higher than Republicans.
Indeed, on the eve of the state convention, anti-Walker activists mounted a nasty protest that conjured memories among some Wisconsin conservatives of the bitter recall battle back in 2012. But the governor prevailed by more than six points in that race, and won re-election by a similar margin in 2014. Having fought and won alongside him for the better part of the last decade, Walker carries enormous credibility with the state’s grassroots army.
In a roundabout way, those races may have actually equipped Wisconsin Republicans to minimize the impact of a blue wave this year. There’s already “a red wall built to fight the blue wave, and that was the recall,” the Walker insider argues. “We’ve got the infrastructure, we know what to do, we just have to shock the system.”
In order to do that, Walker believes Republicans need to spotlight their policy work, showing voters how the party’s reforms have benefited them by focusing on the stories of real people. His campaign recently launched a series of advertisements following that strategy, each starting with personal stories, and then transitioning to endorsements of Walker’s work on the topic in question.
At the state convention earlier this month, Walker unveiled his agenda for the next four years, dubbed “Wisconsin Wins the 21st Century,” which is the main thrust of his campaign efforts. And Walker framed his pitch optimistically, touting the Republican accomplishments that have come under his watch to prove “we’ve shown the world that common-sense, conservative reforms work.”
“But,” he proceeded to warn, “that could all go away in one election.”
For Walker, who believes voters have felt progress from his administration they don’t want to see unraveled, the antidote to the blue wave really is the threat of the blue wave itself.
