The Wisconsin Democratic Party invited political commentators Brian Tyler Cohen and Leigh McGowan to Madison Nov. 3 to kick off their “One Year to Win” campaign push with the “Justice Defended Live” event.
JDL was a podcast-style fundraising event during which Cohen and McGowan interviewed Wisconsin public officials in the 4th-floor lecture hall of the Monona Terrace.
Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski joined Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) on the hall’s main stage to talk about issues they’ve seen on the ground in Wisconsin.
Godlewski expressed the importance of having secure elections in Wisconsin. Wisconsin election officials have been experiencing frequent attacks, Godlewski. She did not reference any specific attacks.
Crowley emphasized mental health as a major issue his constituents are experiencing. Milwaukee County lacks access to mental health care services and government funding to improve social services in general, Crowley said.
“Being a representative of one of the largest communities in the state of Wisconsin, one of the biggest issues we’re facing right now is actually mental health,” Crowley said, “We’ve been hearing folks on the ground talking about the need to invest in the social determinants of health… quality education and public transportation”.
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The 0.4% sales tax increase approved July 2023 and beginning January 2024 will provide revenue to Milwaukee officials that will bolster public health programs, Crowley said.
Pocan answered questions about the election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to Speaker of the House and Rep. George Santos (R-NY). Pocan expressed strong disapproval toward both Representatives.
After a game show intermission, hosts McGowan and Cohen welcomed Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin Ben Wikler on stage.
Wikler used his time on stage to convey that right now is an especially important time for the democratic party seeing that the party has one more year to make its final push for victory in the 2024 elections.
In his speech, Wikler hammered home the importance of the Wisconsin vote turnout due its history of being a deciding factor in previous elections because of its swing-state status.
“We are one year out, and I think Republicans have figured out that Wisconsin is really, really, really important,” Wikler said “They put their first presidential primary debate here in Wisconsin. They noticed that we were voting early and absentee-ing and that it was working.So they decided that they would try to catch up with early voting and launched “Bank Your Vote”.
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The Bank Your Vote initiative is a shift in Republican election strategy that started encouraging voters to vote through absentee voting and to vote early in light of its observed effectiveness during the 2020 presidential election, according to previous reporting by The Badger Herald.
Wikler continued to stress Wisconsin’s importance in the presidential race, stating the Republican National Committee announced that the pilot state where they would roll out the Bank Your Vote strategy is Wisconsin.
In the closing of his speech, Wikler again emphasized how crucial it is to start supporting the democratic campaign right now in light of Wisconsin’s long history of swinging left or right unpredictably.
“In this moment, the possibility is real. It is up to all of us. If you live in Wisconsin, if you’re a friend of Wisconsin, you can join a virtual phone bank,” Wikler said. “You have a superpower in the fight for democracy, because every minute of our time in this place in this year is going to be more valuable in the fight for democracy and freedom than almost any person anywhere has ever had. Let’s use it. We’ve got one year to win, let’s go out there and elections that no one thought possible.”
