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Douglas Schoen: Democratic wins in midwestern elections offer the party a roadmap for 2024

April 13, 2023

Despite the victories of liberal candidates in Wisconsin and Chicago last week, neither race should be interpreted as a full-throttled endorsement of the progressive agenda.

Rather, the landslide victory of Judge Janet Protasiewicz in her race for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is best-understood as a rebuke of the Republican Party, whose far-right and anti-choice positions have made the GOP’s brand toxic to a significant share of the electorate.

In the Chicago mayoral race, progressive Brandon Johnson’s narrow victory would not have materialized had Johnson not moderated his stance on crime and policing in the final stretch of the campaign by rejecting the left’s ‘defund the police’ positioning.

In turn, both races offer the Democratic Party a roadmap for a 2024 messaging strategy. By shifting to the center on crime and continuing to draw a contrast with the GOP’s extreme positions on abortion and other issues, Democrats can position themselves as the only party that stands for public health and safety, as opposed to Republicans, who take extreme stances and play politics without offering solutions.

The margin of Protasiewicz’s victory – 11-points – in the swing-state of Wisconsin is remarkable, and suggests that abortion remains a potent issue that plays to Democrats’ advantage, as was the case in the 2022 midterms.

Democratic groups in the state outspent Republicans in what was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, and focused most of their messaging on attacking Protasiewicz’s conservative opponent, Dan Kelly, for his anti-choice positions.

A victory for Kelly would have arguably been attainable had he not supported a draconian state abortion ban from 1849. His loss suggests that Republicans will continue to lose winnable races due to their anti-choice stances, as more than 6-in-10 Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases.

While there is evidence that Democrats are less successful in elections where abortion rights are not directly on the ballot, the party has a new opportunity to nationalize the issue to their benefit. Just three days after Democrats proved the strength of their pro-choice positioning in Wisconsin, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas suspended the FDA’s approval of the most common abortion drug.

The decision threatens to make abortions less accessible even in states where the procedure is fully legal, and directly negates the common conservative justification for restricting national abortion rights: that the decision should be left up to the states, not the federal government. The Biden Administration released a statement pledging to protect abortion access, and many Democrats facing tough reelections in 2024 have already begun aggressively messaging on the issue.

While clearly important, abortion was not the only issue at play in the Wisconsin race: Donald Trump, Trumpism, and Republican election denialism were on the ballot, as well.

Kelly was hired following the 2020 elections by the Wisconsin GOP to advise on efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s win and declare Donald Trump the victor, which just barely failed. Protasiewicz underscored that Trump’s GOP could try to overturn the election once again next year, which could only be stopped by ensuring that Kelly, a Trump-loyalist, wasn’t on the bench.

The losses of extreme, Trump-backed, anti-choice candidates in last year’s midterms should have facilitated the GOP breaking from Donald Trump and formulating a more moderate social agenda. Instead, the party is doubling-down on this toxic positioning, giving Democrats the opportunity to turn the 2024 election into a referendum on Trump and Trumpism, as the party did successfully in 2018, 2020, and 2022 when they otherwise lacked a more cohesive message.

Unless Republicans listen to voices like Rep. Nancy Mace and moderate their blanket opposition to abortion, they will find it more challenging to regain the presidency, win control of the Senate, and hold onto the House.

But to be sure, Johnson’s narrow victory in Chicago over his moderate opponent, Paul Vallas, suggests that attacking GOP extremism is just one piece of a successful 2024 Democratic message, and should not be the party’s entire strategy.

Crime was a major vulnerability for Democrats in the midterms, and continues to be a top concern for voters across the country. The most significant Democratic losses in 2022 were in blue areas, namely New York’s suburbs, where Republicans tied high crime rates to failed progressive policing and criminal justice policies.

In Chicago, the majority of voters (54%) cited crime as the most important issue to their vote this year, per polling by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, for the Manhattan Institute. Chicagoans’ concerns about crime also led to the downfall of progressive Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose perceived failure to address the issue made her the first incumbent to lose reelection in four decades, after failing to advance out of a primary round.

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Although the progressive wing has been emboldened by Johnson’s win, the left must recognize that this come-from-behind victory would not have been possible if Johnson hadn’t moderated his position. Toward the end of the campaign, Johnson walked back previous statements where he had expressed support for cutting police funding. He outwardly made a promise that he was “not going to defund the police.” Johnson also aired ads promising to add 200 new detectives to the Chicago Police Department.

While perceptions that Vallas was a closet Republican likely also aided Johnson’s win – as Vallas was once heard referring to the impeachment of Trump as a “witch hunt” – many polls showed Vallas leading prior to Johnson’s pivot on public safety.

Johnson’s narrow victory suggests that there is a need for national Democrats to formulate a common-sense, holistic public safety platform. It should involve drawing a contrast with the GOP’s extreme guns-everywhere agenda, rejecting defunding the police, and supporting law enforcement as well as public safety programs related to education, job training, and mental health services.

By pairing this moderate public safety positioning with their messaging on abortion rights, the Democratic Party can set itself up for success in 2024.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Orange County Register

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Douglas Schoen: Democratic wins in midwestern elections offer the party a roadmap for 2024

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