Wisconsin: How We Win

2024 Electoral Goals

Presidency: Win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes.
U.S. Senate: Re-elect Senator Baldwin.
U.S. House: Flip or maximize vote share in WI-03, held by Rep. Van Orden (R).
Governorship: Not up for election until 2026.
Legislature: Flip the State Assembly and make substantial gains in the State Senate, in the first competitive election with fairly-drawn legislative maps in 14 years.
State Supreme Court: Build early infrastructure to re-elect liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in Spring 2025, to defend the court’s 4-3 liberal ideological majority.

Political Landscape

Presidential Vote Margins			U.S. Senate Vote Margins
2020	D	+0.6%	2022	R	-1.0%
2016	R	-0.7%	2018	D	+10.8%
2012	D	+6.7%	2016	R	-3.4%
2008	D	+13.9%	2012	D	+5.6%

Balance of Power

U.S. Senate: 1 Democrat, 1 Republican
U.S. House: 2 Democrats, 6 Republicans
Governorship: Democratic
State Senate: GOP majority (22 – 11)
State Assembly: GOP majority (64 – 35)

2024 Strategy

1) Double down on voter persuasion.

We can’t take any voters for granted this year. In 2020, Biden flipped Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, winning 92% of Black voters, 60% of Latine voters, and 59% of 18-29 year-olds. In 2024 these voters won’t go to Trump, but they might not vote. State polling shows voters view Biden as “too old” by a 32% margin over Trump; approve less of Biden than other state Democrats; and are 31% less enthusiastic to vote, with Trump winning “very enthusiastic” voters by 18%.

No one is better equipped to turn out disaffected Wisconsinites than MVP partners. These groups have the trust, credibility, and cultural competence to meet voters where they are. For example:

Power to the Polls is mobilizing voters they’ve engaged year-round, targeting 130k+ Black, Brown, and working-class households in Milwaukee, Racine, and other racially diverse wards.
Voces de la Frontera Action is recruiting relational organizing captains through its Voceros program to lead peer-based voter mobilization among Latine and multiracial youth, including 42,628 first-time voters in Brown, Dane, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, and Waukesha Counties.
In western Wisconsin, GROWW Action is using the empirically proven (and common sense) “talk less, listen more” approach of deep organizing — candid, non-judgemental, two-way conversations — to engage persuadable rural voters across seven counties.

2) Focus down-ballot to win up-ballot.

We can harness down-ballot energy to win at the top of the ticket. After years of organizing, Wisconsin now has fair legislative maps, creating a surge of optimism that Democrats could finally gain state power. Every state Assembly seat and half of Senate seats are up for election, and groups like Blue Sky Waukesha and GROWW Action are poised to leverage the “reverse coattails effect,” using down-ballot energy to increase vote share for federal races.

3) Make it about the issues.

Wisconsinites lean progressive on key issues. MVP partners are connecting the dots. 68% of Wisconsin voters support abortion rights protections. 81% support gun safety laws, 72% want more climate funding, 64% want to legalize marijuana, and 62% want trans rights protections — all issues that have languished due to extreme GOP gerrymandering. Groups like Climate Emergency Advocates, Fair Wisconsin, and others are mobilizing with a simple message: If we win in 2024, we can finally move these issues forward — for Wisconsin and the whole country.

Partner Snapshots

Citizen Action Of Wisconsin

Citizen Action of Wisconsin combines traditional organizing with deep canvassing, using Race Class Narrative messaging to move persuadable voters. In 2022, Citizen Action completed 183,848 voter conversations, and moved undecided voters by 10.9% to Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor! In 2024, the group is mobilizing voters in each region and recruiting legislative candidates in 15 races.

GROWW Action

Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) Action is a community-led organization building power, fostering solidarity, and creating concrete change in seven rural counties: Barron, Buffalo, Dunn, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, and St. Croix. In 2024, GROWW will persuade and turn out rural voters using deep canvassing, one-on-one follow-up, yard signs (found to have an outsized influence on rural voters), and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) by door, phone, and text. GROWW is targeting 23,416 people in thirty-four key municipalities showing the greatest shift in average two-way Democratic vote share since 2008.

Voces De La Frontera Action

Voces de la Frontera Action is Wisconsin’s leading immigrant rights group. Voces persuades and mobilizes Latine and multiracial youth voters through relational organizing and a canvass and phone program. Voces’ 2024 canvass will target 18,211 doors (21,884 voters), with three passes between August 17 and October 22 focused on candidate persuasion and vote-by-mail. From October 23 to Election Day, Voces will knock on a subset of these doors with GOTV messaging, including same-day registration and vote tripling, a relational organizing tactic that asks voters to get three other people in their life to cast a ballot.

2024 State Budget (Partisan)

Total Estimated Need: $50 million (all local voter organizing)
MVP Baseline and Stretch Goals: $10-$20 million