I’m going to dig in to the polling and the battle plan in this thread. But I’ll say it up front: the thing you and I can most effect is our ground game.
Fund it. Fuel it. Chip in here.
Polls in Wisconsin are tightening. The presidential. The Senate race. They’re now hold-your-breath close.
But don’t hold your breath.
Organizing turns intent—which pollsters measure—into actual votes. Help us do it. Sign up to volunteer here.
Let’s start with the Senate.
Tammy Baldwin’s Senate race is now a toss-up.
How? Hovde shook up his team, went 100% negative, and tightened the race. The Cook Political Report poll found a 2% margin.
Internal polls on both sides confirm the Cook Political Report findings. Which is why GOP-aligned Super PACs have now flooded Wisconsin with $17 million in independent expenditure ads.
Meanwhile, in the presidential race, one polling average has Harris’ lead down to 0.3%. That’s right. Three tenths of a percentage point. The scorched-earth GOP attack ads have put the state on a knife’s edge.
The Senate. The Presidential race. And battles in the House and State Legislature will come down to the wire.
So what now?
It’s time for people power.
For the next 25 days—from now until the polls close on November 5—we flood the zone. Everything, everywhere, all at once.
On our side, we’ve been building for this moment for the last eight years, as even Fox News now concedes.
We’ve finally won fair maps, and amazing State Legislative candidates are engaging voters one by one in every corner of the state, as the New York Times covered today.
In our hundreds of neighborhood teams and dozens of county parties, in our youth chapters and caucuses, in our group chats and on our social media feeds, we’re rallying—then talking to voters who need that personal touch to ensure they vote for Harris, Baldwin, and Dems downballot.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side? Crickets. Or, more accurately, tweets.
The GOP’s ground game is now the domain of the richest person in the world. Elon Musk’s Super PAC is running the organizing for Trump. Reporting today suggests that Musk may be pumping in hundreds of millions of dollars, including in Wisconsin.
What will Musk buy for that money? His website says he’s paying canvassers $30 an hour to knock on doors, and paying swing-state voters $47 to sign a petition.
But we’re not seeing a lot of evidence in our state that doors are actually getting knocked on by his folks.
We see some door hangers here and there. One single Democratic volunteer has told me they saw an American PAC canvasser once. But it’s not like previous years, where we Dems see GOP canvassers on the street in town after town.
The gulf between the ground games doesn’t mean we can rest easy.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite. If the polls are tied, we need to organize like we’re one point behind—and the next door we knock could be the one that tips the whole election.
The vicious, dishonest TV ads from the GOP can feel overwhelming. Trump’s lies (and Vance’s lies, and Musk’s lies, and Hovde’s lies) can be nauseating. But don’t let them push you out. Resolve to turn your reaction into determination to fight back.
This election will be won by whichever side closes stronger. Every one of us is a part of that.
Sign up for a volunteer shift this weekend.
And then sign up for another, next weekend.
And then another, the final weekend before the election.
And then another on Election Day itself.
Volunteer here.
This is the home stretch. We have the power in our hands to save American democracy.
Let’s use that power—and let’s win this thing. Chip in here.
