Baldwin’s Got the Blue Print

Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced yesterday, to no one’s surprise, that she’ll seek a third term. She’s likely to get it.

So far, no Republican has stepped up to challenge her. By this time in his reelection cycle, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson had four serious challengers vying for the chance to take him on as the Democratic standard bearer. So, that tells you something about how eager Republicans are to face Baldwin. Not so much.

It’s true that Baldwin has had some luck in her election years. Her first win came in 2012 in Barack Obama’s reelection year, but still, she beat iconic Wisconsin pol Tommy Thompson in an upset. The cycle in 2018 was something of a backlash against Donald Trump, but on the other hand, Republicans had a hard time scraping up an opponent and she toasted state Sen. Leah Vukmir. Next year could be another good one for Democrats if the economy can stay out of recession, inflation continues to cool, and Republicans keep handing them gifts on the abortion issue.

Baldwin is an unabashed liberal who wins in a purple state. Hers is a formula Democrats should study to understand how to do this right. I would say her success comes down to the following components:

Personality. Like Gov. Tony Evers, Baldwin is understated. She’s whip smart and certainly could come up with the snappy quote if she wanted. But she’s disciplined and restrained. She doesn’t say stupid things and she doesn’t make mistakes. She never squanders political capital. Overall, she is just a likable, sincere person and that comes through to voters. She may have gone to Smith, but she’s very Midwest.

Pork. I worked with Baldwin when she was in Congress and I was Mayor of Madison. Baldwin worked hard to get “member directed funding” into her district. League of Women Voters types sniff that that’s “pork”, but you know what? Wisconsin sends a ton of money to the feds and we get a lot less than a ton in return. Anything we can do to make sure that a little bit more of our tax money finds its way back here is a good thing in my book. The rebuilding of East Washington Ave. and of State St. were just two of the big projects that got done with less strain on local property taxpayers thanks to Baldwin. As Senator she’s done that for the whole state. It’s no accident that her announcement tour is being called “delivering for Wisconsin.”

Picks her spots. Like former Sen. Russ Feingold, Baldwin has honed the skill of the high-profile counter-intuitive position. For Feingold, among a few other things, it was supporting Pres. George W. Bush’s nomination of John Ashcroft for Attorney General. For Baldwin, it has been her support for delisting the grey wolf. That plays well in the northern part of the state, but more importantly it takes the edge off. Moderate voters see that and, even if they don’t care much about wolves one way or the other, they conclude that maybe she’s not ideologically pure.

Had it been Baldwin running against Ron Johnson last year I have no doubt she would have won. In fact, I don’t think it would have been close. As it was, Mandela Barnes was too easily cast as a hard-left ideologue. You can bet that the Republicans will try to do that to Baldwin. It’s not likely to work because she doesn’t cooperate with their narrative.

Democrats would do well to study how Tammy does it and then do what she does.