Some hear echoes in Trump vs. Biden
Similarities drawn to Walker vs. Evers in 2018
On the eve of the Democratic National convention, the rough contours of the 2020 presidential election seem clear. Among them:
A lightning-rod Republican incumbent — widely loathed by Democrats.
And a genial, gray-haired Democratic challenger invoking a return to normalcy and end to an era of political turmoil and drama.
Wisconsin Democrats have seen a version of this movie before. In fact, they lived it just a couple of years ago when they narrowly defeated their Republican archnemesis, Gov. Scott Walker.
“I was highly motivated in 2018 to defeat Scott Walker,” said Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. “And I am highly, highly motivated to defeat Donald Trump.”
The comparisons aren’t perfect, but strategists on both sides see echoes in 2020 of the remarkably close election for governor two years ago that generated the highest midterm turnout in Wisconsin in more than 70 years.
In both cases, a Republican incumbent disrupted the political order, inspired an unprecedented divide in how
he was viewed by voters in each party, survived an attempt to remove him from office and became the prime energizing force for supporters and opponents alike.
In both cases, Democrats nominated a candidate who ran as a reliable alternative to the political turbulence surrounding the incumbent.
Gov. Tony Evers said he saw some similarities between his candidacy and Joe Biden’s.
“I know that for some folks (being steady) may be boring, but frankly I think that being calm and steady and keep hitting on the same issues that you know people care about and being pragmatic about it, I think eventually pays off,” Evers said.
“Staying above the fray I think is important,” he said. “If that’s boring, boring wins.”
Scott Walker sees parallels to 2018
Even Walker sees similarities, though he couches them a little differently.
He said in both cases, Democrats did everything they could to keep the focus on their Republican opponent and not their own candidate.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say there is a very similar strategy in terms of not making the Democrat the focal point,” Walker said in an interview.
He also sees some parallels in the animus that he and Trump have inspired in the other party, despite their “somewhat different styles.”
But Walker suggested that antiTrump sentiment among Democrats probably trumps anti-Walker sentiment, something many Democrats concur with.
“Core Democrats hated me because they hated the policies,” Walker said in an interview Friday. “They hate Trump not just because of his policies. They just hate his style, his tweets, everything.”
Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said there are deep negative feelings in his party toward both Trump and Walker, “except it’s times ten” with Trump.
“He didn’t screw up a pandemic,” Maslin said of Walker. “He did his share of polarizing politics, but it was never as blatantly racist and divisive as this.”
Mark Pocan, the Democratic congressman from Dane County, said something remarkably similar.
“I’m not saying this as a fan of Scott Walker’s, but he didn’t kill tens of thousands of people more than needed to (die) in a pandemic,” Pocan said.
Polls measure extreme animus
Polling in Wisconsin suggests that, yes, Democrats do dislike Trump even more than they disliked Walker.
And that is saying a lot when you consider that Act 10, Walker’s policy curbing public employee unions, sparked the biggest protests in Wisconsin since at least the Vietnam War and prompted more than a million voters to sign recall petitions.
In Walker’s last year in office, his job rating among Democrats was 9% approval and 87% disapproval, according to the Marquette Law School; 73% of Democrats “strongly” disapproved.
Trump’s rating among Wisconsin Democrats this year is 5% approval and 93% disapproval — and 87% of Democrats “strongly” disapprove.
Walker got 8% of the Democratic vote in 2018, according to exit polls. In a June poll by Marquette, Trump lost Democrats to Biden 97% to 1%.
‘Derangement syndrome is real’
Republicans have their own take on the loathing that Walker and Trump have inspired in the opposing party. As Democrats went through the protests and recall movement against Walker, the governor’s supporters began referring to what they called “Walker Derangement Syndrome,” suggesting antiWalker sentiment had morphed into hysteria. Some Republicans have used the same language to deride what they called “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
GOP strategist Brian Reisinger, who worked for Walker, said the Walker recall effort and the Trump impeachment are both examples of overreach that did more political harm than good to Democrats.
“That derangement syndrome is real, and it distorts their sense of how to take on their opponent,” said Reisinger, who argued that despite Walker’s narrow defeat in 2018, “I don’t think (Democrats) ever really perfected their message against Scott Walker any more than they are with Donald Trump.”
What Republicans call derangement Democrats call an impassioned reaction to policies and governance they simply could not abide.
“There are just a whole lot of core commitments and values that these leaders are seen as destroying and undermining,” said Robert Kraig, a progressive activist and executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
Some Democrats say one electoral difference between Walker and Trump is that Walker enjoyed a broader political base, winning three elections with more than 50% of the vote, while Trump won Wisconsin with just 47%.
“They both have high floors and low ceilings,” said Democratic strategist Sachin Chheda, but he said Trump turned off a swath of the electorate that Walker never did, especially some suburban voters.
“I think a lot of the reason that Walker lost ground in the suburbs was because of Donald Trump,” he said. “So what I see happening this year is — 2018 was the appetizer to have the proxy fight, but you didn’t actually have Trump on the ballot. But this year is the main course where Trump himself is on the ballot and people can express that revulsion directly.”
Then there are the parallels between Biden and Evers. Both defeated younger or more progressive Democrats for the party nomination, though Evers had such an edge in name recognition that he wasn’t challenged the way Biden was.
Amanda Brink, a Democratic operative who ran Evers’ 2017 reelection campaign for state schools superintendent, said both Biden and Evers were known and liked figures among Democratic voters.
“I think there was a comfort level with Joe Biden because he’s a known quantity and people knew what to expect with him,” she said. “So even if he didn’t necessarily inspire people to get out of bed in the morning and run up and down the street knocking on every door possible, I think that there’s a comfort level with him that everyone’s experienced.”
‘Safe, kind of moderate white guys’
Both come off as “safe, kind of moderate white guys” who have paired themselves with running mates who are younger, Black and more progressive, Chheda said.
In the general election, both have run as the candidate of “stability” vs. the candidate of “drama.”
“People want that steady trusted leader. They don’t want to have crazy things happening every day,” said Melissa Baldauff, a Democratic strategist and former Evers spokeswoman. “They don’t want to have a president who fires the secretary of state by a tweet. I think most people would agree we’d like to get back to a time where things are a little bit less exciting.”
Kraig said he saw more of a substantive progressive message behind Biden’s candidacy than Evers’, whose campaign he said was more purely about ending the Walker era.
“Evers entirely relied on the antiWalker ‘fatigue’ and whatever was going on with the health care issue (in the midterms) and what was already Trump fatigue,” Kraig said.
The GOP critique of Biden and Evers is that they are simply running as “not the incumbent.” Poll after poll has shown that even though Biden is leading Trump, Trump voters are more ardent about Trump than Biden voters are about Biden.
In a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday, 66% of Trump supporters said they supported their candidate “strongly,” compared to 46% of Biden supporters.
Asked to express in their own words why they support their candidate, 56% of Biden voters answered with some version of “He is not Trump.”
That sentiment is echoed in interviews with voters.
Madison voter Valerie Brej said she was backing Biden primarily because she views it as imperative to oust Trump.
“He’s a terrible human being,” she said of the president.
“I suppose the upside is they’re able to bring what feels like an alternative to turbulent times,” Reisinger, the GOP strategist, said of Biden and Evers. “Perhaps that’s something that worked for Gov. Evers and may work for Sen. Biden.”
But, he said, the flip side is neither has a strong message or passionate base of support of their own, and their campaigns are almost completely about their opponent.
“The downside is you depend almost completely on the (political) environment and the feelings and opinions about the people in power,” he said.
“There are times when the environment is bad enough (for the incumbent) that it works. And it was (bad enough) in 2018 for this to be a winning strategy against Republicans,” he said. “It’s something that can work but it’s rife with risk.”
Maslin, the Democratic pollster, said one parallel between 2018 and 2020 in Wisconsin is that Democrats in 2018 felt chastened and motivated by the recall failure and past defeats. And in 2020, they feel chastened and motivated by the failure of the national Clinton campaign to truly contest Wisconsin in 2016 and “we handed this guy the state.”
“Now we know we really matter, and we’ve taken it seriously from the getgo,” he said.
Walker, the former governor, said that in 2018 there was a sense of urgency among Democrats but not Republicans.
Now he sees a sense of urgency on both sides. He said the GOP base is upset by what it sees as an unfair impeachment, by unrest and riots, and by the shutdown of the economy.
“They feel like everything’s coming undone, and overwhelmingly feel like many in the national media and clearly many Democrats have tried to look at all these things happening and somehow blame Trump for it,” he said.
Walker also has no doubts that the Democratic base is on fire, just as it was in 2018.
“Democrats don’t need any incentive in this state to come out,” Walker said. “They’ll walk through fire to vote against Donald Trump.”