My first hint that Madison native Ben Wikler was becoming a big deal occurred backstage in September 2019 at Cap Times Idea Fest.
Tom Perez, then-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was preparing to take the stage. That summer, Wikler had become chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Spotting Wikler, Perez’s reaction was over the top. Perez’s face lit up and they enthusiastically embraced.
In the four years since, Wikler’s stock has only risen.
Recall that when Wikler took over here in Wisconsin, Republicans dominated a gerrymandered Legislature and most of state politics. Since then, Wikler has reinvigorated the party through exhaustive grassroots efforts statewide and by raising $230 million for races here in the past five years, an amount his campaign staff says is almost six times greater than the previous five years.
He helped Gov. Tony Evers win a second term, which was the first time a Wisconsin Democrat won a gubernatorial race with a Democratic president in office since JFK. Wikler was also instrumental in flipping a conservative 4-3 state Supreme Court majority.
The fairer election maps that resulted then helped Democrats flip 10 Assembly seats and four Senate seats in last month’s election. Though Donald Trump prevailed in the presidential race here, his margin was closest among the battleground states, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin was able to win reelection.
Wikler is now one of five major candidates campaigning to lead the Democratic National Committee. He’s been the subject of positive interviews with everyone from comedian Jon Stewart to a who’s-who of national print pundits. I spoke with Wikler recently about that campaign and about Wisconsin. The interview is edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about running for a job like DNC chairman.
There are 448 voters, so it’s like running for mayor of a small town. It is conversations, one after another, with DNC members to understand what they care about, to explain my vision for the party, to look for a chance to build a winning coalition. DNC members are people who work, often, far from the spotlights, overwhelmingly as volunteers to try to make a difference. They want to make sure that their state is going to be part of the vision for how the country moves forward.
They want to make sure their caucus or the labor movement is taken seriously … … It’s not just one and done. It’s sustained engagement. So, I would say that it’s seven-eighths time spent on the phone and time spent meeting with people, and then one-eighth doing press and attending forums and meetings.
How many voters have you contacted so far?
I have reached out to every single member of the Democratic National Committee and had dozens of conversations with individual members, as well as a chance to address different groups, like the state Democratic chairs association and the executive committee.
While your focus is national right now, what do you think Democrats here in Wisconsin should be thinking about? The 2025 state Supreme Court race, I’d imagine.
Yes. In Wisconsin, we have the biggest election of the first half of 2025, the first major contest of the new Trump era. We have one ultra-MAGA candidate (conservative Brad Schimel) who just viciously supported the pre-Civil War abortion ban in our state and opposed the Affordable Care Act and basic access to health care for people across the country. … We have Susan Crawford, who defended Planned Parenthood and is serving as a judge now, after work as a prosecutor and in private practice and in state government. … The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is doing everything in its power to gear up for that fight. It’s the second big project I’m working on while I run for chair.
In your DNC campaign, you do not seem primarily aligned with any Democratic faction — old versus young, far-lefties versus traditional Democrats. Is that your intent?
My campaign slogan is “Unite, Fight, Win,” and the first step in that is uniting folks who have sometimes been on different sides of a big debate within the Democratic Party. We share a set of values around making sure this is a country that works for working people. … Politics is the art of addition, and the constant Republican focus is to try to divide the Democratic Party and the Democratic coalition by pitting one group against another, or making the case that if someone gets included, that means that someone else is going to have to be excluded. Unity and diversity are core values that can reinforce each other when we do it right, and we see that as essential to work.
In several of your interviews, you focus on people making $50,000 or less, living paycheck-to-paycheck, totally disengaged from politics. You suggest that pandemic financial relief ended just as inflation spiked. You argue they voted for whatever seemed like change, and that was Trump. How do you break through with that voter?
In Wisconsin, the core model is organizing year-round and communicating year-round in every corner of the state, and when neighbors talk to neighbors, it’s a very different conversation than when somebody is listening to far-right radio and hearing a quote taken out of context from five years ago and told that that represents what Democrats are about. Trust is the most essential element in political life, and the Republican goal is constantly to corrode and destroy trust.
Trust is easier to break than to build, but when you keep showing up and when you have people communicating who have earned that trust and you show, through your actions as well as your words, that you’re actually fighting on the side of working folks, you can build a bond strong enough to withstand Republican attacks. Tammy Baldwin demonstrated that powerfully in this election. Even though there were huge numbers who turned out and voted for Trump, 54,000 of them weren’t willing to fill in the ballot to oppose Tammy Baldwin, and that made the difference in her race.
Some in Wisconsin politics talk about you being a potential governor one day. What are your thoughts as you seek this national position that would redirect your focus from Wisconsin?
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler smiles enthusiastically at the Orpheum Theater in November 2022 as just-reelected Gov. Tony Evers thanks him for his hard work during the campaign.
We have a great governor in Wisconsin (in Evers), who I’m a diehard fan of and proud to support. I’m always drawn to run into the biggest fire I can find, and at this moment, the fire is raging nationwide.
The sense of grief and futility among Democrats is palpable. Many curtailed or stopped consuming news as part of their grieving process. Do you hear that, and how does that play into your messaging?
The sense of despair comes from knowing what Trump plans to do to this country, and from the feeling of shock after so much energy was pouring out during the final stretch of this campaign. Somehow, we lost anyway. I think my message to folks is that the increase in Democratic turnout was real. We performed better in 46 counties across the state for Harris relative to Biden.
It is very clear in the data that the work we did had an impact, and it has put us on track to winning a trifecta, a very clear path to winning a House and Senate majority in 2026 and flipping the White House and building power at the state level across the country in 2025, ’26, ’27, and ’28. Trump is going to overreach. He’s going to screw things up. His plans are wildly, hideously, unpopular. We have a chance to win back, in a massive way. The key is to find that path and then walk it.
