Energized Democrats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could face 'an unprecedented level of chaos' in 2023

26 December 2022

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were two of the swing states in which far-right MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump-endorsed candidates and election denialists suffered their share of disappointments in the 2022 midterms. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won a gubernatorial election, flipped a GOP-held U.S. Senate seat and obtained a narrow majority in the State House of Representatives. And in Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was reelected, although Democrats were disappointed when Republican Sen. Ron Johnson defeated Democrat Mandela Barnes and won a third term.

With 2022 drawing to a close, it won’t be long before Pennsylvania and Wisconsin’s midterms winners are seated. What may lie ahead for Democrats in these key swing states in 2023 is explored in post-Christmas articles — one by Philadelphia-based Holly Otterbein for Politico, the other by Chris Stein for The Guardian.

Otterbein stresses that politically, the Pennsylvania State Legislature could see a lot of “chaos” in 2023.

“Democrats in Pennsylvania won the majority of seats in the State House this fall, powered by voter backlash to the fall of Roe v. Wade,” Otterbein explains. “But come next year, it’s anybody’s guess which party will actually hold the speaker’s gavel. A razor-thin victory by Democrats, combined with a handful of vacancies and the hardball political culture in the state capitol, has kicked off a high-stakes battle for control of the House.”

Otterbein continues, “At the heart of the matter is a disagreement over which party has the right to set the special elections to fill seats that became empty because two Democratic State House members resigned for higher office and another died. Democrats want to hold the contests — which they are expected to win — right away, allowing them to claim their majority next year. GOP legislators, meanwhile, hope to push back the date for three more months, in the process keeping their majority intact.”

Privately, Otterbein reports, Republicans and Democrats in Pennsylvania’s state government “fear the next few weeks could plunge the state into an unprecedented level of chaos.”

“If GOP lawmakers succeed,” Otterbein explains, “they could use their window of control to pass amendments to the constitution requiring voter ID, easing the rollback of regulations, and potentially even limiting abortion rights. Attempts to amend the state constitution were passed last session, and if they pass in two consecutive sessions, they will be put on the ballot for voters to consider without the need of the signature of Democratic Gov.-Elect Josh Shapiro.”

Otterbein notes that after Democrats narrowly flipped the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, their “celebrations were short-lived.”

“Two Democratic State House members — Summer Lee and Austin Davis — stepped down because they won higher office,” Otterbein notes. “Another Democrat, Rep. Tony DeLuca, died shortly before the election. That left Democrats with an anticipated 99 seats to Republicans’ 101 at the start of next year. (Democratic State Rep. Joanna) McClinton was sworn into office by a county judge the same day Lee and Davis resigned. Afterward, the acting secretary of state, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, signed off on McClinton’s dates for the three special elections to be on February 7.”

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, State Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler views 2023 as a chance for members of his party to fight back against the severe gerrymandering that Republicans have brought about in his state, according to The Guardian’s Stein.

Before Wisconsin’s midterms elections, Stein reports, Wikler “feared that in Wisconsin, his party was on the brink of…. permanent minority status in a state that is crucial to any presidential candidate’s path to the White House.”

Stein explains, “Had Democrat Tony Evers lost reelection as governor, or had the GOP achieved supermajority control of both houses of Wisconsin’s legislature, Republicans could have exercised total control over the swing state’s levers of power — and ensured that its Electoral College votes never again helped (President Joe) Biden or any other Democrat win the White House…. Wisconsin has the most gerrymandered legislative map in the country, designed to ensure the GOP has as easy a path as possible to capture majorities in the legislature, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study.”

Wisconsin used to be a deep blue state. In the 1988 presidential election, Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis lost to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in California, Maryland, Colorado, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Nevada but carried Wisconsin by 4 percent. During the Barack Obama years, however, Republicans gained a lot of ground in Wisconsin.

Wikler told The Guardian, “It’s a state where Republicans have tried to engineer things to make it voter-proof. All of that meant that, this election cycle, the stakes were explosively high…. When the state has election after election that comes down to tiny margins, even a relatively small shift in the rules can have an enormous impact on statewide races and presidential races.”

In 2020’s presidential, Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes and picked up 306 electoral votes despite losing Florida — a state that has become increasingly difficult for Democrats. Florida will have 30 electoral votes in 2024, and many Democratic strategists are feeling quite pessimistic about the Sunshine State — which makes Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia (all of which Biden won) even more important for them.

Wikler, according to Stein, “now sees an opportunity for” the Wisconsin Democratic Party “to undo the state’s gerrymandered maps, and take back control of the legislature, starting with an election for the state supreme court in April.”

Wikler told The Guardian, “That’s the north star of the party — it’s to have a Democratic governor.… a non-Republican majority on the (Wisconsin) State Supreme Court, Democratic majorities in the State Assembly and State Senate, and pass the agenda that Wisconsinites have been yearning for for the last decade into law in one legislative session.”

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