9 Winning Issues For Democrats

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In the past year we’ve been hearing commentators argue that Donald Trump is a master of 80/20 issues — policies where roughly 80% of voters agree with him. For example his executive order, ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” barring transgender women from competing, which gets support from 75% of Americans. CNN’s conservative commentator Scott Jennings has been celebrated by some writers for his ridicule of Democrats who pick the losing side of such policies.

Of course that was until the November 4 election, when Democrats in state elections thumped pro-Trump Republicans. Trump is now underwater in the polls on nearly every major issue, according to Real Clear Polling.

Still, the idea of campaigning on obvious winning issues — say, those backed by more than 60% of voters — seems like a no-brainer.

“Democrats need to spend more time talking about things that are broadly popular, and less time talking about the things that aren’t,” said Democratic consultant Joe Zepecki in an email to Urban Milwaukee. “Candidates who do that amidst the cratering popularity of Trump and the Dems will win a ton of races next year.”

But Marquette University Law School pollster Charles Franklin cautions that issues like red-flag laws and background checks at gun shows get big support in polls, “but are rarely the most motivating to voters, which usually are about more closely, and hotly, contested issues.”

Inevitably, campaigns tend to be about bigger issues like “the economy, stupid.” Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayor’s race, despite being attacked as a socialist extremist, by making the cost of housing a powerful issue. Tony Evers won for governor in 2018 with a highly popular call to “fix the damn roads.” With that in mind, what are some obviously popular issues candidates for governor might run on?

1. Raise the minimum wage. Talk about a pocketbook issue. Raising the minimum wage to $15 would help 831,000 workers in the state, including 38% of all workers in Milwaukee. A $12 minimum wage would have less impact but gets support from 80% of Americans. Across America 34 states have raised the minimum wage to more than the federal minimum. For Democrats, it would be a defining issue, one that Wisconsin Republican legislators have opposed for decades.

2. Expand Medicaid. Accepting full federal funding of Medicaid would would extend health coverage to more low-income residents while saving Wisconsin an estimated $850 million a year in state spending on BadgerCare. Here, too, Wisconsin is an outlier: 40 states and Washington D.C. have expanded Medicaid. Polls show 70% of people in Wisconsin favor this.

3. Legalize Marijuana. The MU poll has found that 86% in Wisconsin favor legalizing medical marijuana, yet Republican legislative leaders continue to oppose this. The poll found 63% support legalizing it for recreational use. And this is also a money issue: The Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates Illinois collected $36.1 million last year in cannabis taxes from Wisconsin residents who traveled there to buy marijuana.

4. Tuition aid for lower-income students. The cost of college is leaving many young Wisconsinites in debt. It’s a problem for all families, White, Black, Hispanic and Asian. One poll found 77% of Americans agree that states should spend more to make two-year colleges more affordable. As for where the money would come from, the tax on marijuana or savings from expanded Medicaid would provide more than enough for a significant program.

5. Affordable housing. The ability to find affordable rental housing or a starter home is a huge issue for younger voters, as much data and numerous stories have reported. Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany has promised to make housing more affordable. Democratic candidate Missy Hughes has promised to “Ensure Wisconsinites have… housing they can afford.” Every candidate is likely to jump on the issue, but what is the solution?

6. Fairer Taxes. Polls show that 57% to 79% of Americans favor higher taxes on the wealthy, depending on how the question is worded. When all taxes in Wisconsin are combined, the wealthiest 5% pay about 7% of their income in taxes, compared to the rest of us who pay 9% to 10.8%, depending on your income bracket, as Urban Milwaukee’s Data Wonk has reported. In short, the issue can be framed not as soaking the rich but making them pay their fair share.

7. Safer schools, safer children. Republicans often run on crime, but Democrats might want to note that firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. There were 330 incidents with guns at schools in 2024, 39 with injuries or deaths. According to Pew Research, some 90% of Americans support universal background checks for guns; about 75% favor red flag laws that take guns away from individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others; and 79% favor raising the minimum age for buying guns to 21 years old.

8. Support for child care. Three-quarters of U.S. adults see child care costs as a “major problem,” according to a recent poll. “About two-thirds support providing free or low-cost day care for children too young to attend public school, and a similar share favor requiring employers to provide paid family leave for new parents,” a story by PBS reported. The issue affects working families across party lines.

9. Cut utility costs: Residential electricity costs have risen by almost 30% since 2021 and residential gas costs by 40% since 2019, both significantly outpacing inflation. Tiffany has jumped on the issue, promising to “drive down energy costs by unleashing reliable baseload power.” Typically baseload power means fossil fuels, which are more polluting and more expensive than renewable energy and must be imported from other states. Whereas solar and wind energy can be produced — and create jobs — in Wisconsin. In New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherill won the race for governor after promising to freeze utility rates and produce more clean energy. In Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger won after making similar promises.

At a time when Democrats have been debating how liberal or moderate a candidate needs to be, these nine issues arguably fit under either label. They are mainstream positions with broad voter support, yet what uber-liberal wouldn’t want to tax the rich, raise the minimum wage and fund child care?

Many of these issues speak directly to concerns about inflation and affordability that were major themes in the recent election, in the 2024 race that Trump won, and may still define politics a year from now. Republicans have to hope inflation declines by next November and they can make the campaign about lowering taxes and fighting crime, while diverting Democrats into culture-war battles like “banning sanctuary cities” or whether “girls’ sports and locker rooms should be for girls” — two issues Tiffany is pushing. It wouldn’t be the first time that strategy has worked.