Wisconsin’s Election Results: A Call to Action Against Threats to Our Communities

(Milwaukee, November 8, 2024) In the November 5th election, Wisconsin witnessed the disheartening presidential victory by the far-right MAGA party driven by fear-mongering, lies, and scapegoating of immigrant, transgender, Black, and Brown communities. In Wisconsin, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by a narrow margin of 29,353  votes, granting him the state’s ten electoral votes. However, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin prevailed against her opponent, Hovde, by an equally narrow margin of 29,229 votes.

Voces de la Frontera Action proudly stands on the just side of history and organize a significant base of Latines, immigrants, and multiracial youth across Wisconsin. This includes a state canvass of 140,000 households and our 37,000 relational voter program, Voceros por el Voto. We implemented a successful Election Protection program in 53 statewide wards with 110 trained volunteers. This is a credit to powerful year-round issue-based organizing and relational voter organizing.  It is this base that we must now lean into as we prepare to defend our families and communities and stand in solidarity with others.

At the state level, the elections represented progress as the gerrymandered supermajority control of Republicans in the state senate legislature was broken. Under fair maps, Democrats won 5 new seats, which opens the path to winning a majority in 2026. In the state assembly, Democrats gained ten new seats, though Republicans retained a majority. Despite not having a majority, fair maps means greater accountability and pressure on our elected officials to respond to the community’s demands.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera Action, made the following statement:

“For those who celebrate a Trump victory, who are not part of the elite and 1% billionaire ruling class, the consequences of this election will open their eyes to what it means to live under authoritarian white supremacist rule.

Trump is not on the side of working-class people. His policies of mass deportation, family separation, massive tax breaks for the ultra-rich, tariff wars, privatization, and anti-union, anti-worker politics will lead to a major economic and social crisis. These policies will create rampant inequality for working-class people and further decay the integrity of our democratic institutions.

On the other hand, the national Democratic Party, influenced by corporate interests, has for too long failed to champion the rights and needs of working-class people who are angry and frustrated. Additionally, for  Latinos, there is a deep resentment against the Democratic Party because of broken promises to pass comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act. Although close, both the Obama and Biden administrations failed to do so and undocumented immigrants, their families, and their communities continue to suffer.

Another contribution to the far-right movement was the national Democratic Party national strategy of adopting  Trump’s far-right rhetoric and policies on the border.  By making the enforcement-only Senate border bill the centerpiece of their immigration policy campaign, Democrats reinforced the Trump disinformation campaign, which framed new immigrants as an “invasion” of “criminals,”  further creating division within the once-solid Latino Democratic Party political base.

Another critical issue was that the Democratic Party and VP Harris, throughout the campaign, failed to address or distance themselves from the U.S financing of the ongoing genocide by the Zionist Netanyahu Israeli government which has murdered over 45,000 Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis of starvation and disease affecting millions of displaced Palestinians.

Lastly, late funding to trusted social justice organizations in swing states impacted their ability to scale up. While our electoral efforts may have yielded different results than we hoped for, our commitment to building a larger united front against fascism and for economic and social justice is unwavering. We have been here before. We are prepared to defend our families, communities’ and stand in solidarity with all who are also under attack and struggle against hate and division. Join us.”

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.