The word of the week, energy. Democrats are flying high following their party convention
in Chicago. Now they look toward their push to November. We check in now with Democratic
Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wirkler. Thanks so much for being here.
So how do you maintain the energy of that convention and translate it into votes for
your candidates? Well, for all the Democrats that were here,
their first step is to drink some tea and recover their voice after cheering arts out
for the last four nights for Democrats across the country. I think you can think of this
convention as almost like a bolt of lightning that went directly into a weather rain connected
to a giant battery. And that battery now has to power us to zoom through the next 73 days.
We have this tiny window of time to take everything that we learned over this last week about who
Kamala Harris is daughter of the middle class, daughter of immigrants who loves this country so
much and has seen what it can do, the opportunity that it can offer and wants it to offer that
opportunity to everyone of Tim Walz who embodies his small town's value for being a good neighbor,
for looking after everyone and for as a coach, making sure people know that they have the power
to make things better. He gave a pep talk to the entire audience at the convention and we're ready
to run through a wall. That's essentially what we have to do. It's called the Blue Wall in Wisconsin
as the centerpiece of it. How do you put Democrats' money advantage to work to win in November?
Well, in a funny way, money is an indicator of enthusiasm. There are, as far as I can tell,
millions of people who've chipped in at Kamala Harris dot com and made small donations and big
donations over the course of this convention, just in an extraordinary clip, the key thing that the
campaign has to do, that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has to do, is make sure that that money
translates into clear communication that connects with people's values and that can come in the
form of hiring organizers to connect with the 42,000 volunteers who've signed up in Wisconsin
since Kamala Harris became our nominee to connect with those volunteers and make sure they're ready
to go and knock on doors and talk to undecided voters. It can be TV ads that I'm sure people are
going to see not on just about every screen that they can turn on, including their phones,
probably at gas stations when you're filling up your tank. We know that the other side in
this campaign is already investing millions of dollars in Wisconsin and across the country.
We cannot be out communicated. We can't be outworked. We can't be out organized.
We have to deliver in the same way that we just saw Vice President Harris do from the convention
stage last night. Why is the race so very close in Wisconsin? Well, Wisconsin's a 50-50 state.
We're the only state where four of the last six presidential races has come down to less than
one percentage point. And that's not just presidential races. Our Senate race in 22,
one point, governor's race in 2018, one point, one point. I'd love to get to that extra one point
one. This is the state where there's just a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans, a lot of people
who think through with each election, which part of they're going to vote for and some people who
think through whether they're going to vote. For all of those voters, it is critical that they hear
on a regular basis very clearly that Vice President Harris is going to fight for them,
that she wants them to be free. She doesn't think the government should be interfering in
their personal lives. And she thinks the government should be ensuring that big companies, like big
pharma, can't price gouge, can't force up costs for people that want to be able to afford their
medicine and their groceries at the same time, which shouldn't be that tall of an order in the
wealthiest country in the world. She's here to give a middle-class tax cut and ensure that the
wealthy pay their fair share. And she laid out a vision at this convention of really a country that
lifts everyone up, whether you live in a rural area or a city or a suburb. She's lived a month
at different places, including in Wisconsin as a kid. And she brings that life experience to bear
as she thinks about the kind of president that she's ready to be. Tammy Baldwin is ahead in
polling over her challenger Eric Hubde for the U.S. Senate. Can she count on that polling?
Well, again, this is Wisconsin. I remember a poll in 2020 that said that Joe Biden was 17
points ahead. He won by six-tenths of a percentage point. So if you're running, or if you think
it's important that someone win, if you think that you would want Tammy Baldwin to get to the
United States Senate and keep fighting special interests and working to pass the Women's Health
Protection Act to make the Roe v. Wade the Law of the Land, don't trust any poll that says this
is a landslide. Work. Work as though it's not within the margin of error, that it's within the margin
of effort. And that means pulling out your phone and thinking through and finding which
friends of yours might not have voted before, who might have moved and not updated their voter
registration, who sometimes votes Republicans, sometimes votes Democrat, go call them and talk
to them about why they might care about Tammy Baldwin defeating Eric Hubde. And while they're
at it, vote for state legislative races, House races, and vice president Harris.
We leave it there. Ben Wickler. Thanks very much.
Thanks so much for having me on.
I love it. I just ask a really short question, and then you go.
Thank you. Marissa says it's that battery. Anyway, thank you so much.
Yeah, I'm all started up. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Really. Bye.