With victory comes a warning for Democrats

This story was originally published by Barn Raiser, your independent source for rural and small town news.

Many voters in my home of Wisconsin, like voters across the nation, have little problem switching their vote from party to party every two years. Especially if they feel elected officials have broken campaign promises, betrayed the values they claimed to espouse, or refused to, as Molly Ivins put it, “dance with them what brung ya.”

For the first time in 16 years, Democrats in this battleground state will have a trifecta in the state, controlling the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly, along with the governor’s office. Democrats also flipped two U.S. House seats in Wisconsin’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts.

Wisconsin’s history of gerrymandering loomed large over the proceedings. In 2024, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers approved redistricting for the statewide districts after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the previous maps in 2023, ending a 12-year Republican gerrymander. The new maps, in addition to voter reaction against Republicans, helped propel Democrats to a 7-seat majority in the state Assembly and a 3-seat majority in the state Senate.

At the same time, Wisconsin’s congressional districts are still heavily gerrymandered, so the strong shift to Democratic control was not expected—at least by pollsters and politicians. But clearly being closely tied to President Trump was a losing proposition, whether you were gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany or Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd Congressional District.

Republicans promised to “drain the swamp,” but voters saw them as making it bigger and even muddier. They saw the corruption and self-dealing in the White House as something they did not vote for.

Farmers saw their markets taken away and their input costs driven up by the president’s tariffs, faulty trade policy and war on Iran, while the folks they elected—the ones who promised a new golden age for agriculture—did nothing to stop the base impulses of an authoritarian president. By dropping sanctions on Russia to allow the import of diesel fuel, the president again snuggled up to his old buddy Vladimir Putin.

So much for Trump’s hard line against Russia—and, by the way, no diesel fuel from Russia has arrived in the United States, and if it did it would amount to only a few days’ supply. The promised $8 billion in aid to farmers to help defray the high cost of diesel, if it actually happens, will probably not show up until January. For farmers filling up their combine at $1,000 per tank of diesel, it’s too little too late.

Rural residents, like urban folks, understand the math that decides their daily lives. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which passed in 2025, cutting taxes on the richest Americans with little relief for everyone else, was just another example of the Republican-controlled Congress showing obeisance to their president and ignoring their constituents.

Cutting Medicaid, removing people from coverage under the Affordable Care Act and giving seniors a one-time $90 payment to cover their Medicare premium was a slap in the face. The cost of gas, food and most everything else rose sharply while the president boasted “We’re making a frickin fortune.” Folks saw spending on domestic programs cut while no expense was spared on the president’s vanity projects in Washington D.C. and his war on Iran. Meanwhile, more military aid continued to fuel the destruction of Gaza and the West Bank.

People realized that the massive funding increases to Homeland Security, especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), were not being used to deport the “worst of the worst” as promised, but the workers who keep farms, food processing and so many other parts of the economy working. They saw their neighbors, friends and family members targeted and deported because they didn’t fit the profile of a white American.

All this made no difference to the MAGA loyalists, but normal folks are not vindictive for the sake of vindictiveness, and it caught up with those elected Republicans who remained silent and refused to rein in a corrupt, greedy, self-serving administration. Once the blue wave started, it swept up state and local Republicans too.

I think this election was not about voters seeing Democrats as saviors, but rather, seeing Republicans as spineless, self-serving and dismissive of their needs. If, in two years, Democrats again fall into the trap of ignoring voters, they will be voted out.

Perhaps most important of all, the Democratic leadership needs to get over their penchant for tacking toward the Republican platform.

Voters have made it clear that the things people want are progressive policy, fair prices for farmers, fair wages so they can live with dignity, affordable healthcare and housing for everyone, fully funded public schools, a reasonable Department of Defense, not a Department of War, the richest Americans paying their fair share of taxes and most of all a country where everyone does better, not just the richest few or a narcissistic president, his family and cronies.

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