This year’s highest-profile electoral contest gave Democrats an undeniable shot in the arm. A liberal judge, running on abortion access and safeguarding democracy, trounced a conservative judge with polar opposite views, flipping a state Supreme Court majority from conservative to progressive.
It all happened in a critical swing state, no less (Wisconsin), with liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz claiming 55% of the vote and an 11-point victory over conservative judge Dan Kelly in the nation’s most closely divided 50-50 state.
That 55% share of the electorate was impressive, and it just happened to be the exact share that Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg pegged as a new goal for Democrats in next year’s presidential contest.
The classic winning formula has been: How does a candidate get to 50-plus-1? In other words, how do they win a 51% majority of voters, thereby ensuring victory. Rosenberg is suggesting that the present-day landscape both calls for and lends itself to a wholesale breakup of the current iteration of the GOP.
The reason is twofold: First, the only way to break the back of a Republican Party firmly overrun by anti-democratic MAGA extremists is to obliterate that party at the polls so something completely different can emerge.