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The Wisconsin Democratic Party under Ben Wikler’s stewardship is one of the great successes for Democrats. Four years after Donald Trump became the first Republican to win Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan’s landslide election in 1984, Wikler delivered the state for Joe Biden, flipped the state supreme court and held the governorship in what was supposed to be a blowout year for Democrats.
But during a press conference held by the Democratic National Committee on the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, it was clear that Wikler and Democrats were trying to regroup after a gunman shot Trump in nearby Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The RNC’s first day could not have gone off better for the GOP. MAGAworld celebrated his selection of Senator JD Vance as his running mate, and Trump received a racuous applause when he arrived at the Fiserv Center.
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, told the press that the shooting had not changed the party’s strategy — though some were skeptical about whether that was true.
“I would say that we've been focused on talking about the issues — reproductive freedom, workers’ rights, Social Security, Medicare, the economy, a fair tax code,” Fulks told reporters.
The team also sought to highlight Vance’s record on abortion, which they consider extremist.
Meanwhile, the ever-affable Senator Cory Booker, who like Vance is a Yale Law School alumnus, couldn’t help but undercut his own message that Vance’s section “presents this stark contrast in our country” by saying he and Wisconsin’s Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin — who faces a tough re-election in the Badger State — wish Vance well.
“It’s not easy to put yourself out there, especially on a presidential ticket,” Booker added.
Democrats did temporarily pause their campaign ads after the shooting. But just outside the RNC on day two, some trucks that said “Dictator, Day One,” — echoing Trump’s pledge to be a dictator “on day one” of a second term — parked themselves in front of the secured area where the convention is taking place.
Trump’s shooting obviously shook up Democrats. Almost immediately, Republicans sought to pin the blame on Biden, despite the fact that the president delivered an Oval Office address denouncing Trump’s shooting and making a plea for less violent rhetoric around the election.
But Kellyanne Conway immediately faulted Biden when The Independent spoke to her.
“I know that President Biden promised from the Oval Office to turn down the temperature but that didn't last long. He's already back out there attacking the former president,” she told The Independent, in a conversation at the RNC.
Conway, the longtime Trump consigliere, said she had no problem with discussions on policy, “but Joe Biden is really running his entire presidency and campaign about Trump, Trump Trump. So if you do that, then you have to figure out how to react and reflect to these latest events.”
Elsewhere, Brian Schimming, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, walked around the various kiosks like the mayor of a red dot in the blue city that is Milwaukee.
“It's such an unspeakable tragedy that I think, when something like that happens, political or not, the whole country looks at it and goes: It's not a partisan thing,” he told The Independent. “But in this case, it's President Trump. It's a political candidate. So I think the fact that it happened — he's rebounded from it. And we're here. It's not changed the convention schedule there.”
Schimming said that the shooting did not change the security planned for the convention but that he’d heard rumors Trump had changed some words in his planned speech.
And other changes to the schedule do appear to have happened. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom Trump hobbled by relentlessly mocking him before the 2024 primary even began, will speak after not appearing on the initial schedule. The same goes for Nikki Haley, the final person standing between Trump and the Republican nomination.
Democrats were already put into a crisis last month when Biden’s disastrous debate performance made them second-guess having him on the top of their ticket. But now, they have to navigate the nuclear football that is the aftermath of a political assassination. Meanwhile, Republicans are turning Saturday’s shooting into a reason to celebrate their leader.
