Wisconsin’s Big Win for Reproductive Freedom & Democracy
Wisconsin’s record-breaking state Supreme Court race wrapped up this month with an incredible 11 percentage point victory for Judge Janet Protasiewicz. The stakes were high with abortion policy, voting rights, and redistricting all on the line. Wisconsin is one of the states in which we have a proven track record of moving moderate white women toward progress, so we wanted to take a moment to recap this important race and the role Galvanize Action played.
The year kicked off with all eyes on the four candidates running in the February 21 primary, two conservatives and two liberals. Because this was a nonpartisan, open race it was possible that neither of the pro-choice, pro-democracy candidates would advance to the general election on April 4, and early polling indicated things were leaning in that direction. Galvanize Action’s research, messaging, and audience insights—made widely available in our Playbook—made it possible for the One For All Committee to quickly jump in. One For All became the only entity running independent expenditure ads for Protasiewicz in the primary. Together with organizations leading get out the vote efforts and others running attack ads against the extremist candidates, these ads played a key role in helping Judge Protasiewicz move from 3rd to 1st place, securing the win she needed to move on to the general election.
Building on their success in the primary, One For All developed, tested, and ran 11 ads for the general election—like the one below—proven to move moderate white women to say they’d cast a vote for Protasiewicz by significant margins.
As we often share on this blog, Galvanize Action roots all of its work in research and we’re always looking for new opportunities to learn more about our audience. This Supreme Court election provided many such opportunities! Throughout the race, we saw abortion and crime take center stage as the primary issues at play. But we also witnessed virulent attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. We saw this in heated school board races, parents suing school districts, anti-trans attack ads, and even kids being prohibited from singing Miley Cyrus & Dolly Parton’s “Rainbowland.” Knowing this strategy will continue to be used to pull folks to extremes, we ran a national survey to deepen our understanding of attitudes about gender identity and expression. What we learned is that there is a real opportunity here: almost half (49%) of the white women surveyed do not yet hold strong beliefs on the subject. We are incredibly well positioned to connect with our audience on this issue, and have already begun message development and testing to move us toward progress. We’ll be sharing these ads later this year, so stay tuned! In the meantime, we’re taking a moment to feel grateful for this important victory for Wisconsin, our rights, and our country.
