2018       General Election       Elected 55 – 45

Chuck Schumer has identified Senators who need to be reelected.  As Minority Leader in the Senate, he is more aware than any of us about the importance of the reelection of vulnerable Senators.  With an enormous number of Democratic Senators up for election, any thought of gaining a Democratic majority in the Senate first requires successful defense. 

Earlier, Schumer identified three Senators that it was important to support.  Recently, he has identified more.  Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin https://www.tammybaldwin.com/is one of the Senators for whom national support is important.

There was a time when Wisconsin was a reliable Democratic state.  No longer.  Wisconsin was one of the three “firewall” states that did not hold for Hillary Clinton, yielding an electoral college victory for now President Trump.  The majority leader of the US House of Representatives is from Wisconsin.  Wisconsin has a Republican Governor who has been elected, beaten a recall, and been reelected.  Wisconsin has a Republican Senator who has been elected twice.  

Tammy Baldwin is Wisconsin’s Democratic Senator.  Her political career is a reminder that Wisconsin was and may again be a home of liberalism.  In recent years, the center of Wisconsin’s liberalism has been the city of Madison –– the state capital and the site of the University of Wisconsin.  Valedictorian of Madison West High School, a graduate of Smith College, where she majored in political science and in mathematics, and of the University of Wisconsin Law School, Baldwin was raised primarily by her maternal grandparents (the biochemist son of Russian Jewish immigrants and an artist/chief seamstress of the UW theater department). 

Tammy Baldwin was committed to politics from a young age.  While in law school, she was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors after which she served a year on the Madison City Council. With those elected offices in hand and having practiced law for three years, TammyBaldwin was elected to the Wisconsin state assembly (first defeating other liberal Democrats in a primary, then defeating Republicans by wide margins). 

Six years after she was first elected to the Assembly, Tammy Baldwin was elected to the US House of Representatives (first defeating other liberal Democrats in a primary, then twice winning election by narrow margins over Republicans and subsequently by much larger margins in a redrawn district).

Fourteen years after she was first elected to the House of Representatives, Tammy Baldwin ran for the US Senate. She was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Shedefeated the former Wisconsin governor and US Secretary of Health and Human Services by six points.

As she moved from one legislature to the next, Tammy Baldwin was notable for two things1) She was one of only six openly gay politicians in the country to win a an election in 1992 when she was elected to the Assembly, was the first woman from Wisconsin and the first openly gay woman elected to Congress when she was elected in 1998, and  was the first gay woman to be elected to the Senate when she was elected in 2012.  2) She has been among the most liberal members of Congress — both in the House and the Senate.  She acted on behalf of women in a variety of ways — supporting issues that ranged from fair pay to opposition to violence against women. She opposed GW Bush’s Iraq War. She proposed bills to impeach Vice President Richard Cheney and Attorney General Antonio Gonzales.  She advocated for a single payer, government-run health care insurance plan, supported the public option when the ACA was being discussed, and, of course, voted for the ACA in its final form (Health insurance is a particular interest of hers. Her status as grandchild dependent and then her preexisting condition due to a lengthy and costly childhood illness precluded insurance coverage during her childhood). 

It is no wonder that Tammy Baldwin is a target for Republicans.  As is their wont, they have made up scandals for her.  Baldwin has been attacked and will be attacked again for failing to act on a complaint about inadequate Veterans’ services.  Politifact has declared the claims that she was responsible for the death of three veterans were false (ridiculous might have been a better description).  Politifact’s declaration, of course, does not mean that the Republicans will stop making that claim or that they will not make up other scandals.

  Tammy Baldwin https://www.tammybaldwin.com/deserves your support.  Like other candidates for 2018 elections, monthly donations are particularly helpful, even if the donations are small.  Think about whether you can sign up for a regular monthly donation or if there are other ways you can provide her with support.