This is a good article but I think there is clearly some good news for Democrats in here that is kind of being overlooked in favor of red herring good news ... 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/trump-wisconsin-2020-election.html

People are treating this win as great for Democrats because they won by 10 points and thus they can repeat that in the fall. Because of the presidential primary, I don’t think this is totally the right takeaway. Different electorate ... 2/

But what is an important takeaway here is why Democrats were able to capitalize on some structural advantages and a changing process ... 3/

Democrats led by @BenWikler used his experience at @MoveOn to run a 21st century strategic campaign across the ballot. This doesn’t mean they were an exclusively digital campaign or that they used some fancy Silicon Valley Mike Bloomberg tech tool ... 4/

They ran a modern campaign by hiring several smart organizers, paid them a living wage and benefits, empowered them to customize outreach, and took the long term view of the race. ... 5/

The point about paying for good organizers is so freaking critical. Paying one organizer a living wage is so much more valuable to a campign than paying two part-time* organizers dirt.

*When you actually expect full time but as a volunteer. ... 6/

They saved their data and used it when they needed like in a pandemic to go entirely absentee. This was critical in being able to adapt in the final weeks of the campaign. ... 7/

Additionally like treating their staff like smart adult human beings, They also treated the electorate like smart adult human beings. That meant deciding early into the pandemic that they were not going to instruct even one voter to vote in person. ... 8/

They trusted the electorate given good info on TV and mail could see through the GOP’s bluster. They responded to negative ads, they engaged in negative ads themselves, and they didn’t insult people by acting like this was non-partisan (One of Neubauer’s 2019 mistakes) ... 9/

Lastly, Ben Wikler and Baldwin and the party pushed what advantages they had to the limit in exactly the right way. They utilized earned media from Pod Save America and interested journalists and they responded in a strong coordinated fashion for rapid response ... 10/

They worked with the campaigns even to the point of convincing Bernie to stay in to boost turnout with a contested primary. And they explained all of what they were doing 6-8 months ago. ... 11/

So the lesson from Wisconsin shouldn’t be that the natural electorate is turning away from Trump and thus Dems will win in November. Far from it. It’s that smart organizing, money and strategic earned media strategy deployed correctly and purposefully is enough to win. -End-