NE Wisconsin Flexes on Election Day

By: Kelly Fenton/Vice Chair

A winter storm, a spring election … and more big wins for Northeast Wisconsin and Outagamie County.

We’ll never know how much the blizzard that arrived mid-day on Tuesday hurt our turnout. After all, we once again outworked our GOP counterpart here in Outagamie County. The Outagamie Democratic Party was a large reason the Northeast Region hit the most doors in the entire state over the final three Get-Out-The-Vote weekends. But when you’re the party inspiring people to vote you have to think that a significant portion of those who couldn’t make it to the polls on Tuesday were our voters. 

Then, too, the Trump cult no doubt turned out in force for the presidential primary, which worked against us.

Nonetheless, while we didn’t sweep the races we supported like we did two years ago, we still won more than we lost. 

Congratulations to Tim Bantes for winning a seat on the Grand Chute Town Board. His win, along with Brad Gehring’s, will restore much-needed – and long overdue – integrity and sanity to a chaotic board. And here we must heap mounds of praise and thanks on Julia Squier and her Grand Chutes OAT team. They showed what happens when you not only work for a candidate and for a cause but become fully invested in doing so. That whole team never stopped from February through election day, whether it was countless phone calls or knocking doors. Take note: This is how we win. Thank you all at the Grand Chute OAT team!

Congratulations also go out to Jayme Heiser for his county board win and to Martyn Smith, the newest member of the Appleton Common Council. Way to go Julie Arendt Vanden Heuvel in Hortonville. And Josh Karl’s re-election to the Kaukauna School Board will help hold back the moms-for-liberty forces seeking to ban books and fight ginned-up gender wars.

Thanks, too, to those who didn’t quite get across the finish line but put themselves out there and worked so hard. 

Finally, a shout out to Brown and Winnebago Counties, which both came up big on Tuesday, demonstrating just how solid our ground game is here in Northeast Wisconsin. We are the reason we will win in the fall. 

Thanks to all the volunteers – and candidates – who braved the cold and wind and rain and snow in the name of progressive values. If you weren’t on board for the spring elections, we need you in the fall – or before. The campaign begins in earnest next month. Commit to re-electing Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin as well as seizing on the momentum of the new maps to help us flip the assembly and the senate!

Our Democracy Depends on You.

*Blog posts represent the views of the author, but do not necessarily reflect the views of the local, state, or national Democratic Party*