Wisconsin Working Families: Statement on Schachtner win and progressive wave sweeping state elections

Wisconsin Working Families Party political director Rebecca Lynch made the following statement on the progressive wave sweeping through Wisconsin following Patty Schachtner’s win for the 10th Wisconsin State Senate seat. For more information, contact Rebecca Lynch at rlynch@workingfamilies.org or 262-676-2587.

“Patty Schachtner’s decisive win for the 10th Wisconsin State Senate seat is sending shockwaves through the state and national Republican establishment.

They’re right to be alarmed. Voters are rejecting the Wisconsin politics that have been dictated by and for wealthy donors. A reckoning is coming for Wisconsin Republicans.

In every Wisconsin county, Republicans are being held accountable — at town halls and in the voting booth — for selling our state to the highest bidder.

In Madison, Governor Scott Walker and state Republicans have enriched themselves while leaving Wisconsin working families behind by gutting unions, starving our public education system, and granting a $5 billion corporate giveaway to Foxconn.

Meanwhile in D.C., Paul Ryan has ushered through a devastating tax plan, setting off the largest transfer of wealth upward in generations. Now he’s got Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in his sights, intent on ripping the safety net from under everyday Americans to serve his donors on Wall Street.

But candidates up and down the ballot are upending establishment politics in Wisconsin. In Racine, Randy Bryce, recruited by the Working Families Party and challenging Paul Ryan, is running a status-disrupting campaign that is outraising Ryan’s and capturing the enthusiasm — and frustration — of Wisconsin working families, while progressive Working Families Party candidate Cory Mason is the new mayor. And statewide, a vibrant field of candidates are competing to take on Scott Walker.

Our Wisconsin’s Choice campaign — in coalition with Our Wisconsin Revolution — is harnessing this progressive energy, building a progressive infrastructure by holding events and surveying voters across the state, from rural Wisconsin to the heart of our cities, to determine the course of this year’s gubernatorial election. This year, the people of Wisconsin — not the wealthy or corporate interests– will set the agenda and demand change.”