Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hosted the Republican Party’s first 2024 presidential candidates debate on August 23. The GOP’s choice to kick off the election cycle in a divided state that, in recent years, has yielded a series of prominent victories for Democrats seems to be part of a strategy to try to reclaim lost ground. Each of the eight candidates who appeared on stage that night, however, stuck to positions on issues like abortion, climate change, and education that are increasingly out of step with Wisconsinites.
“These GOP candidates don’t share our values, which is why we’re ready to vote for real worker champions up and down the ballot,” Jay Klamer, a registered nurse at University of Wisconsin Health and Hospitals, says. “This Spring, we stood up for democracy by putting Justice Janet Protasiewicz on the [state] Supreme Court. This [2024] election, like never before, we will be organizing, taking to the streets and demonstrating our collective power . . . at the ballot box.”
Fox News, which aired the debate, began the program with a video about the ways that national politics has influenced Wisconsin life in the past decade. It showed footage from protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the summer of 2020, and others following the June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, which led to 1849 Wisconsin state law banning abortion going back into effect. These events, the video implied, has shifted the state’s political base away from its once firm conservative roots that had raised politicians like former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and former Governor Scott Walker.
While not mentioned during the debate itself, earlier this year Wisconsin voters elected Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge, to the State Supreme Court, flipping the court’s ideological majority and bringing hopes of reversing the 1849 abortion ban and challenging the gerrymandered electoral maps drawn by the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Republican supermajority.
In actuality, Former President Donald Trump was the only Republican candidate to win Wisconsin since 1984. Protasiewicz’s victory came after Democratic Governor Tony Evers won reelection in 2022 by a solid margin.
For Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a low-wage worker and immigrant-led community organization, the GOP debate—along with next year’s planned Republican National Convention that will also be held in Milwaukee—provides an opportunity to energize voters.
“This is a good way to remind people of the importance of continuing to participate and to grow their political power,” Neumann-Ortiz tells The Progressive. “There are [political] dangers and voting is not enough. We have to continue to voice demands and consistently look for better and better candidates. We are making progress in Wisconsin and we can't go back. We can’t afford to go backwards.”
Voces de la Frontera, along with members of the Poor People’s Campaign, Fight for $15, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and others—held demonstrations in Milwaukee against the GOP’s decision to use the city as an election venue. “I was against the Republicans hosting events in Milwaukee because there are a lot of people of color here. Plus, this city is a working class city and the Republican Party is the party of Trump,” says Neumann-Oritz. “White supremacist voters have been [supporters] of Trump, [especially on the] far right with white supremacist organizations like the Proud Boys.”
During the immigration portion of the debate, deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexico border became a litmus test of candidates’ willingness to use lethal force to curb illegal immigration. “I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine but I am going to send them to our southern border,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is second-place in current primary polls at around 15 percent (thirty-seven points lower than Donald Trump), said. “When these drug pushers bring fentanyl across the border that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to use force and leave them stone-cold dead.”
Regarding abortion, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, currently polling at around 3 percent, proved to be the most moderate. While Haley said she is “unapologetically pro-life,” she doesn’t see a federal total ban on abortion being feasible and doesn’t think women should be scrutinized for making a tough decision.
“Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions?” Haley asked. “Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them? Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available? And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”
DeSantis, who as governor enacted a six-week abortion ban in Florida, said he understands that each state will face abortion differently. Despite this comment on states handling the procedure differently, he reiterated his support for a pro-life agenda if elected President.
“I understand Wisconsin is going to do it different from Texas,” DeSantis said. “I understand Iowa and New Hampshire are going to do it differently [as well], but I will support the cause of life as governor and as President.”
When asked early in the evening to raise their hands if they believed that human activity is responsible for climate change, all eight candidates refused. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who, at thirty-eight, was the youngest on stage, went furthest in denying the science. “More people are dying due to bad climate change policies,” he claimed, “than they are due to actual climate change.”
Outside of appealing to the MAGA base, it’s not clear which section of voters that the candidates were trying to court by embracing such hardline stances. Fifty-four percent of people in the United States view climate change as a major threat, while 61 percent want abortion to be legal. And although those stats decrease when restricted to Republicans, the overall numbers in Wisconsin are nearly the same: 59 percent on climate change; 60 percent on abortion. That the Republican Party has continued to veer away from popular opinion could be a sign that Wisconsin may not swing red again any time soon.
The next Republican presidential debate will take place on September 17 in Simi Valley, California, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. Trump did not participate in the Milwaukee debate and instead gave an exclusive interview to former Fox host Tucker Carlson. “The public knows who I am,” he stated on his personal platform Truth Social.