Democrats demoralized by Trump get a boost from Wisconsin voters and Cory Booker's speech
Democratic leaders are sharing a rare moment of relief — if not celebration — as they cling to election results from Wisconsin and Florida that offered a glimmer of hope for their party
NEW YORK (AP) — For a day, at least, Democrats across the country have a sense that their comeback against President Donald Trump may have begun.
It wasn't just about the election results in Wisconsin, where Democratic-backed Judge Susan Crawford won a 10-point victory against Trump and Elon Musk's favored candidate for the state Supreme Court.
Some Democrats highlighted New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon, record-setting 25-hour Senate speech as a rallying point for frustrated voters. Others pointed to congressional Democrats lining up with a handful of House Republican lawmakers to oppose a procedural rule that would have stopped a proposal for new parents in Congress to able to vote by proxy.
The series of victories gave Democratic leaders moments of relief and vindication of their strategy to focus on Trump's alliances with Musk and other billionaires. That’s even as some party officials warned that it was far too early to draw sweeping conclusions from a series of lower-turnout off-year elections with polls still showing that the party’s brand is deeply unpopular among key groups of voters.
“Elon Musk and Donald Trump are on the ropes,” charged Ken Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee. “We're just getting started.”
Democrats have had little to cheer about in the five months since Trump won a decisive victory in November's presidential election in which he peeled away a significant portion of working-class voters and people of color. And in more recent weeks, the party’s activist base has become increasingly frustrated that Democratic leaders have not done more to stop Trump’s unprecedented push to slash the federal government and the reshape the economy.
Democrats in Washington and in state capitals across the country privately conceded that a bad night, especially in Wisconsin, would have been devastating.
Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, lost to liberal-backed Crawford in a relative blowout, five months after Trump carried Wisconsin by less than 1 point.
And in Florida, Republicans won special elections in two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, but both candidates significantly underperformed Trump’s November margins.
“I went to bed last night feeling uplifted and relieved,” Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said Wednesday.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., predicted further political consequences for Republicans if they don’t resist the sweeping cuts to government services enacted by Musk and Trump.
“In swing districts, if I was a Republican, I would either decide how to stand up for your constituents or find out how to get a discount on adult depends, because one or the other is what you’re going to be needing to do,” Pocan said.
Rebecca Cooke, a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional district, said the election was a clear indication that voters are upset with how Trump and Musk “are messing with their lives.” But she stopped short of projecting confidence in future elections.
“We have work to do to build long term infrastructure in this party and to really build trust back with voters that I think have felt left behind by the Democratic Party,” said Cooke, a 37-year-old waitress who is running against GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden. “I think it takes time to build trust with voters, and it can’t happen overnight, and it can’t happen in just one election.”
In this week’s successes, Democratic officials believe they have confirmed the effectiveness of their core message heading into the 2026 midterms that Trump and his billionaire allies are working for the rich at the expense of the working class.
Indeed, talking points distributed by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday reinforced that notion while pointing to what the committee described as “an undeniable trend” after recent lower-profile Democratic victories in Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Minnesota.
“In 2025, Democrats continue to overperform in special elections as voters send a resounding message: They want Democrats to fight for them, and they want the Trump-Musk agenda out of their communities,” the talking points read.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., told the AP Wednesday that the election results showed that the public is “outraged” by chaos and dysfunction coming from the Trump administration. The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Trump and Republicans in Congress are failing to fix high prices and seeking Medicaid cuts, in addition to supporting tariffs that could worsen inflation for families.
“What we saw yesterday in Florida and Wisconsin was Republicans running scared because the American people are angry and scared about the direction the Trump-Musk agenda is taking us,” she said. “They’re seeing prices go up. They’re seeing more and more the focus is not on them, but on Trump and his wealthy donors.”
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of voters are expected to attend more than 1,000 so-called “Hands Off!” related protests nationwide focused on Trump and Musk. More than 150 political groups worked together to organize what will almost certainly represent the single biggest day of protest of the second Trump administration.
The Washington event, which will feature Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., already has more than 12,000 RSVPs, according to organizers.
Meanwhile, Booker is planning to attend a series of unrelated public events, including a town hall in New Jersey this weekend.
His office reports receiving 28,000 voicemails since he finished his speech shortly after 8 p.m. on Tuesday. At its peak, the 25-hour address was being streamed by more than 300,000 people across Booker’s social media channels. It earned more than 350 million likes on his newly formed TikTok account.
A spokesperson said that the Democratic senator spent much of Wednesday sleeping.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Leah Askarinam in Washington and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin contributed reporting.
