Wisconsin is the swing state needed to win the presidency. Can Democrats do it?

More than 67% of Wisconsinites say they’re very enthusiastic about voting — and every ballot will be critical in what many consider the swing state of the 2024 election.

The LGBTQ+ community, in particular, could make a difference as the number of queer voters continues to rise. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), queer voters will comprise nearly 20% of the electorate by 2040 — but the more pressing issue, of course, is what happens on November 5. 

Fair Wisconsin executive director Abigail Swetz told LGBTQ Nation that the Badger State already has 270,000 voting-age LGBTQ+ people, including 20,000 nonbinary and transgender voting-age residents.

Consequently, the state has the power to build a Democratic majority – or a “Blue Wall” – in both Congress and the White House to help protect bodily autonomy in the United States. This is partly due to voters flipping the once Republican-controlled state Supreme Court in 2023. The majority then ordered new maps, redistributing power to progressive and liberal voters. 

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Earlier this year, Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed “fair maps” into law. These redrawn maps resulted from a 2023 lawsuit filed by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and others that blocked further gerrymandering. The lawsuit alleged that politicians manipulated voting districts to be in favor of Republicans. Using the 2018 election, CLC explained that despite winning 53% of State Assembly votes cast statewide, Democrats secured 36% of the seats. 

Unlike in years past, candidates like District 18’s Kristen Alfheim, an LGBTQ+ Victory Fund spotlight candidate running for state senate, now have the opportunity to flip longtime Republican-led districts. And she is expected to. 

The out lesbian candidate is running in a top red-to-blue district, which now includes both the progressive city of Oshkosh and rural, Republican-leaning areas like Omro. Alfheim will face incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Feyen.

If she wins, she could become part of a record-breaking group of 32 out elected officials in the state, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D).

“I’ve been working to make sure that we’re growing our majority, and we’ve been working to flip our legislature since the gerrymandering began,” Fair Wisconsin policy analyst Sean O’Brien told LGBTQ Nation. “So this is a long, long, long time of work that we have been pushing for, and now we are seeing the benefits.”  

“Fair maps” opened a path to flipping the legislature, O’Brien added, saying there is potential to “make history with the largest number of pro-equality candidates and the largest number of LGBTQ candidates in our state legislature.”

Swetz adds that visiting voters across the state helped her better understand the intersectional needs of diverse LGBTQ+ communities. She knows voters are worried about the slate of anti-LGBTQ+ laws being proposed this year (530 in the country and 14 in Wisconsin, all of which have failed), but she notes they’re part of a larger GOP strategy that will also affect LGBTQ+ people. 

“There are policies out there, at the federal level, at the state level, that directly target the LGBTQ+ community. Every issue, every policy that would be a part of a new administration, either state or federal, every policy impacts our community, frankly, mostly in disproportionate ways, because we are marginalized,” Swetz said. 

That’s why Sen. Baldwin told LGBTQ Nation that her “number one priority is to show up, listen, and deliver for all of Wisconsin’s communities, red, blue, and purple and rural, urban, and suburban.”

Baldwin is the first woman elected to represent Wisconsin in Congress and the first out gay senator in U.S. history. She once represented Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District (which includes the city of Madison) before running statewide for Senate in 2012. She successfully moved from representing a progressive district to the most purple of the purple states. 

While representing progressive Madison, Baldwin explained that she “also represented some of our state’s most rural counties – counties that have voted for Republicans and Democrats.”

The fight for trans health care & safety in Wisconsin

A GLAAD and Path Finder poll conducted earlier this year found that abortion, healthcare, and LGBTQ+ equality rank as top issues among queer voters. 

One of those voters is Elle Halo, who spoke with LGBTQ Nation while on her way home from the Gender Liberation March, an inaugural march on Washington for the right to abortion and gender-affirming care.

“For me, it’s the murders,” Halo said when thinking about the brutal racism and anti-transgender discrimination that has followed the campaign trail. 

Halo is a trans activist and voter living in Milwaukee. She started organizing to combat the increased violence and health disparities in her community. Presently, only a handful of cities offer protections for transgender and gender nonconforming people, covering only 21% of the state’s population.

Chyna Long, Cashay Henderson, Brazil Johnson, and Regina “Mya” Allen – all Black transgender women from Milwaukee – were murdered within the last two years. The Democrat-led city has a strong Republican voter base, turning out around 50,000 votes for former President Trump in 2020.

As a community organizer, Halo provides greater access to gender-affirming care through her organization, TRANCE, a Milwaukee-based consulting firm that financially assists Black transgender women in collaboration with organizations like Sisters Helping Each Other Battle Adversity (SHEBA) and Diverse & Resilient.

“Most kids that are trans or queer or that are going to transition do not have family nor accommodations, nor access, nor money, nor insurance, nor privilege, nor time and space to go and have a medical transition,” said Halo. 

“Every issue, every policy that would be a part of a new administration, either state or federal, every policy impacts our community.”

Fair Wisconsin executive director Abigail Swetz

Among transgender patients nationwide, 29% said a doctor or other health care provider refused to see them because of their actual or perceived gender identity, according to the Center for American Progress (CAP). 

Jon Jones, a policy analyst at ACLU-WI, said that residents like Halo are forced to cover where politicians fail.

Both healthcare discrimination and an increase in violent crime have ignited the urgent need for comprehensive protections and hate crime legislation for the LGBTQ+ community at the federal and local levels, says Halo. These bills would help increase healthcare accessibility. She also stressed the need for comprehensive, inclusive policies that consider the unique challenges faced by transgender people without family support or resources.

Policies like the Equality Act. 

“The stakes could not be higher”

Politicians like Baldwin have persisted in pushing for the passage of the Equality Act, which would explicitly ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, and other essential areas of life. But for now, Wisconsin’s queer youth continue to bear the brunt of the far right’s attacks.

Most of the anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced — and defeated — in Wisconsin this year have pushed for transgender youth sports bans, LGBTQ+ curriculum censorship, and transgender health care restrictions. The movement for “parental rights” and “Don’t Say Gay” laws has resulted in at least 450 books being banned in the state since 2021, according to PEN America.

“We cannot mistake progress for triumph in the fight for fairness, freedom, and full equality while LGBTQ+ discrimination persists,” Baldwin said. 

Related:

How did the trans sports debate become such a hot topic this election season?

Nonbinary ESPN journalist Katie Barnes discusses what the trans sports debate reveals about gender bias in the U.S..

State Republicans’ failed attempt to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth was a victory, for example, but a lot is still at risk.

“This frankly is messing with people’s lives,” Gov. Evers said as he signed the veto. “I’m very happy to be in this position so I can veto these types of bills. At the end of the day, we need not goalies but advocates in this position and in the Legislature.”

Yet, ahead of November 5, there isn’t a shield law protecting gender-affirming care or abortion in Wisconsin. Jones says that this opens the state up to fearmongering attacks by anti-LGBTQ+, anti-trans, anti-abortion, and racist politicians and policing tactics.

“[E]ven if those things do stay legal in Wisconsin, say someone from Indiana or a Southern state has a family member up here who travels to Wisconsin to have an abortion or to receive gender-affirming care, but it’s still illegal in their state, the data collected here in Wisconsin can be used to prosecute them, in say Georgia or Mississippi or Alabama,” Jones said. If this is the case, the number of women and LGBTQ+ people in prison could increase under a Republican legislator. 

As is true across the country, Black trans women remain the most vulnerable in Wisconsin.

Already, Black Wisconsinites make up a disproportionate portion of those arrested in the state. Wisconsin’s Black residents make up 6% of the state’s population but fill state prisons at a rate of 11.8 times that of white residents.

“In the traditional white, patriarchal view of the world, ignoring and dehumanizing the suffering of marginalized communities, especially the most marginalized, which is trans, Black women,” Jones said, “is because it’s convenient, politically, for [Wisconsin’s gerrymandered] legislature.”

Jones was referencing bills like Assembly Bill 447 that hinge on much of the disinformation and fear-mongering spread by Donald Trump’s anti-trans ads in the final weeks of his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. The bill would allow corrections officers to strip-search transgender women and place them in men’s prisons, where they would face increased violence, says Jones. It has the power to pass if Republicans stay in control.

The bill was introduced by Republicans, including state Rep. Ty Bodden, who won’t be seeking reelection in redrawn District 59, which has been Republican-led for more than a decade. Jack Holzman, a Democrat, is running to take Bodden’s place in the rural district against Republican Ryan Brooks, who currently represents District 60. 

Holzman could help improve racial and transgender justice in the prison system and promises to advocate for policies that increase bodily autonomy. “I support women’s right to reproductive freedom, a right to quality education, which includes adequate funding for our public schools, [and] affordable healthcare for all,” Holzman’s website reads. 

This would be a big change for voters, considering that abortion was completely illegal in Wisconsin just 18 months ago. Jones believes that people too often forget about this reality.

Baldwin agrees. 

“The Dobbs decision was a stark wake-up call and demonstrated just how swiftly and dramatically protections we considered fundamental rights can be stripped away,” she said.

“We cannot mistake progress for triumph in the fight for fairness, freedom, and full equality while LGBTQ+ discrimination persists.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin

When abortion was illegal in Wisconsin, nearly 90% of women (not including transgender or nonbinary people) had to leave the state for care, according to a report released by Baldwin’s office. Currently, abortion is banned in Wisconsin at 20 weeks, while Republicans attempt to further restrict it to 14 weeks. 

Baldwin has been fighting hard against this anti-choice crusade. She co-led 48 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to introduce the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023, federal legislation that would guarantee access to abortion across the country and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive health care for millions of Americans. 

“This November, the stakes could not be higher,” Baldwin said. “Once again, Wisconsin is the key battleground state to watch and Wisconsin voters will have the power to decide who controls the Senate, the White House, and ultimately the future of our nation.”

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