October 29, 2022

Democracy Is Hanging By a Thread in Wisconsin. Blame Extreme Voting Maps.

On a new episode of Reveal, our National Voting Rights Correspondent Ari Berman delves into how Republicans cemented control of the state legislature. In this October 2021 photo, opponents of the Republican redistricting efforts staged a rally at the state Capitol in Madison.Scott Bauer/AP

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On Saturday, former President Barack Obama will be campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for Democratic candidates in close contests for governor and U.S. Senate, urging voters to go to the polls. But when it comes to controlling state politics, Democrats are facing an uphill battle.

While elections are often decided by razor-thin margins in this pivotal swing state, Republican control of the state legislature is now all but assured. Thanks to rampant gerrymandering, Wisconsin Republicans are within grasp this year of gaining a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature, which would give them remarkable power to override the governor’s veto and implement an extreme and unpopular agenda on issues ranging from guns to education to abortion. It could even give them the ability to overturn the results of elections.

My recent feature for Mother Jones exploring how the state became the GOP’s laboratory for dismantling democracy is now accompanied by a podcast and radio show produced with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. The segment goes deep inside the GOP’s decade-long strategy to make Wisconsin voter-proof and looks at how what happens in 2022 will determine the future of fair elections in 2024 and beyond.

You can listen to my segment here:

My reporting trip to Wisconsin is part of a bigger Reveal episode studying how extreme new laws built on Trump’s Big Lie are cracking down on a phantom problem: widespread voter fraud. I hope you will check it out here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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