Wisconsin Democrats pound Republican Senate prospects on abortion

It took some national Democratic leaders a little while after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to understand that voter anger was real and not going away. But top to bottom, the party now appears to understand the power of the issue and be ready to run hard on abortion in 2024. Wisconsin Democrats definitely are.

Thanks to the Supreme Court and Wisconsin Republicans, an 1849 abortion ban is now in force in the state. With a challenge to that law making its way through the courts, voters went to the polls in April and elected Janet Protasiewicz to the state supreme court by 11 points over an anti-abortion extremist. An appeal is expected to land at the Wisconsin Supreme Court during the 2024 Senate campaign, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin up for reelection in the narrowly divided battleground state.

“The debate over who should make those decisions, whether women and their doctors, or Republican politicians, is a debate that Sen. Baldwin is ready to have,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Executive Director Ben Wikler told NBC News. The state party is already taking on Baldwin’s likely opponents even though the Republican primary field isn’t yet set. But there’s plenty to blast among the prospective candidates, like Rep. Tom Tiffany, who cosponsored a 2021 Republican attempt to pass a national six-week abortion ban, or former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who has compared abortion to “genocide.”