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On a day of high drama and chaos — Donald Trump’s military parade, nationwide street protests and a political assassination in Minnesota — Wisconsin Democrats convened in Lake Delton to try to forge a way forward.

The theme of the party’s state convention was “the road to 2026,” with elections for governor, the Legislature and Congress at stake.

But how to counter Trump and his ascendant brand of smash-mouth politics was front and center for attendees interviewed Saturday at the Chula Vista Resort.

“When you’re dealing with a ruling party that is not interested in actual governance, that’s a problem,” said Victor Raymond of Madison, referring to Republicans controlling the White House and Congress. “So, there needs to be more efforts made to establish an actual resistance.”

Raymond, who was not a delegate, said he was attending his first state party convention “because I’m concerned about the encroaching fascism in this country.” 

He said more Democrats must resist the Trump administration the way U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla did last week because “what the right wing wants is for everyone to be intimidated.” 

Padilla, a California Democrat, interrupted a news conference Thursday held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to try to ask a question. He was forcefully removed and handcuffed by officers as he tried to speak up about the administration’s immigration raids.

“There’s a need for the Democrats to show just how extreme the Republicans are and how it’s not even close to the values that they say they’re supposedly upholding,” Raymond said.

Another first-time attendee, Dane County delegate Christie Barnett, said she is becoming politically active for the first time because she believes the country is sliding into autocracy.

Barnett acknowledged that the day felt heavy, particularly after a gunman shot and killed one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and wounded another in separate incidents. But her focus was on trying to counter Trump.

“If people like me are getting involved, who haven’t been, maybe that’s the hope right there. I don’t know,” she said.

Eleven Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers were named in a list police obtained from the suspected gunman’s vehicle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Police officers were stationed outside the convention center, and they periodically walked through the halls. After a manhunt, the gunman was arrested and charged with murder on Sunday.

At the state GOP convention last month, rank-and-file Republicans cheered the sheer speed of Trump’s actions since starting his second term and yearned for further moves to the right.

Last week, Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, who represents the Green Bay area, introduced legislation that would direct the Justice Department to publish a list of state or local governments that are “anarchist jurisdictions.”

That’s the mood in Waupaca County, which voted for Trump by a 2-to-1 margin in November, said Democratic delegate Wendy Skola. “You bring up anything to do with Democrats, you’re shot down,” she said. 

Skola said Trump’s presidency led her to participate in a recent protest and attend her first state party convention. She said she feels the need to stand up because, the way Trump has governed, people feel “we can all do whatever the hell we want.”

More than 700 delegates and about 150 guests attended the convention. That included delegate David Shorr, a former Stevens Point alderman who also voiced fears about autocracy.

“The country’s in trouble, very, very dangerous, dark times,” he said. “You have a president who demonizes a lot of people …. He’s been very comfortable for many, many years talking about violence should be used against these people.”

But how to counter Trump is unclear, Shorr said.

“There is no easy answer,” he said. “I don’t have any easy answer, except that we can’t give up.” 

In reflecting on the weekend’s events, including Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., the “No Kings” protests that drew millions of demonstrators across Wisconsin and the U.S., and the Minnesota shootings, delegate Sophie Gloo of Racine said the antidote is kindness and taking care of each other.

“I don’t think we should kid ourselves into saying that everyone’s getting along really well because clearly there’s a lot of clashing,” Gloo said. “I think the best way to continue to do good work is to stick together and just make sure that you’re supporting one another.”

That extends to elections, said Gloo, who has worked on state legislative campaigns. The Democratic Party needs to be visible away from campaign season by attending events and knocking on doors year round, she said.

“I think, as a party, you have to be consistent about showing up for people. People who lean one way or the other might not feel like the Democratic Party has been listening to them,” she said. “They’re upset that we only come around when the elections happen.”

More outreach was a theme of the three candidates who ran to succeed Ben Wikler, who stepped down after six years as party chair.

Delegates chose senior state party adviser Devin Remiker of Reedsburg, who was endorsed by Wikler, over Milwaukee-area communications consultant Joe Zepecki and La Crosse-area party leader William Garcia in Sunday’s election.

“I think we have a lot of trust building to do, and that is going to be a major focus of mine, is showing up,” Remiker told Wisconsin Watch last week. “Not to ask people to vote for us, but just to ask them to keep an open mind and rebuild those relationships of trust that have been damaged.”

Wisconsin Democrats search for answers as fear of autocracy galvanizes grassroots is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

William Garcia, Joe Zepecki and Devin Remicker are the candidates for Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair. (Photos courtesy of candidates)

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin will meet over the weekend with the task of choosing a new party chair who will lead the party into 2026 when crucial elections are at stake. 

Those elections include a nominally nonpartisan state Supreme Court race that could nonetheless lock in a liberal majority past 2028, campaigns for competitive congressional seats, the governor’s race and state legislative races that will determine the balance of power in the state Legislature, where Democrats have a chance to flip both the Senate and Assembly for the first time in over a decade.

The state party has been led by Ben Wikler since 2019. He’s credited with helping transform the party through fundraising and with being instrumental in many wins including electing Gov. Tony Evers to a second term, gaining back ground in the state Legislature and flipping the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court, though the party has also had some close losses under him with President Donald Trump winning the state last November and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson winning a third term in office. The state party had started considering who could fill the position earlier in the year when Wikler campaigned for Democratic National Committee chair in February, though some thought he’d remain after he lost.

Wikler announced in April that he wouldn’t be running for another term as chair, saying it was time to “pass the torch.” 

Three candidates with slightly varied visions are running for the position: Devin Remiker, a party insider from Reedsburg who has worked in leadership roles in the party since 2018; Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic communications professional, and William Garcia, the 3rd Congressional District chair and co-chair of the La Crosse County Democratic Party.

Party insider wants to fine-tune party 

Remiker said he initially wasn’t sure he would have the energy to be chair but that Susan Crawford’s victory in her state Supreme Court race changed that. 

“It was just a really good reminder of why we do this and why it’s important, so I sort of switched gears pretty quickly,” Remiker said, adding that some people were encouraging him to run. 

Remiker, a 32-year-old Two Rivers native, most recently served as a senior advisor for the state party. He is currently on a leave of absence during his campaign. He first joined the Democratic Party of Wisconsin as a staffer in 2018 and has worked up from there. He served as a senior advisor to the Biden-Harris and then Harris-Walz presidential campaigns in 2024 and was executive director of the party for a few years starting in 2021. 

Remiker is responsible for some of the communications campaigns that the party launched during competitive elections, including the “People v. Musk” campaign, which highlighted Elon Musk’s involvement in trying to win the state Supreme Court seat for Schimel and his work to slash funds and staffing of federal agencies.

Remiker said he thinks the state party and candidates are in a “fantastic” spot, but that “there’s always room to improve” and “to figure out how we take things to the next level” and that’s what he’d work on as chair.

Despite committing to remaining neutral in a state party chair race during his DNC chair campaign, Wikler reversed course and endorsed Remiker in a column in late May. He said at a WisPolitics event that he changed his mind because he wanted people to know about the work that Remiker’s done for the party and is making calls on his behalf. Wikler said that he thinks there will be a “burgeoning blue wave” in 2026.

“My decision to endorse was I knew that I thought he’d do a phenomenal job and I also knew that I thought he’d been working behind the scenes and people would not know what a role he played in so many of our fights unless I said something,” Wikler said.

Remiker is also endorsed by U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, State Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), State Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) and former state party chairs. 

Remiker said that other than his father being in a union, he didn’t grow up in a very political family, but he caught the politics bug “pretty quickly” in college at UW-La Crosse and during an internship with the special election campaign for now-state Rep. Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska).

“I collected nomination signatures. I knocked on doors, and I just love talking with people,” Remiker said. The loss of his dad’s job when a nuclear facility in Kewaunee was decommissioned also pushed him towards politics. 

“It was a knife in the heart [to] this sort of rural county and area,” Remiker said. “This facility provided a lot of good paying benefits, providing union jobs, and then, to add insult to injury, I find out afterwards that they essentially are offering people their jobs back… as independent contractors with no benefits, a fraction of the pay that they were receiving before… I was mad as heck.”

Remiker said it was at that point that he decided to see where a career in politics would lead and it has shaped his mission for the party: ensuring it fights for working people.

“Our biggest failure from 2024 is that people lost faith in us as the party that fights for the working class, and I really want to center that in my work,” Remiker said.

Remiker noted there is “tremendous” opportunity for Democrats with fair state legislative maps and backlash against the Trump administration that is motivating people to become involved with the party, but the challenge will be keeping people engaged through 2026. He said there is more the party can do to ensure its engaging authentically across the state in all communities and to help Democrats in rural communities feel like they don’t have to hide. 

“We just have to make sure that when there is energy, we are running towards it and bringing it with us, so that we can point it like a laser at the fights that we need to win next year,” Remiker said. “We have a lot of fights on our hands.”

Remiker said he wants 72 county strategies that are unique to each county party. He said he’d work towards that by building on the neighborhood teams that exist by creating regional teams, which would be tasked with going county by county to better understand the needs of county parties, college Democrats, community groups and others. 

“There’s no one size fits all solution to how we sort of support each county, but we really have to get into the weeds…,” Remiker said. “This county they need some help building their membership base, because they might be struggling to have enough folks to sustain their level of work. This county might need some additional help opening a year round permanent office in their county. This county might need funding to get a trailer that they can build a parade float on. I think there’s more room to provide resources. I just think that we need to make sure that we are listening, engaging and have a more consistent feedback loop with our leadership on the ground.” 

Fundraising, he said, would also play a critical role for making that work. With his previous work for the party, Remiker noted that he has already helped do that work and would continue it as chair. 

“Wisconsin’s unique success [in fundraising] comes down to relationships of trust built with donors large and small over time, and that requires being honest about losses and proud of your victories,” Remiker said. “I’ve been lucky enough having worked with Ben so closely to have been part of sort of building that trust over time — helping to write the memos, do the calls. I’ve raised millions of dollars for the party myself.” 

Democratic comms professional says he offers fresh POV 

Zepecki, a 43-year-old from Milwaukee, is pitching himself as having the fresh perspective the party needs to win more elections, saying he’ll work to revamp the organization’s communications. 

“Two things can be true at the same time… Ben and his team have done a remarkable job. We are the envy of 49 other state parties. At the same time, it is true that Democrats have a lot of work to do,” Zepecki said in an interview. “Our brand is busted. Our messaging isn’t landing. We have work to do, and you shouldn’t need more evidence of that than the occupant of the White House, than the fact that Ron Johnson is still representing Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate.” 

As he decided to run, Zepecki said he took the time to consult a broad swath of people and entered with supporters who he said “speak to the broad coalition that is our party — rural, urban, suburban, north, south, east, west, gay, straight, progressive [and] moderate.” He said it was clear there was an “appetite” for some changes to the party.

Zepecki is endorsed by several state lawmakers, including Reps. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Clinton Anderson (D-Beloit), Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) and Sen. Jamie Wall (D-Green Bay). He also has support from former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Linda Honold and several local party chairs including Kelly Gallaher of the Racine County party, Nancy Fisker of the Lafayette County party and Matthew Mareno of the Waukesha County party. 

Some advocates have also given their support including Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), Shawn Phetteplace, an organizer and campaign strategist with small business advocacy organization Main Street Alliance and Kristin Lyerly, a Green Bay OB-GYN who advocates for reproductive rights and ran for Congress in 2024.

Zepecki appeared critical of Wikler for his endorsement of Remiker in a video posted to Facebook in May, saying the current chair had assured him he wouldn’t make an endorsement and that he “abandoned” that commitment. He declined to speak further on the issue in the Examiner interview. 

“I thought that was vitally important because it is the members of our party — the folks who knock the doors and plant the signs and make the phone calls — who should decide this election and know that their voice is paramount in this process,” Zepecki said in the video.

“If you don’t change the people who are at the top are, I don’t believe we’re going to see the changes and improvements we need to see,” Zepcki added. “We need new leadership and a fresh perspective. That’s what I’m offering.”

Since 2016, Zepecki has run a communications company and worked for organizations such as Protect Our Care Wisconsin. Prior to that, he also worked on federal and state campaigns including Democrat Mary Burke’s 2014 run for governor, a U.S. Senate campaign in Nebraska and a presidential primary campaign in Nevada. 

Zepecki said he wants to build better infrastructure for the party’s communications and has been saying there are “five Ms” that should guide the work: message, messenger, mood, medium and masses.

“Spoiler alert: there is no magic set of words in just the right order that unlocks your vote… You’re better off having a young person communicate with a young person, better off having someone who’s a union member communicate with a union member. We need more messengers…,” Zepecki said. “We can’t just assume that our elected officials are going to be the only ones communicating our values, and when those messengers are out there, I think they need to match the mood of the country… It is virtually impossible to get ahead, and people are pissed about that. When we do not match the mood of the electorate, people tune us out. There are more ways to reach people than ever before, and we need to be more intentional about using more of that.” 

Zepecki said this approach will help the party, which he said has troubles communicating what it’s for and against. When it comes to what Democrats are for, Zepecki said that communicating the party as one of “economic opportunity and fairness” is essential. 

“Whether they’re building trades union members and apprentices, whether it’s public sector workers, the Democratic Party is the party of working people. When we get back to communicating that every single day, I think people are going to respond favorably,” Zepecki said, adding that this “doesn’t mean that we don’t stand up for our trans brothers and sisters. It does not mean that we do not protect civil rights.”

Zepecki said with the “big, pivotal year” of 2026 upcoming, he would want to use the latter half of the year to build up the party’s power and infrastructure to be prepared to win. He said the approach would vary region to region but it comes down to communicating that people are welcome in the party and it will work for them. 

“It is required that we ask for and earn the support of people who have voted Republican in the past, and we do so without making them swear out a blood oath to be Democrats for the rest of their life. That is the way you win elections in a 50-50 state like Wisconsin,” Zepecki said. “We share many of the frustrations that people who vote for Donald Trump and Republicans have when it comes to how our economy is working. We do a better job communicating that we welcome folks into our party, don’t like the chaos, division and the overreach of what the Trump administration is doing, and we’re going to be just fine next year.” 

Zepecki said his time serving as a political appointee in the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) in the Obama administration is the role that has prepared him the most for serving as chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. He said he was tasked with leading a team of civil servants across 68 districts, and he compared it to Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

“There are different realities and challenges and context depending on where you are…You have to earn trust. You have to win trust, and you have to lead and communicate internally as well as you communicate externally,” Zepecki said. “When you do that, I think you can improve organizations. We certainly did that at SBA — incredibly, incredibly proud of the two and a half years I spent there — and that’s the type of approach that I would bring to this.”

Garcia wants to strengthen county parties 

The basis of Garcia’s campaign is strengthening the state’s county parties. He told the Examiner that he has seen first-hand the “dangerous disconnect between the state party and county parties” that exists. 

Garcia, who is originally from San Antonio, Texas, said he grew up “very, very political,” having helped Democrats since he was a teenager. He and his wife moved to La Crosse about seven years ago after she secured a job at the UW branch campus and when they arrived he said he almost immediately looked to get involved at the local level. He is also an educator currently working as an instructor at Western Technical College and having worked in K-12 education for 17 years prior.

“‘Hey, I live here now. How can I help?’” Garcia said, he asked when he walked in the La Crosse County party office. “I started working from there.” Over the last several years, Garcia said the party has grown strong and robust.

“We get a lot of work done,” Garcia said, noting that La Crosse recently elected its most progressive mayor and city council ever, and just overturned the 96th state Assembly seat, which had been represented by Republicans for about 70 years. 

“We were able to flip that through hard work,” Garcia said, adding that new fairer maps helped also. “That was because of the strong infrastructure that we built at the county,” Garcia said. “What I want to do is replicate that all across the state.”

Garcia has support from Democrats in his local area, including Rep. Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) of the 96th district, Rep. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), La Crosse Mayor Shaundel Washington-Spivey, as well as the chair of the Jackson and Richland County parties and John Stanley, who serves as the progressive caucus chair.

Garcia said some of the changes the party needs to make may appear small but are important for helping the party reach as many people as possible. 

“Logistical things like packets with turf maps that make sense…,” Garcia said. “If you actually live in the area, you know, there are problems with how it’s put together, and it slows down our door knockers. Things like we’re not doing enough talking to our rural voters, and we’re not doing enough to talk to our farmers.”

As chair, Garcia said he would want to ensure that county parties have the resources, tools, training and infrastructure so that they can spend all their time reaching out to voters. He said that he also wants to ensure that county parties have a bigger seat at the table when it comes to organizing and messaging decision making. 

“County parties are the experts in what is happening in their own communities, and we need to be listening to them in ways that we’re not right now about the best way to really reach out and talk to voters in those areas,” Garcia said. “The organizing strategy that works in Madison is not the organizing strategy that works best in Pierce County, and the messaging that works wonderfully in Milwaukee is not necessarily the strategy that’s going to work best in Menominee.” 

Garcia added that this would apply to other local organizing organizations, including the state party caucuses such as the Latino, Black and rural caucuses. 

Garcia said strengthening the county parties is essential towards winning the trifecta in 2026.

“It’s the county parties that are really the hub of activity for electing our Assembly candidates and our state Senate candidates. It is the county parties where we find our door knocking volunteers. It’s the county party where we find the infrastructure the candidates need to tap into in order to mount an effective campaign, and so the stronger we can make these county parties, the more likely we are to flip those Assembly and Senate seats that we need to flip.” 

Garcia said it is also important to get to the areas where it’s difficult to win as well.  

“Even if an Assembly seat goes 65% for Republicans and is a very difficult win for a Democrat, we still desperately need those votes for our statewide office holders.”

Garcia said that people don’t get elected by being against something so Democrats needs to be proactive, illustrating what they are doing for people, their vision for government and, specifically, honing in on a message of “protecting Wisconsin families.”

“That’s what Democrats are trying to do from child care, where we’re trying to make it actually affordable to pay for child care, trying to expand Medicaid so that pregnant women have the care that they need to take care of their babies, all the way up to protecting Medicare and Social Security,” Garcia said. “It is Democrats that are consistently passing laws — or preventing Republicans from passing laws — to help our people.” 

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Republican President Donald Trump may have won Wisconsin in November, but Badger State Democrats see a pathway to winning a “trifecta” in state government in 2026.

How they get there will be at the heart of the party’s state convention this upcoming weekend in the Wisconsin Dells.

Winning a trifecta means holding onto the governor’s seat, whether or not Gov. Tony Evers seeks a third term — and winning majorities in the state Assembly and Senate, both of which Republicans have controlled since 2011. Democrats flipped 14 seats in November after the Supreme Court tossed out Republican-tilted legislative maps, and 2026 is shaping up to be an even more favorable year for the party out of power in Washington.

A key step will be choosing a successor to Ben Wikler, who is stepping down after six years as the state party chair. Under Wikler, the party raised $63 million in 2024 — more than any state party, Democratic or Republican, in the country. In April, it helped Dane County Judge Susan Crawford cement a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court race until at least 2028. 

The three candidates vying for the two-year term as chair are Devin Remiker, Joe Zepecki and William Garcia.

Remiker served as the party’s executive director under Wikler and has his endorsement. Zepecki is a communications veteran with extensive election campaign experience and big-name endorsements of his own. Garcia is a dark-horse candidate — but with the party using ranked-choice voting for the first time to choose a chair, there’s a new election dynamic. In ranked-choice voting, the votes for the last place candidate are distributed to those voters’ second choice until a candidate gets a majority of the total vote.

Reaching out to Democrats around the state, not just in population centers, and shoring up the party’s reputation are common priorities of the candidates.

“I think fundraising is a really important task,” state Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said about the next chair. “But we are a grassroots party and the reality is, money doesn’t mean much if you’re not on the ground in every community.”

The insider

Remiker, 32, now a senior adviser to the state party, lives in the Reedsburg area, about an hour northwest of Madison. He said the state party needs more focus on rural areas and voters of color, in part to repair its image.

“I think that we have fallen short, and not just the state party, but also the national Democratic Party and how people perceive us,” Remiker said. “I think we have a lot of trust building to do, and that is going to be a major focus of mine, is showing up, not to ask people to vote for us, but just to ask them to keep an open mind and rebuild those relationships of trust that have been damaged.”

At a WisPolitics event last week, Wikler said he’s been making phone calls on behalf of Remiker and described him as the architect of Crawford’s successful Supreme Court strategy of turning the race into a referendum on billionaire and Trump efficiency czar Elon Musk, who heavily backed her conservative opponent. 

Remiker described more engagement at events such as festivals and farmers markets, even away from election campaign season, as the way to maintain the momentum from the Supreme Court election.

“People take for granted that if we just show up and start talking about issues, issues that the vast majority of voters agree with us on,” that Democratic candidates will win votes, Remiker said. “But if they don’t trust the messenger, if they think that they can’t trust the Democratic Party to actually deliver or actually focus on these issues, we’re not actually able to break through.”

Remiker also has endorsements from former state Democratic Party chairs Martha Laning, Martha Love and Jeff Neubauer; U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee; state Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein and state Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer.

The communicator

Zepecki, 43, lives in the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood and runs his own communications firm. His election campaign experience includes serving as communications director for Mary Burke’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign and Barack Obama’s 2012 Wisconsin presidential campaign.

Zepecki said he wants to “fine-tune” party mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts.

“I think over the last six years, the approach has become a little too top-down, a little too  one-size-fits-all,” he said. “We need to have a system that is flexible enough for local leaders to have a voice in the strategy because they’re the ones doing the work at the local level.”

Zepecki also said the party needs to improve communication to increase trust.

“This is not unique to Wisconsin. The Democratic Party nationally has a brand problem. Our communications and messaging are not landing,” Zepecki said.

“We have to try stuff, we have to innovate,” he added. “It might not all work, but shame on us if we don’t try and we don’t listen to the voters who are telling us they don’t believe us and they’re not hearing enough from us. That’s on us, not on the voters.”

Zepecki’s endorsements include former state party chair Linda Honold; the party chairs in Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Marathon and Rock counties; and Tina Pohlman, who is co-chair along with Garcia in La Crosse County.

The dark horse

Garcia, 52, of La Crosse is a Western Technical College instructor. He is party chair for the 3rd Congressional District in western Wisconsin.

Garcia said he’s running because the county parties have been “left behind,” lacking enough resources from the state party on things such as party members, voters and communications.

“Because at the end of the day, commercials are really important, social media is really important, but it’s really the one-on-one in-person contacts that emanate from the county parties that persuade and flip voters,” he said.

Garcia, who lacks big-name endorsements, said his position as a county party leader positions him well in the election.

The state party “does so much really well, this is the blind spot right now, and that’s why I think I’m the best choice to fix it, because I’m the one that’s kind of lived in that blind spot for years,” he said.

As Wisconsin Democrats eye ‘trifecta’ wins in 2026 elections, party leaders urged to rebuild rural infrastructure is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.