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If Democrats win a majority in one or both chambers of the Legislature in 2026, the party will have more power to govern than any time in more than 15 years. 

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said she saw a sign of what that future could look like during the state budget-writing process earlier this year. With just a three-seat advantage in the Senate, Republicans needed to work across the aisle to advance the budget, and Senate Democrats had a seat at the negotiating table, Hesselbein said. 

For the past 15 years of Republican majorities in the Senate and the Assembly, GOP lawmakers have been able to operate largely without input from legislative Democrats. In 2011, following the Republican midterm surge during President Barack Obama’s presidency, a GOP trifecta in the Legislature and the governor’s office advanced legislation aimed at cementing a permanent majority.

They passed laws such as Act 10, which dismantled Democratic-supporting public sector unions; strict voter ID, which made it harder for students and low-income people to vote; and partisan redistricting, which kept legislative Republicans in power with near super-majorities even after Democrats won all statewide offices in 2018. 

After years of being shut out of the legislative process, Senate Democrats won’t operate that way if the party wins control of the chamber next year, Hesselbein said. 

“We have an open door policy as Democrats in the state Senate. We will work with anybody with a good idea,” she said. “So we will try to continue to work with Republicans when we can and seek common values to really help people in the state of Wisconsin.” 

Newly redrawn legislative maps put into play during last year’s elections, when President Donald Trump won Wisconsin, resulted in 14 flipped legislative seats in favor of Democrats. Following those gains in 2024, Senate Democrats need to flip two seats and hold onto Senate District 31, held by Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, to win a majority next year.

The party’s campaign committee is eyeing flip opportunities in seats occupied by Republican Sens. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green; Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield; and Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, which are all districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, according to an analysis last year by John Johnson, a Lubar Center Research fellow at Marquette University.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, in an email to Wisconsin Watch said a Democratic majority in the chamber “won’t happen.” 

With political winds during a midterm year typically favoring the party not in control of the White House, Democrats could see gains in the Assembly as well, although there are more challenges than in the Senate. All of the Assembly seats were tested under the new maps last year, but Democrats still made gains during an election year when Trump’s name on ballots boosted Republicans. Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this month that she is “optimistic” about chances to flip the Assembly, where five seats would give Democrats control of the chamber for the first time since 2010.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about how Republicans might work with Democrats if the party wins a majority next year. 

If there is a power shift in the Capitol in 2026, few lawmakers have experienced anything but Republican control of the Legislature. Just 11 of the 132 members across both political parties previously held office at a time when Democrats controlled both legislative chambers. 

Some of the longest-serving Democrats said they agree with restoring more bipartisanship in the legislative process if the party gains power in 2026. 

“I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes as the Republicans did,” said Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, who was elected to the Assembly in 1984 and the Senate in 2002. “We have to give them an opportunity to work on things.” 

Carpenter and Rep. Christine Sinicki, D-Milwaukee, who was elected to the Assembly in 1998, said if the party wins one or both majorities they want to make sure members are prepared for governing responsibilities they’ve never experienced, like leading a committee. 

“It’s a lot more work,” Sinicki said of being in the majority. “But it’s very fulfilling work to actually be able to go home at night and say, ‘I did this today.’” 

Hesselbein said if Senate Democrats secure power in their chamber next year, members will continue to focus on affordability issues that they’ve proposed during the current session. Some of those bills included providing free meals at breakfast and lunch to students in Wisconsin schools, lowering the cost of prescription drugs and expanding access to the homestead tax credit.

LeMahieu, though, said Democrats have “no credibility” on affordability issues. 

“Senate Republicans delivered the second largest income tax cut in state history to put more money in Wisconsin families’ pockets for gas and groceries while Senate Democrats propose sales and income tax hikes to pay for a radical agenda nobody can afford,” he said. 

Senate Democrats in the meantime are holding listening sessions across the state and working on a list of future bills to be ready to lead “on day one,” Hesselbein said. “If we are fortunate enough.”

Wisconsin Democrats say they won’t act like Republicans if they win a legislative majority in 2026 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.

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Devin Remiker, the 33-year-old new chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, has a plan to win it all in 2026, when voters will elect a new governor, state legislators, a state Supreme Court justice, and potentially flip seats crucial to Democrats’ efforts to retake the House.

The job is “about building a bulwark against a hostile administration that seems intent on subverting democracy,” he told NOTUS. “That really places in me an immense sense of responsibility to help make sure that we can be that bulwark ahead of 2028.”

Remiker is one of 24 chairs of Democratic state parties elected since the party lost the presidency, Senate and most governor’s races in November. While that turnover for party chairs is not unusual, it leaves Democrats’ fresh-faced state leadership to chart the party’s new course at a time of unprecedented political upheaval. As the chair of one of the most fiercely competitive states on the map, Remiker has a significant role to play in that future.

“Devin matches what I would argue we need in a chair,” said Jane Kleeb, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, an organization within the Democratic National Committee that represents state parties.

Kleeb said professionalism and optimism are the “key characteristics” the party has sought in new chairs, in addition to exceptional fundraising skills and the ability to persuade donors that the party is making structural changes to win as far out as 2028.

Remiker is taking over the chair position from Ben Wikler, who grew the party’s fundraising into eight-digit territory each election cycle. Wikler created new virtual volunteer opportunities and expanded the party’s existing neighbor-to-neighbor organizing teams into a year-round campaign apparatus, Wikler said. When Wikler assumed the post in 2019, Remiker was a political director, later moving up to executive director before working as a senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ campaign in Wisconsin, according to the party site.

“Even if you’re taking the baton from a well-qualified chair who built up an incredible infrastructure like Ben Wikler … even that is daunting,” Kleeb said.

Remiker told NOTUS his job is to continue growing the bread and butter of Wisconsin Democrats’ campaigning.

“The core of the party’s work in Wisconsin is year-round organizing, both in traditional organizing — knocking on doors, getting neighbors to talk to neighbors about the issues that impact them most — but also year-round communications infrastructure,” he said. “Right now, where our party has the most room to grow is in communicating with folks in new, innovative ways that meet voters where they’re at.”

Remiker is working on ways to tailor the party’s messaging to voters in each of the state’s 72 counties — work that’s overseen by a new director for the all-county strategy, he said. Remiker is also looking to change how the party communicates with voters by putting more resources into relational organizing and social media outreach.

He emphasized getting the party’s message to rural voters by sending canvassers to parades, farmers markets and other public events that can help the Democrats build a community presence across the state and save time walking up long rural driveways.

“What we uniquely have here in Wisconsin is a foundation to build upon, and that’s really how I view my role coming into this job,” Remiker said. “I’m here to, yes, fix or tweak what wasn’t working or wasn’t working the best, but to really build upon the foundation” set by Wikler and Martha Laning, Wikler’s predecessor who expanded the party’s voter outreach.

That plan echoes what Wikler envisions for his successor.

“A lot of people are coming into these roles with a mandate for change. In Wisconsin, Devin’s mandate is to learn everything about what can be improved but it’s also really to keep building things that we know have had a huge effect that helped Tammy Baldwin win in 2024,” Wikler said.

Remiker’s approach could make inroads in rural Wisconsin, which overwhelmingly voted Republican in 2024. Wisconsin Democrats lost to President Donald Trump by less than a percentage point, but reelected Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

The party followed that up in April by holding onto a liberal majority in the state Supreme Court — a race that drew over $53 million in spending by conservative groups and led Elon Musk to host a $1 million sweepstakes for voters. Remiker led the Democrats’ “People v. Musk” campaign in the months before his election as chair and will now preside over the party as a redistricting lawsuit winds its way through the state’s courts, a case that could help the Democrats flip seats if decided in time to redraw maps before the midterm elections.

The Wisconsin Democrats’ full-force organizing for candidates up and down the ballot in all corners of the state has been something of a blueprint for other state parties. Newly minted Democratic chairs of swing states told NOTUS they are working toward the year-round operation at the center of Wisconsin’s successful program.

Eugene DePasquale, the chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party who was elected last month, praised Wisconsin Democrats’ use of data to “help drive” strategy and their development of campaign infrastructure to last beyond any one cycle.

“What we’ve done in Pennsylvania is like Groundhog Day all over again, which is you build up an infrastructure, win or lose the campaign, then it goes away, then you start up again next summer,” he said. “I want to hopefully build with the team we’re putting together an infrastructure that lasts, where we’re basically going year-round.”

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

New Wisconsin Dems chair says he’s ‘building a bulwark’ against the Trump administration 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.