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Democratic presidential rivals Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar say goodbye to each other after Warren's speech at a Martin Luther King Day rally on Jan. 20 in Columbia, S.C. Both women dropped out of the race in early March. Meg Kinnard/AP hide caption

Democratic presidential rivals Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar say goodbye to each other after Warren's speech at a Martin Luther King Day rally on Jan. 20 in Columbia, S.C. Both women dropped out of the race in early March.

Elizabeth Warren has now fully thrown her support behind former Vice President Joe Biden in the presidential race. She has even said, without question, that she would serve as his vice president.

It has been a little over a month since Warren dropped out of the race. At the time, only Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, two older white men, were left as the viable candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, highlighting that the Democratic Party would not diversify the top of the ticket this year.

The party had had its most diverse set of candidates of all time this cycle, including the largest group of women ever. That six-woman wave of candidates came after four years of buildup years that featured Democratic women getting mad, getting organized, getting on the ballot and getting elected in record numbers in 2018.

And Democrats sure seemed excited about women in the abstract: As of November, 83% of Democrats said they were "enthusiastic" about voting for a woman. Only 53% said they were "enthusiastic" about white men.

But then, it was never assured, or even widely assumed, that a woman would win the nomination. Biden and Sanders went into the race with high name recognition among Democrats and with significant bases of support, whether among party activists or the establishment.

And as it turned out, the race came down to those two white men. So ... what happened? Gender was definitely a factor in this year's Democratic primaries. How could it not be after what the party has seen over the past four years? But the ways in which attitudes about gender impacted the outcome are varied and, of course, more than a bit complicated.

What we know: Democrats' electability "freakout"

When Warren bowed out, she was explicit in calling out sexism.

"If you say, 'Yeah, there was sexism in this race,' everyone says, 'Whiner!' " Warren said. "If you say, 'No, there was no sexism,' about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?' "

I've spent more than a year asking voters about gender and sexism in this presidential race, and I can say with confidence that Democratic voters who don't want to vote for a woman (or, at least, who will say such a thing out loud) are rare to nonexistent.

In a January Ipsos/USA Today poll, 84% of people who planned to vote in Democratic primaries said they agreed with the statement that they would be "comfortable with a woman president."

But that leaves 1 in 6 potential voters in another category. That group includes the 5% who said they disagreed.

Perhaps 5% is a sliver, but especially in tight primaries, it is meaningful if 1 in 20 voters are biased against the female candidates. (Furthermore, there is the question of what the other 11% of voters meant when they said they "neither agree nor disagree.")

And then there's this: Only 33% of likely voters of any party said they thought their neighbors would be comfortable with a female president.

A woman dressed as Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the annual Village Halloween parade in 2019 in New York City. Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A woman dressed as Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the annual Village Halloween parade in 2019 in New York City.

This is something that many journalists (myself included) heard over and over in interviews with voters not sexism itself driving voters' choices, but fears about other people's sexism.

"I have a friend at work she's like, 'You're not progressive.' She thinks that I don't want a woman president," Anita Burgess told NPR in March 2019. "I do! But I don't think they're going to do it! And so I can't waste my vote either, because we have to get the orange man out. I'm sorry orange man got to go," she said, mocking President Trump's appearance.

And that feeling persisted in the Democratic electorate through the primaries.

"I really like Elizabeth Warren, but I just don't think a woman is going to win this election, unfortunately," UCLA student Brook Rosenberg told NPR as she stood in line to vote in California's primary. "Also, I don't want Trump to tear her down."

Polling showed how widespread this fear was. In that January poll, 50% of people who planned to vote in the Democratic primaries said they agreed that a woman would have a tougher time running against Trump than a man. Half as many 24% disagreed.

It's important to keep in mind that while a wide field of female candidates is a relatively new phenomenon, this kind of amateur political strategizing is nothing new.

"The Democrats always freak out about electability," former presidential contender and Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder told me (with a heavy sigh) in December. "I mean, I remember every single primary, everybody starts, [gasp] 'Who are we going to get?'"

"Of course," she added, "this year, we're having a bigger freakout than normal just because people are so obsessed about, 'How do we get rid of Trump?'"

It's not just that Democrats desperately want to unseat Trump, though. For some voters, the very fact not just that a woman lost in 2016, but that this man won someone with a track record of insulting and objectifying women, who also has a long list of sexual misconduct claims against him (all of which he denies) is a sign of how much sexism their fellow voters are willing to put up with.

"I don't think it's right, but I think that the fact that we have the person in the White House that we do, it is evidence that the country is not quite totally ready for a woman," New Hampshire voter Patti Rutka told me in March 2019.

Or as Mother Jones' Pema Levy more pithily opined, "Trump's greatest trick was convincing voters women can't win elections."

And so, as Democratic organizer Karine Jean-Pierre explains it, voters thought about who seemed like they could be president.

"They're thinking, 'We have to beat Donald Trump. What's the best way to do it?'" she said. "OK. Maybe someone who is of his age, someone who has been the closest to being presidential, if you think about being a vice president, being the No. 2 to the president being in the Oval Office, having all of those visuals."

At the 2019 Iowa State Fair, a woman takes a selfie near Sen. Kamala Harris and former Iowa Democratic Party chair Sue Dvorsky. Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

At the 2019 Iowa State Fair, a woman takes a selfie near Sen. Kamala Harris and former Iowa Democratic Party chair Sue Dvorsky.

On the Democratic side, Biden has grappled with gender in ways that have disappointed some feminists. Early in his campaign, multiple women accused him of invading their personal space. He eventually apologized ... around the same time that he joked about the matter onstage at a campaign event.

In addition, some news outlets have reported more recently about a more serious allegation against the former vice president.

Biden also reported early in 2019 that he had apologized to Anita Hill for her treatment when she accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in his Senate confirmation hearings. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, Biden chaired those hearings.

Hill told The New York Times that she didn't feel Biden had apologized to her for his own role in her treatment.

"I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, 'I'm sorry for what happened to you,' " she said. "I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and real accountability and real purpose."

The "hostile sexism" factor

Here's one more thing we know: that higher levels of sexism were associated with a greater likelihood of supporting Biden and Sanders, as well as a lower likelihood of supporting Warren.

Political scientist Brian Schaffner attempted to measure sexism by having pollsters ask Democrats if they agreed with phrases including "women are too easily offended" and "most women fail to appreciate fully all that men do for them." In a separate interview, pollsters asked those same people whom they preferred in the primary.

Kirsten Gillibrand waits to speak during the official kickoff rally of her campaign for president in March 2019 in New York. Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Kirsten Gillibrand waits to speak during the official kickoff rally of her campaign for president in March 2019 in New York.

"There is a very strong relationship between how people responded to the questions that are meant to measure sexism and whether they were likely to vote for Elizabeth Warren," Schaffner said. "And it was the least-sexist Democratic voters who supported her the most. But her support dropped off very quickly among those who registered higher levels of sexism."

Schaffner found something similar in the 2016 general election that there was an association between sexism, as he defined it, as well as racism and voting for Trump. But he says that these associations mean something different in a Democratic primary.

"In a primary election, you take party out of the equation," he said. "You have a bunch of candidates who have very similar positions who are running against each other. And people tend to rely on what they can, that differentiates these candidates who otherwise look fairly similar to them. And gender is definitely one of those things."

Furthermore, while Schaffner found this correlation and, to be clear, attempted to control for a range of factors, like ideology his study doesn't mean that a bunch of voters walked into the voting booth with straightforwardly sexist ideas driving their votes. He recognizes that the relationship is subtler.

"I think a lot of this plays at a subconscious level for voters," he said. "They may not be really aware that the things that they think grate on them about Warren are actually things that wouldn't bother them if it was a man doing the same things."

The presidency may be different

But then, hold on. We do know that female candidates often do just fine at winning races in fact, studies show that female congressional candidates win at roughly the same rates as men do. ("When women run, they win" is a common refrain among groups that work to elect more women.)

One possibility, as Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told NPR last year, is that voters treat the presidency different from other offices.

"Voters are very, very willing to send women, younger candidates, people of color, LGBTQ candidates to Congress," she said. "But for president or executive office in general, we know from the data that people are much, much more cautious and tend to second-guess themselves much more."

In addition, there's evidence that women face a "performance premium" in running for office that, yes, they may win at similar rates to men at the congressional level, but that they have to be better candidates to do it.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said something to this effect at the November debate, contrasting the female candidates to the then-37-year-old South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg: "Do I think that we would be standing on that stage if we had the experience that he had? No, I don't. Maybe we're held to a different standard."

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg participate in the November Democratic primary debate in Atlanta. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg participate in the November Democratic primary debate in Atlanta.

Of course, it's impossible to know on an individual basis whether any particular candidate is more successful because they're a man (or less so because they're a woman).

But there was another memorable debate line, this one from Warren, that threw this into relief. At a January debate, Warren noted that she and Klobuchar were the only two candidates onstage who had never lost a race.

In addition, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Sen. Kamala Harris had never lost an election until this year's primaries, either.

It is, of course, possible to become president with a loss or two on one's record. But this cycle, America only saw competitive female candidates with long resumes and perfect down-ballot records.

Unanswered questions

Knowing exactly how much gender played into voters' decisions this year may never be possible because it's so deeply mixed into how people think.

"We know that what's really happening in most cases is gender is informing a lot of the different aspects or predictors of a candidate's success," says Kelly Dittmar, professor at Rutgers University's Center on American Women and Politics. "And so to try to pinpoint how much sexism mattered becomes much more difficult. Instead, I try to think about it as, 'What are the ways in which gender shapes the dynamics of the race?' "

Dittmar uses Kamala Harris as an example: When she dropped out, the California senator said one reason was that she didn't have enough money to carry on.

"Was that solely because she was a woman or because she was a black woman? No. There were other challenges at play, in terms of the strength of support for her candidacy," Dittmar said. "But were gender and race and the interaction of those things probably a factor in how much she was able to gain support, interaction with donors? That's very likely."

Jean-Pierre also evidence of a higher standard in Harris' rise and fall.

"She started off with 20,000 people at her at her rally in Oakland. She raised tons of money very early on, and she never made it to Iowa. She never made it to certain early states," Jean-Pierre said. "I do believe that there is just a different way that women are treated. There is a different way that women of color are treated. And there are these barriers that are so much higher that they have to jump over and cross."

Of course, no candidate lost purely because of their identity (just as Biden didn't win purely because of his). Voters raised substantive questions of all of the female candidates in this race: Harris' record as a prosecutor angered some progressives. Klobuchar was too moderate for some progressives, and she also faced allegations that she was abusive to her staff. Gillibrand has swung from moderate positions to progressive ones during her career. Warren's early answers on how she would pay for "Medicare for All" struck some as evasive.

But it's possible that women were punished more for these things than men would have been.

"I think it's compatible to think both that it was sexist and that there's really some substance to those criticisms," says Kate Manne, Cornell University philosophy professor and author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. "And here, it's not that the criticism is illegitimate because it's sexist. It's that we're soft-pedaling the criticism, albeit unwittingly, when it comes to a male counterpart who's done something very, very similar."

The comparison between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on paying for Medicare for All is an excellent example of just how difficult it is to tell what was driving voter attitudes and expectations.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the unveiling of Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in September 2017. AFP Contributor/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the unveiling of Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in September 2017.

On the one hand, Sanders put forth a list of funding options, but never came out with an exact way to pay for his own Medicare for All plan. Warren, meanwhile, faced heavy scrutiny over how she would pay for his plan, which she backed. To Manne, that is plainly unfair.

"Reasonable minds can disagree about whether her plan for implementing Medicare for All was a good plan," she said. "[But] it's kind of remarkable that she got lambasted for the content of her plan while his non-plan played much better."

Then again, Warren had made "having a plan for that" her brand. So one could also argue that she naturally had additional expectations here.

But on top of that, there's another potential layer: Was Warren forced to run as the hypercompetent, plan-for-everything candidate because she's a woman? Or, put another way: Could a woman candidate run as a revolutionary, the way Sanders did, and get as far as he did?

Gender still matters

The presidential race will be one white, straight man versus another white, straight man. But that doesn't mean gender, as well as other parts of a candidate's identity, is no longer a factor, Dittmar points out.

"The more that you see candidates move away from simply masculinity as the sort of measure by which presidentiality is determined or valued, we see that then leads to hopefully some progress in which women don't have a distinct set of challenges," she said.

She points to a 2006 memo strategist Mark Penn wrote for Hillary Clinton's first presidential run, in which he warned her against being seen as too soft and nurturing: "[Voters] do not want someone who would be the first mama... But there is a yearning for a kind of tough single parent."

These conversations have largely centered on the Democratic Party, which has had more and more successful female presidential candidates than Republicans have.

And when Republicans do have another opportunity to nominate a woman, those women might run differently than Democratic women. That's because Democratic voters tend to be more receptive than Republican voters to identity-based campaigning.

In 2018, and again in the 2020 Democratic presidential field, women ran more firmly as women, with more overtly feminist messages tailored to speak to women's experiences. Warren's story of struggling to find child care as a law student was a standby on the stump. Similarly, Klobuchar told voters the story of being kicked out of the hospital 24 hours after giving birth.

However, Republican strategist Alice Stewart, who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns, including Michele Bachmann's in 2012, says that it's nevertheless telling that her party has yet to nominate a woman.

"I truly believe Republicans will say gender doesn't matter: 'I would vote for the person based on their qualifications, whereas others might say gender is a factor.' But they evidently are not following through with that," she said.

Even though a woman will not win the presidency this year, the 2020 field represented progress, with a diverse range of female candidates finding a range of ways to be themselves on the trail.

And progress could still come from the men in the race, Dittmar adds.

"I think it's just important to remember that the gender dynamics of the race are still very much at play," she said. "And so in terms of the value we place on masculinity, it's something for us all to be continually evaluating with the men who are left. How do they navigate gender?"

The question is doubly relevant considering that Biden's opponent is someone who weaponizes masculinity in his campaigning. Biden has done so himself on occasion "If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him," he said of Trump in 2018.

Female candidates also aren't out of this campaign yet: Biden has promised to put a woman on the ticket with him. Were Biden to win the presidency, that woman would be the highest-ranking female elected official in American history.

It would be progress. Just slower than some Democrats would have hoped.

Excerpt from:
Did Gender Keep Democratic Women From Winning The Presidential Primary? - NPR

President Trump on Friday accused Democrats of forcing Americans into joblessness by taking an ENDLESS VACATION during the coronavirus outbreak instead of passing an expansion of small business loans.

Trumps attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came a day after the Small Business Administration exhausted $350 billion in loans designed to prevent layoffs.

Today people started losing their jobs because of Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Cryin Chuck Schumer, and the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, who should immediately come back to Washington and approve legislation to help families in America. End your ENDLESS VACATION! Trump wrote.

Last week, Senate Democrats blocked a $250 billion supplement to the small-business loans, which will be forgiven if companies keep workers on their payroll. Democrats objected to a lack of consensus, saying they wanted to tack on $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for states and local governments.

The original small-business assistance was part of a $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill approved by Congress last month. The bill also boosted unemployment insurance pay by $600 per week.

The House and Senate are expected to remain out of session until at least May 4, meaning the funds likely wont be refreshed soon. In addition to Democratic opposition, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky indicated he may force an in-person vote, further increasing the likelihood of delay.

According to unemployment insurance data released Thursday, at least 17 million Americans or about 10 percent of all workers lost their jobs in the first three weeks of widespread business closures as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump announced plans Thursday for a gradual reopening of the economy, but many state and local officials plan to keep lockdown orders in place well into May and possibly longer.

Excerpt from:
Trump says Democrats are on 'endless vacation' during coronavirus crisis - New York Post

Democratic Sens. Mark WarnerMark Robert WarnerHillicon Valley: FBI sees spike in cyber crime during pandemic | Facebook to alert users exposed to virus misinformation | Bezos says mass testing needed to reopen economy Senate Democrat urges FCC to more aggressively expand internet access The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump turns to lawmakers to advise on reopening MORE (Va.) and Dianne FeinsteinDianne Emiel FeinsteinThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump turns to lawmakers to advise on reopening Trump taps members of Congress to advise on reopening New ad targets McConnell's 'culture of corruption' amid coronavirus pandemic MORE (Calif.) are calling on Justice Department watchdogs to investigate Attorney General William BarrWilliam Pelham BarrJudge denies Roger Stone's motion for new trial Democrats call on Trump to halt border wall construction amid pandemic Mississippi mayor reverses, will allow drive-in church with windows up MORE's comments about the firing of intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

Warner and Feinstein the top Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, respectively sent a letter Friday to Jeffrey Ragsdale, acting director of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility, and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitzarguing that Barr has "misstated key facts."

"This is a disservice to ICIG Atkinson. It also raises broader questions about whether Attorney General Barr is following Department policies and rules of professional conduct that demand candor and impartiality from lawyers, particularly those who serve the public trust," the senators wrote.

"We request that you investigate whether Attorney General Barrs statements in matters involving the interests of the President violate applicable Justice Department policies and rules of professional conduct," they added.

Trump shocked Washington earlier this month when he announced he was firing Atkinson, who handled the whistleblower complaint at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. The complaint dealt with Trump's actions on U.S. aid to Ukraine and a request thatKyiv help "look into" Democrats.

The two Democratic senators point to a Fox News interviewwith Barr earlier this month, when he said Trump "was correct" and "did the right thing" by firing Atkinson.

Barr added during the interview that Atkinson should have sent the whistleblower report to the executive branch before reporting it to Congress.

He was told this in a letter to the Department of Justice, and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the Department of Justice, and he ignored it, Barr said.

How to handle the whistleblower complaint was a point of contention between Atkinson,DOJ and then-acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph MaguireJoseph MaguireSchiff calls on DNI Grenell to explain intelligence community changes Democrats seize on Trump's firing of intelligence community watchdog Trump fires intelligence community watchdog who flagged Ukraine whistleblower complaint MORE.

Atkinson notified Congress of the existence of the whistleblower complaint, though he declined to discuss detailsof the complaintduring a closed-door briefing last year with House lawmakers.

Atkinson also forwarded the complaint to Maguire, who initially refused to hand it over to Congress, stating that the allegations fell outside the intelligence community's whistleblower statute. The office of the DNI subsequently transmitted a classified versionto the congressional Intelligence committees in September.

Feinstein and Warner note in their letter that Atkinson "did not transmit the complaint or reveal its contents to Congress" but notified Congress of a disagreement between himself and Maguire about whether the complaint should be handed over to Congress.

"It was ultimately DNI Maguire, not ICIG Atkinson, who transmitted the complaint to Congress," the senators wrote.

Barr who was confirmed last year largely along party lines has emerged as a top defender of Trump and holds broad views on executive power. His actions since assuming the top DOJ spot have rankled Democrats, including his comments on the FBI's 2016 investigation into Russia's election interference and the Trump campaign.

The two senators pointed to an opinion last month from D.C. District Court Judge Reggie Walton that upbraided Barr for comments he made about former special counsel Robert MuellerRobert (Bob) MuellerCNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill's 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE's report before it was released to the public.

"Judge Waltons finding that Attorney General Barr may have intentionally distorted facts to further the Presidents interests warrants your attention," Feinstein and Warner wrote.

Walton, appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, wrote in the opinion that "the Court cannot reconcile" some statements made by Barr with the report's findings.

The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barrs statements ... and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President TrumpDonald John TrumpMichael Cohen to be released early from prison amid coronavirus pandemic: report Biden assembling White House transition team Top Republicans call on Trump to fund WHO pending director-general's resignation MORE," the judge wrote.

See the original post here:
Democrats request probe of Barr's remarks on firing of intelligence community IG | TheHill - The Hill

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) pressed Pence on Trumps Twitter feed at the end of the call, asking why the president was trying to incite division by tweeting LIBERATE Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan and aligning himself with protests in those states over their lockdowns. Pence said the administration was working with governors but that the president will continue to communicate with the American people as he always had.

That demurral left Democrats unsatisfied. Kaine said Trumps tweets were disrespectful and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked Pence to answer Kaines question.

Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the federal government, and Deborah Birx, the head of the coronavirus task force, were also on the call and answered most of the questions along with several other public health experts. At one point, Fauci corrected Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) when she attributed a statement about coronavirus response to him.

Another Democrat on the call said that the Trump administration is hoping to have enough tests at the end of the month to be able to reopen some parts of the country and the economy from lockdowns but was vague on the details and was overly optimistic in its thinking.

The fundamental problem is a lack of capacity which at this point they cant fix. So they are explaining it away, the Democrat said. Everyone was livid.

After the call, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) released a statement saying that Pence expressed willingness work with him on his concerns about the treatment of rural health care providers in the massive aid package passed at the end of March.

Pence also spoke to Senate Democrats last week, a call that ran so long that members scheduled Fridays call to continue the discussion.

Visit link:
'I have never been so mad about a phone call in my life' - POLITICO

WASHINGTON The surprise defeat of a conservative justice in a statewide Wisconsin election despite a show of support from President Trump drove Republicans and Democrats back to their 2020 electoral playbooks on Tuesday, as both parties examined whether a surge of enthusiasm and on-the-ground organization among Democrats could help them capture that critical battleground state in November.

Leaders of both parties said that the victory, by an overwhelming margin of more than 120,000 votes, could provide a road map for Democrats trying to beat Mr. Trump in November in Wisconsin (which he carried by 22,748 votes in 2016) and other states where he narrowly prevailed. Democrats did have an advantage, though: A presidential primary was on the ballot, which probably raised turnout.

Wisconsin was also the first major test of vote-by-mail efforts for the parties since the outbreak of the coronavirus. Democrats by all accounts had the superior program, forcing Republicans to reckon with what could be a challenge for Mr. Trumps re-election efforts.

Mr. Trump and some Republicans have attacked vote-by-mail efforts in response to the virus, arguing without evidence that they enable fraud and favor Democrats. But the Wisconsin result was a clear sign for both parties that a strong mail-in strategy could be important in the general election.

While the dynamics surrounding the election and their impact on the outcome are still being sorted out, the spread and the margin on this race is absolutely concerning for Republicans in Midwestern battleground states, said Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist in Ohio. Id be the first to admit that from afar, I really thought that this was going to be won by the Republican.

Former Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who signed into law the voting restrictions that chafed Democrats, said he was unconcerned about the result, saying that Democrats had been drawn to the polls by their partys presidential primary between former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Mr. Sanders ended his presidential campaign the morning after the Wisconsin vote.

As for November, there are no real takeaways as the turnout will be about twice as large in the fall, Mr. Walker said by email.

It is risky to draw broad national lessons, particularly about what this might mean for Mr. Trump, from a single state judicial election conducted in the spring, with turnout that was far lower than in a general election. But there were clearly worrisome signs for the president, as well as a few notes of caution for Democrats looking to seize on the result as a glimmer of good news.

Democrats demonstrated that they have a superior vote-by-mail program built in a weeks time as the pandemic shut down movement in the state and an enthusiastic voter base willing to brave challenging conditions to get to the polls. They also displayed an ability to mobilize voters and organize mail-in ballots in heavily Democratic areas like Milwaukee and Madison, despite the obstacles of the virus and closed polling places.

The primary between Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders did help fuel turnout, but that race was effectively resolved well before this vote, with Mr. Biden for weeks viewed as the presumptive Democratic nominee. A senior Sanders aide said the senator had remained in the race through the Wisconsin primary in part to lift turnout for Jill Karofsky, the liberal judge who ousted an incumbent conservative State Supreme Court justice, Daniel Kelly.

Still, Mr. Trump drew far more votes in 2016 than Justice Kelly did, and there is little reason, at least as of now, to think that the presidents ability to inspire his core supporters has diminished. Mr. Biden still faces the task of reuniting Democrats and rallying Mr. Sanderss supporters some of whom backed Mr. Trump against Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee behind him. And Republicans have months to learn lessons from what Democrats did, and they have the money and political expertise to put in place any new tactics or strategies.

Just days before the April 7 election in Wisconsin, Republicans there blocked efforts by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, to delay the election because of the coronavirus and provide mail ballots to all voters. Democrats now argue that the Republican strategy might have backfired, citing the long lines of voters risking their health to cast ballots as evidence that Democrats were pushing back against efforts to suppress their vote.

When you have the coronavirus out there and you make the decision anyway to go out and vote, that says a lot, said Patty Schachtner, a state senator whose victory in a January 2018 special election flipped a seat that had been held by Republicans for 17 years and presaged sweeping Democratic triumphs later that year. If you took the time to put on a mask and go vote, then it meant a lot to you.

Ms. Schachtner did a six-hour shift as a poll worker last week, and said the persistence of Democrats waiting in line, often for hours, signaled an electorate that was highly motivated.

It is also possible that Wisconsin Republicans were too casual in their efforts, confident that Mr. Trumps advocacy for their candidate he tweeted several times on Mr. Kellys behalf and the spring turnout, which was 52 percent of the 2016 presidential electorate, made it highly unlikely that an incumbent would be removed. Mr. Kelly is just the second incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court justice to lose since 1967.

Though Ms. Karofskys victory caught members of both parties by surprise, it was not a fluke. Perhaps the best comparison point to the race is a similar State Supreme Court election in April 2019, which Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative, won by 6,000 votes.

Ms. Karofsky improved on the performance by the liberal candidate in that race in 71 of Wisconsins 72 counties. She flipped three counties near Green Bay, a key swing area of the state, and cut into conservative margins of victory by at least 13 percentage points in each of the three suburban Milwaukee counties that represent the states Republican heartland.

The last two statewide elections where they have made it a referendum on President Trump, theyve gotten beat pretty handily, said Matt Lowe, the Waukesha County Democratic chairman, referring to Mr. Walkers 2018 re-election bid and Mr. Kellys Supreme Court race.

There is little history in the state of voting by mail, leaving Democrats to improvise as the virus transformed the election, while contending with onerous restrictions put in place by the Republicans in power. Early results suggest Democrats have been effective in having party volunteers help voters navigate a complicated process to request and return mail ballots, an online system that required uploading a copy of their photo identification. The sessions were often conducted through one-on-one video calls.

The work we did wasnt about taking unmotivated people and trying to prod them to cast a ballot, said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. It was about taking highly motivated people and helping them navigate a maze to help them safely and legally cast a vote.

In Washington, Democrats who had been bracing for a defeat theyd already blamed on voter suppression quickly turned to attribute the victory to a yearslong pattern of Mr. Trump repelling suburban and highly educated voters.

Id be peeing my pants right now if I was the Trump campaign, said David Bergstein, a Democratic National Committee official who helps oversee the partys battleground states program. Suburban voters do not like Trump and theyre taking it out on the Republican Party.

Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the result a clarion call to the Republican Party and the White House.

Wisconsin sends a message: This will not be the election you think it will be, Mr. Steele said. The danger is greater for Republicans because of what they tried to do with the Wisconsin campaign to force the vote. To put an arm of protection around their candidate for Supreme Court and then to have that wiped out handily by the Democrats.

Wisconsin is now in play in a big way, he said.

Like Mr. Walker, Wisconsin Republicans attributed the defeat to the presidential primary raising Democratic turnout. But they also said battles over whether to conduct the election amid the pandemic wound up keeping away more of their own voters, who tend to be older and more concentrated in rural areas where polling places are farther away.

The very regulations that Mr. Walker and fellow Republicans put in place to restrict voting by mail requirements that voters upload a copy of their photo identification to request a ballot and obtain a witness signature before returning their ballots may have had the effect of keeping away Republicans used to voting in person who were unfamiliar with new processes.

While Republicans encouraged early and absentee voting, many elderly either did not have the wherewithal to request absentee ballots or the inclination to vote in person on April 7, said Doug Rogalla, the Republican Party chairman in Monroe County. They were confused, afraid and decided to stay home.

Ms. Karofskys victory also showed the fruits of three years of Democratic organizing in Wisconsin, including in areas outside major cities that had been neglected during the Obama era.

Jim Kurz, the Democratic Party chairman in Rusk County in the states rural, wooded northwest, said the state party had dispatched a paid organizer to help with get-out-the-vote efforts in the heavily Republican area.

First time weve had that kind of help, Mr. Kurz said.

Reid J. Epstein reported from Washington, and Adam Nagourney from Los Angeles.

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Democratic Victory in Wisconsin Looms as Clarion Call for Trump - The New York Times