Photo courtesy of Neal Plotkin for State Senate
Democrat Neal Plotkin is running against the Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling in the race for the 8th District.
It’s hard to imagine that Alberta Darling was once on Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s board of directors. The Republican state senator for the 8th District since 1992, was known as a proponent of health and children’s issues. However, the temperature has changed in the Republican Party since Darling’s long career began and as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, she helped lead the way.
For example, in 2019, she helped defeat the Medicaid expansion that would have secured federal health care funding for 80,000 lower income Wisconsin residents. Because of Darling’s leadership in fighting the federally funded Medicaid expansion, Wisconsin stands alone as the only state in the Midwest and Northeast to reject this benefit. Even Indiana supported the Medicaid expansion. One doctor in her district asked the appropriate question, “How many people unfortunately died because Alberta refused to allow Wisconsin residents receive proper health care?” And this year, Darling marched in lockstep to the GOP drumbeat of minimizing the COVID threat and thwarting Gov. Tony Evers public health measures.
Although Darling ran unopposed in 2012 and 2016, this year she’s in the run of her life against a newcomer, Democrat Neal Plotkin. Polls show it’s a close race and as a result, local channels have seen a spate of desperate Darling ads, dusting off old GOP rhetoric about tax-and-spend Democrats. A number of Republicans, especially suburban Republican women, have made it clear that they can no longer support her. They have been waiting for someone to challenge her and now they have an excellent candidate in Plotkin.
“Having lived in this district for so long, it was frustrating and disappointing to see an incumbent run unopposed. An empty ballot means no choice for voters,” Plotkin says. “It’s disappointing to democracy and representative politics to have no-contest elections. If a representative doesn’t face an opponent, they’re not facing the voters.”
Plotkin describes the 8th Senate District as “one of the most gerrymandered districts in one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation.” He’s not exaggerating. The 8th is a divide-and-conquer district that lumps together a tiny slice of Milwaukee’s Northwest Side with Germantown; it uneasily straddles the four counties of Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee and shares Congressional constituents with Gwen Moore, Jim Sensenbrenner and Glenn Grothman. The lines were carefully drawn by the GOP-dominated legislature to keep the district in Republican hands.
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Times are Changing
As described by County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman, who narrowly lost his bid to unseat Darling in 2008, the 8th is in play this year thanks in part to the current occupant of the White House. “Trump has changed the meaning of being Republican,” he explains. “Trump has alienated many suburban women who were reliably Republican. It’s a problem for Alberta Darling—still supporting this misogynistic guy. And people who vote on more than one issue—like guns or abortion—wonder what the hell is going on with our country? What ever happened to compassionate conservatism? You don’t hear much compassion from the Republicans these days.”
Plotkin says that the “passage of time” has also undermined the Republican scheme to control the 8th District based on their calculations from the 2010 census. “The old Northshore suburbs have become very blue,” he begins. “Glendale is blue, even River Hills and Brown Deer. The Milwaukee suburbs that were reliably Republican when I was growing up have changed. In Menomonee Falls, the multiple housing units that have gone up in the past 10 years—whether apartments or condos—have many Democratic-leaning voters. Mequon has become evenly Democratic-Republican.”
Plotkin is a 40-year resident of the district he hopes to represent with a 40-year career as a small business owner. Wasserman describes him as “a good, solid, hardworking family man who always paid his taxes. He’s honest, openminded and he’ll work with people. You’ll hear an independent voice.”
The failed performance by the current legislature encouraged Plotkin to seek public office for the first time. “People are tired of a legislature that doesn’t work. It passed only 29 bills in 2019 as opposed to 300 in a normal year. They recently had a two-day session and they’re paid full time. Citizens are getting robbed by these people!”
Plotkin makes only three promises. If elected, “I’ll be the senator who listens to people instead of talking at them”; he’ll tackle the twisted gerrymandering that has turned Wisconsin’s election districts into a farse; and he’ll work for fair funding of infrastructure, public education and Badger Care.
His wife Nancy is a registered nurse “on the front lines of the [COVID-19] crisis,” Plotkin says. “I know the crisis for what it is and it’s not being addressed by the legislature.”
Election Day is November 3.
