"Without Unions Democrats Don't Have a Way to Compete

Rachel Maddow from MSNBC is in deep mourning over the loss in Wisconsin:

The day after a stunning union defeat in Wisconsin, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said that without the influence of unions, the Democratic Party’s electoral situation is “dire,” saying that “Democrats do not have a way to compete” with Republicans.

“The Wisconsin Republicans, under Scott Walker, were using public policy to essentially dismantle public sector unions in Wisconsin. And that — however you feel about union rights in the country — it had one very practical, partisan effect, which is that the unions had been big supporters of Democratic candidates and Democratic causes and had had a lot to do with the Democratic ground game. So if they go away — in terms of whether or not that corporate money that’s disproportionately supporting Republicans can be answered — at least on the Democratic side, before there is some kind of reform, Democrats do not have a way to compete in terms of big outside money in elections. And that is the reality now in Wisconsin. It is the reality in states where they have essentially eliminated unions rights.”

“I think,” Maddow added, “structurally, that’s a pretty dire electoral situation for Democrats.”

It's not so much the existence of unions that helps Democrats, but the existence of mandatory union dues which flow through the union and right back in to Democrat campaigns. When the rules were changed to eliminate mandatory union dues in Wisconsin public sector union membership dropped from more than 62,000 to around 27,000. That's a lot of money that won't be available to Democrats in future elections.