What does Ben Wikler argue in 'This Is the Plan'?

Ben Wikler chaired the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2025 — the run that turned it into the most-watched case study in modern Democratic organizing. His July 2026 book, This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy, is part memoir of those six years and part argument for what the national party should learn from them.

The central claim is structural, not ideological. Wisconsin’s wins — flipping the state Supreme Court, holding the governorship, building one of the country’s largest volunteer door-knocking operations — came from treating the state party as a permanent organizing body rather than an electoral vehicle that wakes up every four years. The party grew from roughly 18 paid staff in 2019 to more than 250 by 2024, embedded in county offices that ran continuous programs between elections. The book is honest about the costs: deficits during the 2022 midterms and resources pulled away from a marquee Senate race.

The Jon Stewart interview — the most-watched stop on the book tour — pressed on three themes: the post-2024 audit (organizing deficits made the loss worse than it needed to be), whether the Wisconsin model scales (yes, but only if donors fund state parties as institutions, not pass-throughs), and a warning against treating any single candidate as the fix.

The short version: Wikler is not arguing Wisconsin-style organizing wins everywhere. He is arguing that without it, Democrats lose almost everywhere.