Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin (born February 11, 1962) is an American politician and lawyer serving since 2013 as the junior United States senator from Wisconsin. A member of the Democratic Party, she has also served as the secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus since 2017. Baldwin has been the dean of the United States congressional delegation from Wisconsin since 2023, when Representative Ron Kind retired.
Baldwin graduated from Smith College and the University of Wisconsin Law School, and was a lawyer in private practice before entering the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1993. She served three terms from Wisconsin's 78th Assembly district from 1993 to 1999, and seven terms as the United States congresswoman from Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district from 1999 to 2013. She was elected to the United States Senate in 2012, and reelected in 2018 and 2024.
Baldwin is the first openly lesbian woman elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly (1993), the first openly lesbian woman and first woman elected to the U.S. House from Wisconsin (1998), and the first openly LGBTQ person and first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin (2012). She has a progressive voting record on healthcare, reproductive rights, and LGBT rights.
Early life, education, and early career Baldwin was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother, who died in 2017, was 19 and going through a divorce when Baldwin was born. Baldwin was raised by her grandparents and spent Saturdays with her mother, who suffered from mental illness and opioid addiction. Her maternal grandfather, biochemist David E. Green, was Jewish (the son of immigrants from Russia and Germany), and her maternal grandmother, who was Anglican, was English-born. Baldwin's aunt is biochemist Rowena Green Matthews. Through her maternal grandfather, Baldwin is a third cousin of comedian Andy Samberg.
Baldwin graduated from Madison West High School in 1980 as the class valedictorian. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in 1984 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1989.
Baldwin has worked as an attorney in private practice. Before entering state politics, she first held political office in 1986, when she was elected to the Board of supervisors for Dane County, Wisconsin. She served on the board until 1994. She also served one year on the Madison Common Council to fill a vacancy.'Wisconsin Blue Book 2003–2004,' Biographical Sketch of Tammy Baldwin, p. 13
Wisconsin Assembly (1993–1999) Baldwin ran to represent Wisconsin's 78th Assembly district in central Madison in 1992. She won the Democratic primary with 43% of the vote. In the general election, Baldwin defeated Labor and Farm Party nominee Mary Kay Baum and Republican nominee Patricia Hevenor, 59–23–17%. She was one of just six openly gay political candidates nationwide to win a general election that year.
Baldwin was reelected with 76% of the vote in 1994. She was reelected to a third term with 71% of the vote in 1996.
Committee assignments: Criminal Justice Committee Education Committee (chair) Elections, Constitutional Law and Corrections Committee
U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2013)
Elections In 1998, U.S. Congressman Scott Klug of the 2nd district, based in Madison, announced he would retire, prompting Baldwin to run for the seat. Baldwin's ads leaned into the fact that Wisconsin had never sent a woman to Congress, and many of her ads targeted younger voters. She won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 37% of the vote. In the general election, she defeated Republican nominee Josephine Musser, 53–47%. Baldwin's campaign drew strong turnout in Dane County, using a team of volunteers, many of whom were students. The turnout was said to have helped Russ Feingold's reelection campaign that year, and was acknowledged by Feingold as a factor.
Baldwin is the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin. She is also the first openly gay non-incumbent elected to the House of Representatives, and the first open lesbian elected to Congress. She and Representative Barney Frank co-founded the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus in 2008.
In 2000, Baldwin was reelected, defeating Republican nominee John Sharpless by 8,902 votes (51%–49%). She lost eight of the district's nine counties, but carried the largest, Dane County, with 55% of the vote.
After the 2000 census, the 2nd district was made significantly more Democratic in redistricting. Baldwin won reelection to a third term in the newly redrawn 2nd district with 66% of the vote against Republican Ron Greer. In 2004, she beat Dave Magnum 63–37%. She won a 2006 rematch against Magnum, again winning 63–37%. In 2008, she defeated Peter Theron 69–31%, and in 2010 she won a seventh term with 62% of the vote against Chad Lee.
Committee assignments Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Economy Subcommittee on Health
U.S. Senate (2013–present)
Elections
2012
Baldwin ran as the Democratic nominee against Republican nominee Tommy Thompson, who had formerly been governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services. She announced her candidacy on September 6, 2011, in a video emailed to supporters. She ran uncontested in the primary election, and spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention about tax policy, campaign finance reform, and equality in the United States.
She was endorsed by Democracy for America, and she received campaign funding from EMILY's List, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, and LPAC. Baldwin was endorsed by the editorial board of The Capital Times, who wrote that "Baldwin's fresh ideas on issues ranging from job creation to health care reform, along with her proven record of working across lines of partisanship and ideology, and her grace under pressure mark her as precisely the right choice to replace retiring U.S. Senator Herb Kohl".Thompson said during the campaign that Baldwin's "far-left approach leaves this country in jeopardy". The candidates had three debates, on September 28, October 18, and October 26. According to Baldwin's Federal Election Commission filings, she raised about $12 million, over $5 million more than Thompson.
On November 6, 2012, Baldwin became the first openly gay candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate, with 51.4% of the vote. Because of her 14 years in the House of Representatives, under Senate rules she had the highest seniority in her entering class of senators. She was succeeded in Congress by State Representative Mark Pocan, who had earlier succeeded her in the state legislature.
Baldwin was featured in Time's November 19, 2012, edition, in the Verbatim section, where she was quoted as saying "I didn't run to make history" on her historic election. In a separate section, she was also mentioned as a new face to watch in the Senate.
2018
Baldwin won a second term in 2018 with 55.4% of the vote, defeating Republican Leah Vukmir by a margin of approximately 11%.
2024
In April 2023, Baldwin announced her intention to run for a third Senate term. She narrowly defeated Republican nominee Eric Hovde even as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump won Wisconsin.
Committee assignments
Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee on Defense Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Ranking Member) Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness (Ranking Member) Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security
Caucus memberships Black Maternal Health Caucus
Political positions
In 2003, Baldwin served on the advisory committee of the Progressive Majority, a political action committee dedicated to electing progressive candidates to public office.
In 2012, Baldwin described herself as a progressive in the mold of former Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette. In 2013, she and Wisconsin's senior U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson, split on votes more frequently than any other Senate duo from the same state. She was one of 16 female Democratic senators to sign a letter in 2013 endorsing Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
In 2023, the Lugar Center ranked Baldwin in the top third of senators for bipartisanship.
Agriculture
In 2019, she and eight other Democratic senators sent Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue a letter that criticized the Department of Agriculture for purchasing pork from JBS USA, an American subsidiary of a Brazilian corporation.
Bush administration Baldwin cosponsored H. Res. 333, a bill in 2007 proposing articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, and H. Res. 589, a bill proposing the impeachment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. She wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "I joined with my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee, Reps. Robert Wexler and Luis Gutiérrez, in urging Chairman John Conyers to conduct hearings on a resolution of impeachment now pending consideration in that committee." She added that although some constituents "say I have gone too far", others "argue I have not gone far enough" and feel "we are losing our democracy and that I should do more to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions."
Climate change
In 2018, Baldwin was one of 25 Democratic senators to cosponsor a resolution in response to findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change report and National Climate Assessment.
Crime In 1995, Baldwin proposed the creation of a review board to investigate the deaths of prison inmates. In 1997, she authored a bill changing Wisconsin's candidate filing system to an electronic one. Baldwin opposes capital punishment.
Drug policy
Baldwin was one of 17 senators to have signed a letter to President-elect Donald Trump in 2016 asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs.
She was one of 31 senators to have signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in 2017 in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company detail the price structure for Evzio, how many devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year.
Baldwin was one of six senators to have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2017 requesting their "help in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the 340B program", a Trump administration rule mandating that drug companies give discounts to health-care organizations presently serving large numbers of low-income patients.
Economic policy
In a 2015 radio interview, Baldwin said that she, Pope Francis, and Donald Trump all supported repeal of the carried interest tax loophole. PolitiFact wrote that "while Pope Francis has called for helping the poor and addressing economic inequality, we could not find that [Trump] has spoken out on this particular tax break."