The Capitol Report, produced by WisPolitics.com — a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics — provides a weekly analysis of issues being debated in Wisconsin state government. It is underwritten by the WNA and produced exclusively for its members. WisPolitics.com President Jeff Mayers is a former editor and reporter for the Associated Press and a former political writer for the Wisconsin State Journal.
The general election campaign no longer waits until Labor Day.
This year it began hours after the polls closed on Aug. 9.
And the stakes are high for a midterm election in purple Wisconsin — a nationally important governor’s race, a crucial U.S. Senate race, a western Wisconsin congressional seat that could determine partisan
control of the House, and a test of the influence of former President Trump.
Post-primary, Gov. Tony Evers hit the road on a general election campaign swing that took him through Madison, Stevens Point, Appleton and Milwaukee. If he wins and Democrats hold off enough GOP
legislative candidates to block a veto-proof majority, Evers would likely be vetoing a lot of the same kind of Republican bills he did in his first term.
Evers and his running mate Rep. Sara Rodriguez, D-Brookfield, will face wealthy construction executive Tim Michels and state Sen. Roger Roth, R-Appleton. Both Republicans won primaries Aug. 9, with Michels beating former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch by about 5 percentage points and Roth emerging from a crowded field.
Trump backed Michels, while Kleefisch had former Vice President Mike Pence, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Gov. Scott Walker in her corner.
Trump’s candidate won the GOP gubernatorial primary, but his pick failed to unseat GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the Racine area.
Vos called his narrow win a testament to his conservative record, saying Trump’s endorsement of opponent Adam Steen made the race closer than he expected.
The Rochester Republican also called Michael Gableman — hired by Vos to review the 2020 election only to see the former Supreme Court justice endorse his opponent — “an embarrassment to Wisconsin.”
Vos told WisPolitics.com in a phone interview that he expected the race to be close because of the “level of passion” that Steen had with his followers. He said one of the few differences between them
position-wise was Steen’s call to decertify the 2020 election results. Vos has said repeatedly that isn’t possible.
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“The Democrats spent $1.4 million against me last time, and I won,” Vos said, referring to the 2020 general election. “Republicans under President Trump and his entourage spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lying about my record, and I won again.”
The Democratic U.S. Senate primary became a victory lap for current Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes after his top rivals dropped out and endorsed him.
On primary election night, he rallied his supporters with a knock on Republicans and incumbent GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, who is seeking a third six-year term.
“We have just over 90 days until the election. We’re not going to let up. We’re not going to give up a single inch,” Barnes said. “They want to distract us from Ron Johnson’s failed record. They want to distract us from the fact that Republicans have done nothing to help out people in this room today, people like us. They turn their backs on every single one of us every step of the way, and that’s why we’re replacing Ron Johnson.”
Johnson said Democrats had chosen the most “radical left” candidate in the U.S. Senate race.
“Regardless of how Mandela Barnes and his allies in the mainstream media attempt to paint his views, Wisconsinites should not believe a word they say,” Johnson said in a statement. “The Lieutenant Governor will support all the destructive policies of President Biden and his enablers in congress.”
Meanwhile, in western Wisconsin, state Sen. Brad Pfaff, of Onalaska, won the four-way Democrat primary for the 3rd Congressional District seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse.
Pfaff, who was endorsed by Kind, will face Republican Derrick Van Orden in the November general election. Van Orden, endorsed by Trump, narrowly lost to Kind two years ago.
“Derrick presents a clear and present danger to democracy and has proven time and time again that he lacks the temperament, character, or the judgment to be in Congress,” Pfaff said in a statement. “Whether it was participating in the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, being placed on probation for taking a loaded gun into an airport, bragging about sexually harassing two female officers or
berating a teenaged librarian aide because of a Gay Pride book display, Derrick is quite simply unfit to serve in Congress.”
Van Orden, in turn, ripped Democrat leadership in Washington, D.C., and said Pfaff “enthusiastically supports President Biden and Pelosi’s radical policies and spending that are destroying America in real time.”
“Wisconsinites have had enough,” Van Orden said. “They want new leadership, someone who is not a career politician and will be a strong leader in these hard times.”
Prepare yourself: this will be a general election campaign full of contrasts, sharp rhetoric and national implications.
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