(Photos and full video by freelance videographer Jonathan Klett)
Hasan Piker and Ilhan Omar join Francesca Hong on the campaign trail for governor of Wisconsin. Polls show that Francesca Hong is leading the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Hasan Piker, Ilhan Omar, and Hong deliver their remarks to a boisterous crowd at South Milwaukee High School. Freelance videographer Jonathan Klett captures full video of the event.
Democratic candidates for governor largely avoided direct attacks on one another during their only televised primary debate Tuesday night. (Screenshots via WISN-12)
Democratic candidates for governor largely avoided direct attacks on one another during their only televised primary debate Tuesday night, with two weeks remaining before the Aug. 11 primary, instead laying out differences on issues including school vouchers and data centers.
This year’s election is the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010, and the five candidates left in a field that used to include seven are former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Joel Brennan, former state Department of Administration chief, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and state Sen. Kelda Roys.
More than 40% of Wisconsin voters have not made up their minds about which candidate to support.
Recent polls show Hong leading the race.
The debate was hosted by WISN 12 on the Marquette University campus and moderated by Gerron Jordan and Matt Smith, WISN 12 journalists and hosts of “Upfront,” on the first day of in-person early voting. The candidates were told at the beginning that they were allowed to speak to one another at the start of the debate, but direct back and forth and criticism was minimal throughout the hour-long debate.
The winner of the primary will likely face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee in November.
Addressing criticisms
The debate started with each candidate addressing a critique of their candidacy.
Crowley, who recently reentered the race for governor with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers, was asked about his decision to drop out and then restart his campaign and whether he is a “prop” of the Democratic establishment.
“I was never born into the establishment. I was actually born into struggle… I’m not here to protect the establishment. I’m here to deliver real results for Wisconsinites all over our state,” Crowley said, adding that the “stakes are too high and that’s why I got back into this race.”
Barnes, who served as lieutenant governor in Evers’ first term, was asked about entering the race after losing his 2022 U.S. Senate race against Sen. Ron Johnson, his failure to garner Evers’ endorsement, and why voters should trust him to win in November when he previously lost.
Barnes said that his narrow loss to Johnson taught him about the influence of money on elections as well as “how low Republicans can go.” He said that he thinks his campaign will have the resources and support to win, and he appeared to take a poke at Crowley.
“I have zero interest in upholding the status quo. I have zero interest in being the establishment candidate,” Barnes said. “That is the difference right here on the stage because I am pushing the envelope to make sure that we are as bold as we can possibly be in the Donald Trump era, because that’s what people have been calling for Democrats to be all along.”
Hong, who identifies as a democratic socialist, was asked whether she supports the full platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, which includes abolishing the U.S. Senate. Tiffany has been criticizing her for a tweet from 2021, in which she said “Abolish the Senate.” She said no.
“I do not support the full platform of the national DSA and I am not endorsed by DSA National,” Hong said. She then focused on defining democratic socialism, saying it is a “form of government that puts working class people first.”
Brennan and Roys, who are both polling in the single digits, were asked about whether voters were “wasting” their vote by voting for them.
“The challenge that I have had from day one is not that anybody thinks I’m unqualified for the office,” Brennan said, noting his experience as a cabinet member under Evers. “The challenge I have had is that people don’t know me as well as they know some other candidates around the state.”
Brennan said the recent upheaval in the race — as well as the perception of insiders “putting their thumb on the scale” — has gotten people more engaged and that will help his candidacy.
Roys responded to the same question by saying, “If you want the best public schools in the nation for your children, if you want to open up the state’s healthcare plan so that everyone can buy in and we can lower costs for all Wisconsinites, if you want a candidate who is going to stand up and fight Donald Trump and bring an end to this authoritarian regime, then you should vote for me.”
Public safety funding
Each candidate said he or she would not sign a budget that cut funding to law enforcement and all said that they would sign a bill requiring police across the state of Wisconsin to wear body cameras.
Candidates were asked about the killing of Corey Ruiz, a Black man, by Madison police. Hong was asked about her public speech on the site of the killing in which she called it an example of state-sanctioned violence and an “execution.” Hong said during the debate that she would not have made the comments before an investigation as governor, since the office has “the largest microphone in the state” and there is “deep responsibility” with that. “It was clearly the type of violence where no one’s life should have been taken,” Hong said.
Asked about previous comments she made supporting defunding the police, Hong said she would not cut funding for public safety, but wants to invest in local governments and communities to help reduce crime including by investing in schools, addressing the opioid epidemic and ensuring people coming out of incarceration have proper resources.
“The governor cannot defund police, and I am not here to govern by slogan,” Hong said. “I am here to make sure I am the governor that’s most serious about public safety.”
Barnes faced criticism during his 2022 Senate campaign over comments supporting reducing police funding. He said during the debate he would not sign a budget that decreased police funding in part because he said police departments must be able to afford body cameras, which Madison police do not have.
Roys said that she wouldn’t cut police funding and added that the state also needs to invest in local governments, so they can invest in evidence-based programs that reduce and prevent crime.
“We have to invest in proven strategies that actually do that, unlike what Republicans like Tom Tiffany have done, which is cut funding to local governments and take away local control,” Roys said.
“We cannot defund the police. We should be investing in public safety,” Crowley said, adding that that includes investing in wraparound services.
Brennan said there needs to be robust funding for local governments, and that the state should look to Minnesota as a model for how to reduce crime, spend less and reduce the prison population while investing in early childhood and K-12 education.
Voucher program
When it comes to the state’s school voucher system, candidates took different positions.
Barnes said he would reduce the voucher programs in the state, including in Milwaukee where nearly half of students in the city use publicly funded private school vouchers.
Roys laid out her three-step plan to sunset the voucher programs including implementing transparency and accountability measures to close schools that don’t adhere to higher standards, end the statewide program in the first state budget and wind down the programs while allowing current participating students and their siblings to continue attending private schools with vouchers.
Hong said she would not put a “firm” number on when the voucher programs would need to end, but she supports strengthening public schools and would wind down the voucher program through a “responsible program and process where we work directly with the families and the different schools.”
Crowley said he would not sign a bill reducing the programs, though he added that he doesn’t want to see them expand either.
“I don’t think the question is whether or not we should have vouchers,” Crowley said. “The question should be, how do we continue to invest in our public schools to make sure that they’re the school of choice.”
Brennan offered the strongest argument for not signing a bill to reduce or close the programs. He said he wants to cap enrollment and disclose costs of private voucher schools on taxpayers’ property tax bills, but he said reducing the program is not politically feasible.
“There is not going to be a bill passed in the Legislature that is put on the governor’s desk right now to end vouchers in Milwaukee. There are representatives in Milwaukee… for whom more than half the people who live there are sending their kids to private schools. We have to live in the real world. This is dividing Democrats,” Brennan said. “I wouldn’t put legislators in a position where they’re going to have to tell parents that they can’t send their kids to their schools of their choice.”
Brennan added that he wants to make Wisconsin’s public schools better than any private school.
Data centers
Data center construction has become a key issue in the race for governor with polling suggesting that 76% of Wisconsinites say they believe the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Candidates provided different solutions for regulating data centers.
Hong touted the fact that she is the only candidate to call for a moratorium on data centers and said she would call a special session on the issue to have lawmakers take action on a bill that would impose regulations on data center construction in the state.
“This moratorium is necessary so that we can responsibly put in enforcement mechanisms to protect communities,” Hong said, noting that some local governments have already imposed moratoriums. “We also want to make sure that there are the guard rails, the legal resources, and that if data centers are going to come here in our state that they pay their own way and actually pay up front.”
Crowley said that he did not think a moratorium would address the long-term concerns, and said he would rather focus on ensuring that data centers have to pay for their energy use, grid upgrades and use clean energy.
Brennan said he has not called for a moratorium, but would put a 100-day pause on construction. He said he would also ensure that Wisconsinites are not paying for the construction, ensure there are regulations with “teeth” and that companies are using renewable energy, ensure that union workers are employed on the projects and ban non-disclosure agreements between companies and local governments.
“If we can do that in the first 100 days, it’s not going to make everybody happy, but it’s going to set the bar and take away that uncertainty and take away another reason why people distrust government and why they’re so angry,” Brennan said.
Barnes said that he wanted no new data center construction without guardrails being put in place to ensure the state’s natural resources and air quality are protected and that residents’ energy bills are not climbing.
“If a community rejects a data center proposal, then there should be no new data center constructed,” Barnes said.
Roys said she doubted a moratorium bill could pass, but a bill focused on strong regulations could be successful.
“I will not stop there,” Roys said. “I will also establish a public negotiating team so that any community that decides it would like to engage with a data center has the opportunity to have expert negotiators. I will increase shared revenue so that communities don’t feel desperate … I will also end the subsidies for data centers because they should be paying us and not the other way around.”
In 30-second closing statements, as each candidate made a pitch for voters’ support, Barnes made some of the most pointed remarks of the night taking shots at Crowley and Hong.
“I want you to know that the establishment is trying to rig this election. They want you to choose between their preferred candidate and also Republican billionaires are lining up to the tune of three and a half million dollars to choose a democratic nominee in this race,” Barnes said, referring to the money the Republican party has invested in ads widely seen as aimed at boosting Hong. “I’m here to say, that’s BS. I’ve been a progressive fighter who’s taken on the tough fights.”
Brennan suggested he is the only one who could win the general election, Roys and Crowley each emphasized their experience and Hong said she was already beating Tiffany by garnering statewide support and would be a fighter for working class voters.
On a partisan primary ballot, voters must first select which party’s primary they want to vote in.
Instructions on Aug. 11 ballot templates explain that if voters mark a party at the start of the ballot, votes cast in any other party won’t be counted.
If voters don’t make a party selection, then vote for candidates in more than one party, none of their votes will be counted.
State law requires polling places to prominently display these rules for partisan primaries.
The White House on June 11, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Friday that South Carolina should hold the party’s first primary in the 2028 presidential election cycle.
The recommendation came after a competitive 26-19-4 vote in South Carolina’s favor over Nevada and New Hampshire. The decision is now pending final confirmation from a full vote of the DNC next month.
If finalized, it will mark the second straight presidential primary cycle led by South Carolina, after the Palmetto State served as the first contest in 2024.
The committee also voted to expand the maximum number of early primaries to six, up from the base of four — with one state representing each region of the DNC.
The committee voted in favor of New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada to make up the other three early primaries that represent regions. New Mexico, whose Feb. 15 primary is ahead of Michigan’s, and Virginia were selected as the additional two states to hold an early primary.
Notably, Iowa, which for years was home to first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses for Democrats, will likely not be part of the early group in 2028, if the committee’s recommendations are upheld.
That decision came despite a pitch from Iowans to Democratic leaders that the party cannot afford to lose Iowa voters or the input of rural Midwesterners.
Iowa prevailed as first in the nation in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles, but many Democrats sought a shift away from the state after significant controversies with how the caucuses were run in 2020. There were long delays in reporting the results, and no winner was declared on the night of the caucus.
In addition, former President Joe Biden backed South Carolina as the new leader in the nominating process after his victory there in 2020 propelled him to the front of the presidential field ahead of Super Tuesday.
Voting rights ruling cited
During the meeting Friday, many committee members championed South Carolina as a choice from the party to better reach its Southern constituents and base of Black voters.
Committee member Donna Brazile, a national Democratic consultant and two-time DNC chair, was the first to recommend South Carolina. Citing the recent Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, she said Democrats must break down the barriers many Americans face to have their voices heard.
“We must start our process where democracy must still be fought for in the full view of the nation, where our coalitions can be tested, strengthened, and made real,” she said in emotional remarks, her voice occasionally wavering. “ We’re the party that will give every American citizen, every eligible voter a seat at our table, and again, that starts in the South, (with) Black voters.”
The committee’s co-chairs, Minyon Moore and James Roosevelt, Jr., said in a statement that the calendar is “rigorous, fair, and efficient” and the “most diverse calendar Democrats have ever had for an open nominating contest.”
After committee members voted for their recommendations, DNC Chair Ken Martin in a public statement praised “their diligent work and commitment to a fair and transparent selection process.”
“As a result of their hard work, today, Democrats took a critical step toward retaking the White House in 2028 by ensuring we have the strongest possible nominee,” he said.
The early group
The committee’s recommended dates for the six primary contests are as follows:
South Carolina on Jan. 22, 2028
Nevada on Feb. 1, 2028
New Hampshire on Feb. 8, 2028
New Mexico on Feb. 15, 2028
Michigan on Feb. 22, 2028
Virginia on Feb. 29, 2028
The full DNC will vote on the proposal during its next meeting, which will span from Aug. 13-15.
Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Pedro Colón has an early fundraising advantage over Clark County Judge Lyndsey Brunette in the 2027 state Supreme Court race, campaign finance reports filed this week show.
Colón, a former Democratic member of the state Assembly and Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge who has been on the District 1 Court of Appeals since 2023, raised more than $250,000 in the first reporting period of the race. That total includes a $30,000 personal loan to his campaign and a $20,000 in-kind contribution in which he was given the email list of Judge Chris Taylor’s winning Supreme Court race from this year’s election. Taylor has also endorsed Colón.
Colón’s top donors include a $20,000 contribution from Mark Thomsen, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
“I am truly honored to see the excitement and support that our campaign is generating across this state,” Colón said in a statement from his campaign. “We are building the grassroots momentum needed to win next spring and I could not be more grateful to the nearly 600 people who chipped in what they could to move our campaign forward.”
Brunette, the former Clark County District Attorney, raised $145,000 in the first reporting period. Her top donors include $20,000 from Patrick Guarasci, a political consultant who worked on the campaign of Justice Janet Protasiewicz, and Milwaukee-area philanthropist Deborah Kern.
Both candidates were elected to their prior partisan positions as Democrats. They’re vying to replace conservative current Justice Annette Ziegler, who is retiring. A conservative candidate has not yet entered the race. A Colón or Brunette victory in next spring’s Supreme Court election would give liberals a 6-1 majority on the Court.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears at his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill July 15, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed Wednesday to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that if he is confirmed for the top post, the Justice Department would not oppose an effort in Congress to permanently ban a controversial “anti-weaponization” fund.
Blanche also said he would consider any new information brought forward to the government about deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his ring of powerful associates. Multiple Epstein abuse survivors attended the Blanche confirmation hearing, some wearing t-shirts depicting the black bar redactions contained within the released files.
Blanche, who previously worked as President Donald Trump’s defense attorney, appeared before a tightly divided Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
The Republican-led panel is now split 11-10 after the sudden death Saturday of South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. A large bouquet of white roses was placed before his empty seat Wednesday.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is sworn in before testifying before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at the Hart Senate Office Building. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Lawmakers volleyed partisan accusations about the weaponization of the Department of Justice under presidents from both parties. Missouri’s GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt called former Biden administration special counsel Jack Smith a “dirt bag” for his involvement in prosecuting Trump over allegations of colluding to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
But it was the plan for a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that brought tough questions for Blanche from two committee Republicans whose votes he needs to advance, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The fund was established in exchange for Trump dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the 2019 leak of his tax returns.
With a raised voice, Tillis said he wants “to stick a fork in this turkey of a 1776 fund,” referring to the administration’s choice of making the fund exactly $1.776 billion, adding the fund “should never be paid out.”
Confirmation fight
The acting attorney general faces a possible rocky road to confirmation in the narrowly divided full Senate, assuming he is advanced by Judiciary, depending on when Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is released from hospitalization. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have previously opposed some items on Trump’s agenda.
Blanche’s confirmation will also be up to a handful of lame duck or retiring Republican senators whose future Senate careers were thwarted by Trump. They include Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Bill Cassidy, R-La. Both recently lost primaries when Trump endorsed their opponents.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who switched to private law, eventually starting his own firm and representing Trump.
Blanche defended Trump during a New York state jury trial on charges that the then-former president falsified business records when he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump was found guilty on 34 felony charges in May 2024.
Blanche then served as the deputy at DOJ in the second Trump administration, confirmed on a party-line vote, before being named acting AG after the departure in early June of Pam Bondi.
Trump and the Republican-led Senate have elevated the president’s former personal lawyers to high-level positions in the U.S. judicial system during his second term in office.
In addition to appointing Blanche, the president nominated former defense attorney Emil Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
The Senate, in a narrow 50-49 vote, confirmed Bove for the lifetime position in June 2025. Collins and Murkowski broke with Republicans to oppose Bove’s confirmation.
‘Anti-weaponization’ fund
Blanche caught heat from both sides of the aisle during the hourslong hearing for signing off on the “anti-weaponization” fund for claimants he previously described as “victims of lawfare.”
Critics quickly pounced on what they called a “slush fund” for its likely future payouts to pardoned Jan. 6, 2021 defendants, including those who assaulted police officers during the attack aimed at halting Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Blanche maintains the administration scrapped the fund.
The acting attorney general sidestepped questions on whether he approved of Trump’s blanket pardon of roughly 1,600 defendants implicated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“The Constitution gives the president the full power to pardon anybody for any reason,” Blanche said.
“You don’t question his decision?” ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked.
Blanche repeated his answer.
Cornyn, displaying a blown-up copy of the IRS settlement deal, questioned Blanche on why the Department of Justice has not formally ended the fund.
“Has there been a written agreement of the parties to modify the settlement fund?” asked Cornyn.
“No, the settlement fund is just not moving forward. There’s no modification. It’s just, it never started. No money went from the Treasury to any other account,” Blanche replied.
“I’m under oath today, and I’ve said it’s dead repeatedly,” Blanche later said to Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.
Tillis said, “I think that the courts are probably going to deal with it. But why should we waste the court capacity on this issue? If I could walk to the Senate floor with an agreed-to piece of text coming from the administration that just renders this whole thing dead?”
Blanche said the administration does “not object (to) that path.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, defended the arrangement to drop Trump’s IRS lawsuit as a “pretty darn good deal” that was settled “without the president receiving a single penny.”
Blanche met with angry Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill May 21 to sell the settlement fund as several protested it by holding out on the passage of a massive immigration funding bill to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term.
Blanche told House appropriators during a June 2 hearing that the administration would not move forward with the fund, but said he didn’t know “what that means to sign documents reversing” the fund.
Trump tax immunity
Trump’s settlement to drop his IRS lawsuit also indefinitely absolves him and his two plaintiff sons, Don Jr. and Eric, as well as the private Trump Organization, from government prosecutions and tax enforcement.
Democrats seized on the disparity. “Everyone in this room, all of us on this side, we have to follow the tax laws of the United States, and if we don’t, we can be held responsible for it to the point of even criminal prosecution,” Durbin said.
“Why did you decide that President Trump and his family and their businesses should be exempt from that same responsibility?” the Illinois Democrat asked.
Blanche said the agreement was “typical” of settlements with the IRS, and that the agreement “included release of any past audits. It does not give any protection to the president, his family, or his organizations for any taxes they file.”
“It’s hard to explain to the American people that no one is above the law when that type of document was signed by you,” Durbin replied.
The Florida federal judge in the IRS case on Monday slammed Trump’s settlement with his own administration as using the presidency to “manipulate” the courts.
Epstein files
As expected, senators questioned the Justice Department’s handling of the legally mandated release of government files on Epstein, a process that critics and victims say fell short of full transparency and protection of victims’ identities.
Blanche defended the department’s “Herculean” effort in reviewing millions of documents related to the government’s federal investigation of Epstein
“There were mistakes that were made, and so approximately 1% of the redactions had to be fixed after we released the Epstein files,” Blanche said.
“Whenever we learned that any victim’s name had been improperly not redacted, we immediately took the document down and fixed it as soon as we could. That doesn’t excuse the mistakes of which I take responsibility, but it does mean that we tried to fix them,” Blanche said.
Durbin asked for a commitment that Blanche personally meet in the next month with 10 Epstein victims present at the hearing. Blanche said a sex trafficking prosecutor in his office is willing to meet any time, and that he is precluded from doing so because of ongoing litigation.
“We will never not talk to victims. We will never not do everything we can to prosecute anybody that committed any crimes against any of these women. … Any victim, if they’re here today, I would encourage them or their lawyers to meet with the FBI,” Blanche said.
“I think you ought to be in the room,” Durbin said.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said he was “stunned” at Blanche’s refusal to meet personally with victims.
“But you did meet with Ghislaine Maxwell,” Booker said, referring to Blanche’s July 2025 meeting with the convicted sex trafficker and Epstein co-conspirator shortly before she was moved to a prison with less security.
Epstein survivors submitted six letters to the committee opposing Blanche’s nomination, and Durbin also submitted for the record a letter from 1,200 former career DOJ employees who served for both parties warning against confirming Blanche.
When prompted by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to apologize to victims in the room, Blanche said his “heart breaks for every victim of any sexual crime, whether involving Mr. Epstein or somebody else.”
Pivoting the subject to a campaign refrain of Republicans, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said she appreciated Blanche’s “commitment” to the Epstein victims and that she wished Democrats “had that same level of conviction” for “families of those who have lost loved ones at the hands of illegal aliens.”
Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, entered a handful of letters in support of Blanche’s confirmation, including from law enforcement associations.
The late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, at the time a candidate for president, rides on the back of a golf cart with his sister Darline Graham Nordone, center, during the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 17, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Monday he would like the South Carolina governor to select the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister to fill the Republican’s seat for the remainder of his term.
“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”
McMaster is scheduled to announce his appointment to the Senate at 4 p.m. Eastern during a press conference. The person selected for the role would serve out the remainder of Graham’s term through early January. Graham was close to his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, after their parents died when she was a teen.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott backed the suggestion, writing on social media that Nordone “would be a fantastic pick to serve out the reminder of the senate term.”
“After speaking with Darline, there is no one better who understands Lindsey’s love for family, our state, and our country,” Scott wrote.
Graham, 71, died unexpectedly this weekend of an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to preliminary findings from the District of Columbia’s medical examiner that were shared by Graham’s office.
Graham’s death has also triggered a special election process in his home state to determine who will advance to the November general election for a full six-year Senate term.
Graham won the Republican primary in June and was set to face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews later this year.
The special election to determine which Republican will advance is scheduled for Aug. 11, with a runoff taking place on Aug. 25 if necessary.
Niina Baum, Michael Alfonso, Kevin Hermening and Jessi Ebben participated on Tuesday evening. (Screenshots via WFJW)
Republican candidates seeking to replace U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District participated in a debate Tuesday night, during which they touted their loyalty to President Donald Trump and laid out differing priorities for Congress.
Tuesday’s debate, hosted by WJFW Newswatch 12, is the only televised debate in which all the Republican primary candidates have agreed to participate. Those candidates include Michael Alfonso, whose father-in-law, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, formerly held the 7th CD seat and has been campaigning on his behalf, has Trump’s endorsement; Niina Baum a lifelong Northwoods resident and dog musher who founded Northwoods Young Professionals to attract and retain workers in northern Wisconsin; Jessi Ebben, a public relations professional who describes herself as a “Trump Republican,” and who previously ran to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd CD and Kevin Hermening, a financial advisor and former United States Marine. Don Raihala, an accountant, will also appear on the ballot in August, though he wasn’t invited to participate.
Alfonso had refused to participate in earlier debates, in one case because he was attending a lobbyist event hosted by the Republican Party of Wisconsin in Washington D.C., and said he would only participate in one local news forum.
The winner of the Republican primary will face the winner of the Democratic primary in November. While the district has been represented by Republicans in recent years, the 7th CD was represented by Democrat Dave Obey, the longest serving U.S. House member in Wisconsin history, from 1969 until 2011. The three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are Fred Clarke, Chris Armstrong and Ginger Murray.
The district, which encompasses a huge portion of the state, stretches from eastern to western Wisconsin and from central Wisconsin to the Northwoods. Tiffany, who has represented the district since 2020, is running for governor in 2026.
While Trump’s endorsement has helped Tiffany, whose primary opponent in the governor’s race dropped out, in Alfonso’s case it has not cleared the field. Republicans from local county parties and his primary opponents have criticized Alfonso’s lack of experience and his father-in-law’s help as he tries to win the race.
“I’m the only candidate on this stage that our great president, the greatest president of my lifetime, President Donald J. Trump, trusts to get his agenda into law,” Alfonso said during the debate. “We hear a lot about politicians saying they’re pro-Trump only in the year of an election. What the Trump endorsement means is that I will support the president, I will fight for his agenda.”
Alfonso said he sat down with Trump for an interview and promised the president that no one would out work him in Congress.
While Alfonso used the endorsement as his main argument to differentiate himself from the other candidates, he was not the only candidate to claim he would carry forward Trump’s agenda in Congress
Hermening, said he would be experienced, tested and “ready on day one” to serve in Congress and help Trump achieve his agenda. In his closing remarks, Hermening criticized the current Congress for allowing some items in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” to sunset within a short period of time and for not passing more of Trump’s agenda.
“The president has put forward so many executive orders… Congress needs to finish the job and put some of those executive orders into actual legislation,” Hermening said. “I’m committed to helping him finish that job.”
Hermening noted that Trump had already endorsed Alfonso before he entered the race, but said he has been honored to get endorsements from other Republicans in the district including state lawmakers Mary Felzkowski, John Spiros, Duke Tucker, Brent Jacobson, Pat Snyder and Romaine Quinn.
“I’m not running to be someone,” Hermening said. “I’m running to do something.”
Alfonso, 26, directly addressed concerns about his lack of experience during the debate, including saying that he is currently employed as an accountant. Prior to running for Congress, Alfonso worked in construction while a student at UW-Madison. After graduating, he moved to Florida and worked on a podcast hosted by Dan Bongino for a year. He has since moved back to Hayward, Wisconsin.
Alfonso argued that young people can bring energy to politics and that experience is not the only measure of effectiveness.
“Let me ask you, did Nick Shirley have experience?” Alfonso said, referring to the young Youtuber whose debunked videos of empty childcare centers helped spur investigations into fraud in Minnesota. “He was only a young man in his 20s. Young people are capable of so much in a culture where we seek to make young people infantilized.”
Alfonso in his opening remarks attacked Democratic Socialism and State Rep. Francesca Hong, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, mentioning communism and his roots in Cuba. He said he wants to fight “Marxism” in Congress.
“The older generation has already won the battle with communism. They fought very hard, but I will tell you what, my generation is falling for those very same lies,” Alfonso said. “I look forward to working every single day to stop the spread of violent Marxism, which is what got my friend Charlie Kirk murdered.”
A couple of candidates spent time in the debate defending their status as Republicans.
Ebben addressed controversy over her 2011 signature on a petition protesting Act 10, the law signed by former Gov. Scott Walker that significantly curbed union rights for public employees.
“I was 21 years old in college, and I was told by my parents who were lied to by the teachers unions that they were worried about losing their jobs, and that didn’t happen,” Ebben said. “So, I was not only in college when this happened, but I became a Christian. I became a conservative, and I’ve knocked thousands of doors for candidates in the conservative movement for Republicans up and down the ballot over the years, helping them get elected, and like President Trump and President Reagan, I chose to become a Republican.”
Baum was asked directly whether she is a Republican. She noted that the last time she voted for Trump was in 2016, but added that people do not fit into neat political boxes.
“The job of a representative is to represent the people and what they need, and what if something that the people in this district want and need doesn’t align perfectly with party lines, then we’re supposed to blindly follow that? I don’t think so,” Baum said.
Throughout the debate Baum said she would be in Congress to serve the people of the 7th CD, adding that she won’t take corporate PAC money and wants to end Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations to spend unlimited money on elections.
During closing remarks, she announced that she will be embarking on a 400-mile bike trip through the district to meet with voters and hear from them directly, and promised to pay close attention and listen to people.
“The job of a representative is to represent the people, not the president’s priorities, no matter who the president is,” Baum said when asked whether she would support Trump’s agenda. “If those priorities align, I will absolutely support them, but if they don’t , I’m going to stand up for them, just like with these AI data centers.”
The candidates were asked whether they support Trump’s war in Iran.
Alfonso repeated Trump’s claim that the war was necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
“I look forward to working with President Trump to bring peace to the Middle East,” Alfonso said.
Hermening, who was among the Americans held captive for 444 days during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, said he does not support having boots on the ground to pursue regime change in the country.
“That is a decision that the Iranian people need to make on their own. They need to be responsible for that. It is not our job to be the policeman of the world,” Hermening said, though he added that he thought Trump had done the right thing by seeking to block the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. “In any negotiation, it requires two honest brokers, and it is very evident to me in watching what’s been going on between the United States and Iran for 47 years that the Iranians have never sent an honest broker to any negotiation, so I believe that we have to be very steadfast in what we are standing for.”
Ebben said that she thinks the country needs to focus on domestic issues as opposed to war overseas.
“I don’t want my son in the future to have to go off and fight another war,” Ebben said. “I don’t want any mother or father to have to worry about sending their son or daughter overseas to champion someone else’s war. We need to get back to America First.”
The candidates agreed on some issues, including wanting to reduce government spending and regulation as a way of addressing the cost of living, though they differed on Congress’ role in regulating artificial intelligence and data centers as well as combating PFAS.
Hermening said the federal government needs to ensure that the U.S. isn’t left behind on the world stage, so it shouldn’t put unnecessary regulations in place on people who want to grow their companies.
“Too often the government gets in the way,” Hermening said.
Ebben said that the government needs to be cautious about artificial intelligence and ensure that people, including students in school, aren’t relying on it too much.
Alfonso said he didn’t know whether Congress should do more to regulate AI.
“We don’t know where this technology is going to take us but we need to watch it very closely. We cannot have hundreds of thousands of Americans displaced from their jobs,” he said.
Baum said she would work to implement a moratorium on data center construction and described hearing from local residents who reached out to her about a company that wanted to buy their land for a data center.
“There’s no regulations around them and they impact us in so many different ways,” Baum said of data centers. “They impact our natural resources, our water, our utility bills and recently our phone prices… are going to be impacted because of the demand for memory chips from AI data centers.”
Baum also criticized the sales and use tax exemption that the Wisconsin state government approved for data centers.
“I know this is a state-level thing, but I’m using this as an example because why are they getting that benefit when there are small businesses who actually provide consistent jobs and more jobs than an AI data center will at the end of its completion. They should not be getting breaks.”
The candidates also differed on how much of a role the federal government should play in addressing the issue, a long-running concern for communities in the Northwoods including the town of Stella.
“I would advocate for clean water, lower costs to bring about the lesser contamination,” Hermening said. “When the government helps to make policies that bring about contamination, whether it is approving certain types of chemicals that end up in our groundwater, the government has a responsibility for making it right.”
Ebben said she is concerned about the federal government stepping in and imposing too much regulation.
Alfonso declared that he had the endorsement of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) PAC and said he would work with Trump to both encourage businesses and protect natural resources. He said he would also want to leave PFAS regulation up to states rather than the federal government.
Baum said that the federal government was involved with spreading PFAS contamination, so the federal government has a responsibility to help ensure access to clean drinking water.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
The FBI agents arrived at David Bolter’s Milwaukee home on a cool, cloudy Wednesday morning in late May. They were armed with a list of questions for the 2020 poll worker, who had raised concerns about the way local officials handled the 2020 election, Bolter told Votebeat.
President Donald Trump relied on Bolter’s claims in an unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit that sought to throw out more than 220,000 votes. That would have been more than enough to move Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes from Democrat Joe Biden, who won the state, to Trump. Though courts, several election reviews and many audits rejected Trump’s claims, the Republican never stopped believing that he was cheated out of the presidency in 2020.
That appears to be why, last month, the FBI sent agents back to Milwaukee to question Bolter as part of an expanding national effort by the second Trump administration to investigate long-debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
The investigation into the 2020 election appears to be relying on already disproven allegations from people like Bolter. Bolter declined to divulge more about his conversation with the FBI, which has not been previously reported, but allegations from Bolter’s 2020 affidavit were central to some conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. For example, he alleged that somebody in Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility announced around midnight on Election Day that a “huge truckload of ballots” was going to be delivered — an accusation for which there has so far appeared to be no additional evidence.
Around the same time Bolter says he talked to the FBI, two plainclothes agents with FBI badges showed up at the apartment of a former Milwaukee resident and 2020 poll worker about an affidavit she submitted, according to the former poll worker, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Christine, to give her the freedom to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Christine had also submitted an affidavit about the 2020 election, saying election workers had been told that all votes were counted, but she then saw workers continuing to count ballots around midnight. That affidavit was the focus of the agents’ questions, Christine told Votebeat.
“I suspected wrongdoing, but I’m not saying that it actually happened,” she said. “I’m just one lowly person that was working there.”
During the interview, she added, an agent showed her a photograph of Claire Woodall, the former Milwaukee election chief, asking her if she recognized the former election official who has been central to false allegations about the 2020 election. She identified her by name. Woodall didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Caroline Clancy, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee office, declined to comment.
Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, works at the presidential recount at the Wisconsin Center convention center in Milwaukee on Nov. 25, 2020. (Sara Stathas for Wisconsin Watch)
While investigators seem mainly focused on the 2020 vote, some elections experts believe the Trump administration’s wide-ranging probe is actually designed to create more doubts among Americans about future elections, as Republicans face strong political headwinds that could cost them control of Congress later this year.
“This isn’t about the 2020 election, this is about the 2026 and 2028 elections,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “This is about intimidating election officials. This is about creating a stream of disinformation designed to delegitimize an election the president may believe he’s going to lose. This is designed by the president’s underlings to satisfy the unrealistic expectations of a president that still cannot comprehend that he lost an election that he definitely lost, and it’s incredibly destabilizing.”
Wisconsin is the latest known target of the Trump administration’s 2020 investigation. The FBI is looking to interview elections officials and Milwaukee police officers in what some worry could be a precursor to an effort to seize ballots from the 2020 presidential race, as it already has in Georgia.
The Trump administration is revisiting allegations of election fraud that have been repeatedly scrutinized
In January, federal investigators seized 600 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. The heavily Democratic county, home to Atlanta, was key to Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in the state.
As in Wisconsin, the FBI in Georgia has built its investigation on allegations that have already been repeatedly scrutinized by audits, investigations, and courts without unearthing any evidence of fraud or tampering that could have overturned the results.
The Georgia search represented an unprecedented intervention by the federal government into local administration. Even more unusually, Tulsi Gabbard, who will step down at end of this month as director of national intelligence, personally oversaw the seizure and arranged for Trump to speak directly to the FBI agents via cell phone after they carried out the operation.
The Trump administration investigations stretch from Arizona, where federal officials subpoenaed computerized records of a partisan review state lawmakers conducted of Maricopa County’s 2020 election, to Puerto Rico, where the Office of the Director of National Intelligence procured voting machines to examine for potential security risks.
The administration’s investigations aren’t entirely limited to 2020. The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter in April to Wayne County, Michigan — home to Detroit — demanding all ballots cast in the 2024 election, which Trump won. But even in that case, to support the request, the Justice Department cited accusations of fraud made after the 2020 election, including a lawsuit that was quickly dismissed after a judge wrote that “plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.” Wayne County never handed over the ballots, because it doesn’t have possession of them.
What do the 2020 elections mean for 2026?
The FBI faces challenges in pursuing cases tied to the 2020 election since the five-year statute of limitations that applies to most of the likely charges expired last year. Law enforcement veterans said it is possible that the Justice Department could pursue broader conspiracy charges in the case, but the prospect remains unclear.
John Keller, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section who resigned in 2025 after refusing the Trump administration’s demands to drop corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said the administration appeared to be trying to normalize federal investigations of state elections to pave the way for future intervention.
“They are using enforcement directed at the 2020 election as a test run for what they can get away with on Election Day this year, or after, to try and delay certification or invalidate an election” if the results don’t go their way, he said.
Injecting federal law enforcement officials into an ongoing election is a more extreme and serious action than investigating a past one, and it could face stiffer opposition. But it’s clear, at least, that the administration is scrutinizing current elections closely.
Any effort to seize ballots in an ongoing election would create unprecedented new issues, such as a breach in the chain of custody over cast ballots, that could prevent election officials from declaring a winner and throw results into uncertainty.
Catherine Engelbrecht, co-founder of the Texas-based conservative group True the Vote, which has promoted debunked theories about the 2020 election, said she understands Trump’s intentions but believes the 2020 election questions should have been resolved “in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election.”
“This is not necessarily the way I would have recommended that it would be handled,” she said. “The fact that it wasn’t addressed has left this lingering void.”
In most cases, however, Trump’s claims of voter fraud were addressed in the wake of the 2020 election. Time and again, courts, state investigations, and even the Justice Department concluded that there was no evidence of problems or fraud that would have changed the results.
Engelbrecht said she views the Trump administration’s ongoing investigations as an effort to dig into long-standing concerns about the voting process it wants to address for future elections.
“The past is prologue,” she said. “If we don’t understand what happened, we are doomed to repeat it.”
Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
From left: Kristina Peterson with the Wall Street Journal; Rod Snyder, former advisor for agriculture for EPA in the Biden-Harris Administration; Kip Tom, co-lead of the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition.
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Farm Foundation hosted a Farm Foundation Forum to examine the agricultural platforms of the candidates for president of the United States. Held on September 9 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., the Forum was moderated by Kristina Peterson from the Wall Street Journal, with Kip Tom, co-lead of the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition, representing the Republican platform and Rod Snyder, former senior advisor for agriculture for EPA in the Biden-Harris Administration, representing the Democratic platform.
The speakers touched on a variety of issues, including the farm bill, tax policy, environmental policy, nutrition, agricultural trade, farm labor and immigration, and biofuels.
“In such a wonderful Farm Foundation-way, they engaged on some really difficult topics and different perspectives,” said Farm Foundation President and CEO Shari Rogge-Fidler, reflecting on the tenor of the conversation between the two speakers. While not official members of the campaigns, each speaker is closely connected with the campaigns but was careful to anchor their statements on past policies while clarifying where they thought each platform might go on policy in the future.
The event marked Farm Foundation’s return to in-person Forums at the National Press Club since moving the Forums virtual at the start of the pandemic. It attracted 769 registrants from seven different countries, with 522 attending live either in person or via livestream.
The two-hour discussion, including the audience question and answer session, was recorded and is archived on the Farm Foundation website.
Farm Foundation plans to hold another Forum at the National Press Club in 2025 but will maintain its virtual strategy for the bulk of future Forums to preserve greater audience access and reach. Forums are free to watch or attend, due to the generous support from Farm Credit Council.
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