But what made this year particularly special was the introduction of the Forward newsletter. Each week the Wisconsin Watch state team produces shorter stories about what we expect to be the big news and trends in the days, weeks and months ahead. It’s something our local media partners asked for and our state team reporters delivered.
As the year winds down, we gave each state team reporter the assignment of picking a favorite story written by another member of the team (Secret Santa style!). Here were their picks:
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, speaks during a Republican press conference on June 8, 2023, in the Wisconsin State Capitol building to announce a tentative agreement between legislative Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers on a shared revenue bill. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
To some, radio is a source of entertainment and information from a bygone era. They’re mistaken. Hallie Claflin’s deeply reported, authoritative story illustrates the immense and continuing influence of talk radio — especially conservative talk radio — in Wisconsin politics. The rise of former Gov. Scott Walker, the toppling of a Democratic mayor in Wausau and the deaths of certain bills in the Legislature can all be tied, at least in part, to advocacy or opposition from conservative talk radio hosts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s most powerful Republican, makes regular appearances on broadcasts and described talk radio as being “as powerful as it’s ever been.” This story is worth your time as you look ahead to 2025.
Phoebe Petrovic’s profile of militant, anti-abortion Pastor Matthew Trewhella, her first investigation as Wisconsin’s first ProPublica local reporting network fellow, was an engaging read. But I especially liked the companion piece she wrote. It’s a reader service to do this kind of story when we do a large takeout on a person or subject unfamiliar to most readers. It also might drive readers to the main story when they learn more about why we did it. It puts the readers behind the scenes a bit and has the potential to make readers feel more connected to Wisconsin Watch.
Tom Kertscher does an amazing job with all of his fact briefs, but my favorite has to be a compilation that fact-checked presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right before their September debate. Over the past few races, presidential campaigns have been full of misinformation. Debates are a vital time to show the reality of candidates and their beliefs. Tom’s story made sure people could accurately judge the claims both candidates were making. I learned about many new and important topics across party lines like Trump’s for-profit college, Harris’ claim about tracking miscarriages and accurate deportation statistics.
The Waupun Correctional Institution — shown here on Oct. 27, 2023 — was not over capacity as of late July 2024. But the state prison system as a whole has long incarcerated more people than its prisons were designed to hold. (Angela Major / WPR)
Khushboo Rathore’s DataWatch report detailing that the state’s prison population was at nearly 130% capacity stood out as one of my favorite pieces this year. Not only did this short story shed light on severe deficiencies in Wisconsin’s prison system, it also presented the findings in a digestible format that helped readers understand overcrowding in prisons through striking data. It’s one thing to report that Wisconsin prisons are overwhelmed, and it’s another to have the numbers that show it. This piece has the power to reshape future conversations about statewide prison reform, which is what our work here at Wisconsin Watch is all about!
The Wisconsin Supreme Court holds its first hearing of the new term on Sept. 7, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Andy Manis / For Wisconsin Watch)
Jack Kelly has some of the best sourcing this newsroom has ever seen. He’s such an affable people-person, and it enables him to get coffee with anyone and everyone and build legitimate relationships that result in wild scoops, like this one. It’s a testament to his brilliance as a reporter.
Wisconsin politics were shaken up this year with the signing of new legislative maps that ended over a decade of extreme and effective Republican gerrymandering.
It was the first time in Wisconsin history a Legislature and a governor of different parties agreed on legislative redistricting, the Legislative Reference Bureau told Wisconsin Watch.
In a good Republican year across the country, Wisconsin Democrats flipped 14 seats in the Legislature — largely because of those new maps. It wasn’t enough to win a majority in the Assembly or the Senate, but the resulting 54-45 and 18-15 splits better reflect Wisconsin’s swing-state status.
Wisconsin’s congressional maps were not redrawn. Republicans kept six of the state’s eight congressional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The state’s current congressional maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and approved by the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2022. The last time a governor of one party and a Legislature of another agreed on congressional maps was in 1991.
Evers’ maps were slightly more favorable to Democrats than the previous decade’s maps, but they didn’t change that much because the court established a “least change” rule when deciding which maps it would approve. That meant they would largely conform to the Republican maps that had been in place since 2011.
In March, the now-liberal high court denied a request to reconsider the state’s congressional maps before this year’s elections without stating a reason. Evers had asked for changes to the congressional maps soon after he signed the new legislative maps into law in February. Those maps were approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Elias Law Group filed a motion in January asking the court to revise the congressional boundaries ahead of the 2024 election. The Democratic law firm argued that new maps were justified after the court abandoned the “least change” approach when deciding on the legislative map challenge last year. In that case, the state Supreme Court said it would no longer favor maps that present minimal changes to existing boundaries.
Democrats argued that Evers’ congressional boundaries drawn in 2022 were decided under the “least change” restrictions later thrown out by the court in the legislative redistricting case.
Republicans pushed back, arguing that newly elected liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz prejudged the case during her 2023 campaign. They requested she recuse herself from the case. But Protasiewicz said she decided not to vote on the motion to reconsider the congressional maps because she wasn’t on the court when the underlying case was decided.
Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Brian Schimming in a statement called the court’s decision “the demise of Governor Evers’ latest attempt to throw out his own hand-drawn congressional maps.”
Republicans have retained control of six of Wisconsin’s eight House seats, with Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore safely controlling the two districts that cover Madison and Milwaukee. In comparison, Democrats held five of the eight seats in 2010 — the year before Republicans redrew the maps.
The 1st and 3rd districts are currently the only competitive congressional districts in Wisconsin, represented by Republican Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden respectively. Steil won his race this month with 54% of the vote, and Van Orden won with 51.4% of the vote.
Conservative Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley in their concurrence wrote the new majority’s “reckless abandonment of settled legal precedent” in the legislative redistricting case “incentivizes litigants to bring politically divisive cases to this court regardless of their legal merit.”
Representatives of Elias Law Group did not respond to Wisconsin Watch when asked if they anticipate another legal challenge to the congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“I remain very interested between now and 2030 in trying to find a way to get the court to … tell us whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Wisconsin Constitution. I believe it does,” Jeff Mandell, founder of the liberal legal group Law Forward, told Wisconsin Watch. “I believe the court will say it does when we present the right case.”
But Mandell said nothing has been drafted, and his group won’t bring a case to the Supreme Court unless it has “got the goods.”
Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.
On Nov. 5, Wisconsin voters approved nearly 78% of the 138 school district referendums across the state.
That’s higher than the 60% passage rate this past spring, but the percentage of K-12 referendums approved statewide has been declining since 2018, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The 70% approval rate of all school referendums this year was a 10 percentage-point decrease from 2022 and was the lowest passage rate in a midterm or presidential election year in the last decade.
But more and more districts are going to referendum as state aid has fallen far behind inflation over the last 15 years. A total of 241 questions were posed in 2024, the most ever held in a single year, according to the Policy Forum.
Almost half of Wisconsin’s 421 school districts went to referendum this year, asking for a record total of nearly $6 billion from taxpayers — up from a previous record of $3.3 billion in 2022. Voters ultimately approved $4.4 billion in additional taxes.
School districts are increasingly holding operational referendums, asking residents to take on a recurring tax hike just to cover everyday costs like utilities, routine maintenance and staff salaries. Capital referendums are one-time asks for big projects like a new school.
This year, 66% of operational referendums passed statewide, while 76% of capital referendums passed. There were 148 operating referendums held, the most on record, according to the Policy Forum.
The reliance on school referendums comes amid a heavy debate over state-imposed revenue limits and funding for public education.
Revenue limits were created in the early 1990s to keep in check school property tax increases. In 2009, the state Legislature decoupled per-pupil revenue limits from inflation, and districts have had to manage tighter budgets ever since, especially as inflation in recent years has exceeded revenue limit increases.
Wisconsin’s per-pupil K-12 spending increased at a lower rate than every other state in the nation besides Indiana and Idaho between 2002 and 2020, according to the Policy Forum.
School districts across the state are also grappling with declining enrollment, mainly caused by a drop in birth rates.
“Schools are funded based on the number of students we have, so as we have fewer students, our budget shrinks,” Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told Wisconsin Watch.
When costs exceed the per-pupil revenue available to the district, state law allows them to go to referendum to ask their voters to authorize their district to exceed their revenue caps at the expense of property taxpayers.
State revenue limits have fallen more than $2,300 behind inflation per student behind inflation even in smaller school districts like Hudson, generating millions in lost revenue.
The 2023-25 state budget included a yearly increase of $325 per student to the state-imposed revenue limits. But that increase still lags behind inflation, Wauwatosa School District Superintendent Demond Means told Wisconsin Watch.
“Are they providing more money to schools? Yes, but they’re still behind. They’ve dug a hole for themselves,” Means said. “They have to come to grips with the fact that they have created an obstacle and a gap that they have to fill.”
Schools are still reeling from a freeze in revenue caps in the 2021-2023 budget, Means said, in which the Legislature provided zero increases to public school funding immediately following the pandemic. Wisconsin ended its 2024 fiscal year with a $4.6 billion budget surplus.
Republican lawmakers tout the $1 billion they added to the budget for public schools last year, emphasizing that education is the largest portion of the state budget. The increase was part of a deal struck between the GOP-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to simultaneously increase funding for private school vouchers.
Democrats argue the state has fallen so far behind, $1 billion isn’t nearly enough.
“Those are just red herrings,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly told Wisconsin Watch. “They’re trying to distract because public education has always been one of the most expensive components of our state budget. It just is. It’s a labor-intensive operation, and labor costs money.”
Underly recently called for a $4 billion increase in public school funding in the Department of Public Instruction’s state budget request. It includes a proposal to tie revenue limits to inflation again.
“The fact that we’ve gone to referendum now three different times in the last six years is a sign that state funding is really becoming a challenge,” Means said. “A community like Wauwatosa does not take going to a referendum lightly.”
The district just passed operational and capital referendums totaling $124.4 million. That translates to a $630 annual tax increase on a $300,000 home, according to district calculations.
While passage rates are typically higher in a presidential or midterm election year due to voter turnout, some referendums still failed. School districts like Hudson, serving many rural, conservative townships, are now faced with a choice: cut programs and staff or push to referendum again in April. Its $5 million operational referendum was voted down on Nov. 5.
The referendum would have increased property taxes annually by $5 on a $500,000 home, according to district calculations.
“These are recurring expenses. This is literally to make ends meet,” Hudson School District Superintendent Nick Ouellette told Wisconsin Watch.
State lawmakers like Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, a Republican who represents the city of Hudson, have suggested that schools need to close and consolidate in light of declining enrollment. Ouellette said it’s not that simple.
The district is receiving less per-pupil funding from the state due to a steady drop in students. But enrollment is not declining at a fast enough rate to immediately close and consolidate schools and classrooms, Ouellette said.
“You lose the revenue, but you don’t lose the expense,” Ouellette said. “You have to allow things to drop enough before you can cut.”
Ouellette said blame is often directed at the school districts with claims that they are mismanaging their budgets or not “living within their means.”
“State lawmakers are well aware that if they continue to not fund schools, it will force local school districts to ask their property tax payers to pay more,” Ouellette said. “So they understand they are raising taxes.”
In Hudson, 54% of the school district’s budget is paid by local taxes, 39% is covered by state aid and 3% comes from federal aid, according to the Policy Forum. A decade ago more than half of the district’s operating revenue came from state aid.
“They’re placing school systems in a very precarious position,” Means said. “Local communities are, in essence, bailing out the Legislature, and that has to stop.”
Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.
Reading Time: 7minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Democrats flipped 10 Assembly seats and four Senate seats in Tuesday’s election. While they didn’t claim either majority, they have a chance of flipping at least one chamber in 2026.
Republicans performed much better than their historical averages in the newly drawn districts. On average their candidates in competitive races ran 3.6 points ahead, while Democrats ran 2.3 points behind.
One of the signs that the Republican 2011 gerrymander is dead was Democrat Joe Sheehan’s win in a unified Sheboygan Assembly district.
Wisconsin Republicans held on to the state Legislature in Tuesday’s election, but the flipping of 14 Senate and Assembly seats from red to blue provided the clearest evidence yet that the 2011 partisan gerrymander was real and is now dead.
Republicans will maintain majorities in both the Assembly and Senate — though at much slimmer margins than during the most recent legislative session. The math sets up a chance for the Democrats to retake at least one chamber in 2026, especially if Republicans face the usual midterm headwinds that check a new president.
Senate Republicans lost four seats, going from a supermajority that could override Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ vetoes to an 18-15 majority. The four Democratic pickups resulted from new voting maps legislative Republicans and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers agreed to after the newly liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out GOP-gerrymandered districts last year.
The Democratic gains in an election environment favoring Republicans provided further evidence that Wisconsin’s Republican governor and Legislature in 2011 designed maps to allow their party to keep legislative control no matter how much statewide sentiment might change. The party re-upped those maps after the 2020 Census with help from the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The results show that “when people have a real choice at the ballot box, that they’re going to choose the person that best represents their values and the policies they want to see going forward,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, told Wisconsin Watch in an interview.
Entering the next election cycle, state Senate Democrats will hold 10 guaranteed seats (they were elected Tuesday) and be favored in six of the 17 seats up for election in 2026. That’s according to an analysis of past voting patterns in state Senate districts that does not yet include 2024 results. By comparison, Republicans will hold just six guaranteed seats while being favored in nine districts up for election in 2026.
That will leave both sides battling for two toss-up districts — currently held by GOP Sens. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, and Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield — to determine control of the chamber. On Tuesday, Democrats won two of the three Assembly seats in Hutton’s district.
In the state Assembly, where Democrats hoped new maps would help them win a majority, Republicans won 54 seats, according to unofficial returns, while Democrats captured 45 seats. That marks a 10-seat swing from the previous legislative session, when Assembly Republicans were just shy of the votes needed to override a gubernatorial veto.
That’s a remarkable outcome given Republican candidates almost across the board performed better than the historical GOP candidate averages in their districts. By comparison, Democrats performed worse in relation to the historical partisan makeup in 68 of the state’s 99 Assembly districts, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns and unofficial results. On average Republican candidates in competitive races ran 3.6 points ahead of the historical GOP average, while Democrats ran 2.3 points behind.
Incumbency also helped. Though Democrats unseated three Assembly incumbents, Republican incumbents outperformed the past voting trend of their new district by an average of 4.27 points, compared with 3.14 points of those who had never held office. Lawmakers with three or more terms under their belts like Reps. Tony Kurtz, Todd Novak, Travis Tranel and Nancy Vandermeer outperformed their district averages by more than 8 points.
Still, Democrats projected optimism that business in the Capitol wouldn’t proceed as usual this year.
“Things are going to change in the Legislature,” Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, said in a Wednesday statement. “Fair maps have allowed voters to hold legislators accountable, and this will change how policy is written and what bills move through the Legislature.”
Some Republicans on Wednesday downplayed the Democratic gains.
“(Democrats) spent weeks and months talking up trying to take over at least the Assembly and they didn’t, frankly, come close to doing it, including losing some of the key races,” said Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming. “The truth of the matter is, they had their one moment when they had a huge turnout to take over this year, and they failed in both houses.”
“Majorities matter in the Legislature,” he added.
An election worker counts ballots on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, at Milwaukee Central Count at the Baird Center in Milwaukee. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, declared Republicans would not compromise with Democrats if it meant “expanding welfare, having boys play girls sports and all the craziness that the national Democratic Party stands for,” WisPolitics.com reported.
Republicans will also have a chance to pick up seats in two years, Vos said.
Assembly Democrats lost five races on Tuesday in districts with a Democratic edge, including Novak’s in southwest Wisconsin that carries a 13-point Democratic advantage based on past election results. Republicans won all districts in which they have an edge. Among the 14 toss-up districts, those with less than a 10-point spread based on past election results, Democrats won five and Republicans won nine.
Sheboygan Democrat defeats GOP incumbent in reunited city
In Sheboygan, local Democrats celebrated on Election Night as the majority blue city elected a local Democratic candidate to state office for the first time in over a decade.
Former Sheboygan Area School District superintendent Joe Sheehan defeated freshman Rep. Amy Binsfeld, R-Sheboygan, under new legislative maps that reunited the 26th Assembly District after the 2011 redistricting process blatantly split the city in half, extending to surrounding rural areas to secure two Republican seats. Sheehan, whose campaign slogan was “together again,” led Binsfeld by less than 900 votes, according to unofficial results.
“Some people were choosing not to vote because they just didn’t feel, for a decade, that their vote made any difference,” Sheboygan County Democratic Party co-chair Maeve Quinn said. “It got to the point where nobody wanted to run for the office either.”
But fair maps meant the candidates actually had to get out and earn the vote, Sheboygan Mayor Ryan Sorenson told Wisconsin Watch, saying it strengthened the democratic process in their “light blue city” where the seat wasn’t completely safe.
“We realized the cards were really stacked against us when we had local representation because of the city being cut in half,” Sorenson said. “Sheboygan is the urban center for the county. When you loop us in with small, rural communities that are 45 minutes away, it really dilutes our voice.”
Sheboygan County Democratic Party co-chair Mary Lynne Donohue, who ran for the district in 2020 as a “sacrificial lamb,” told Wisconsin Watch the new maps had been a “rallying cry.” Both Quinn and Donohue noted their office saw far more volunteers, distributed signs and campaign surrogates this cycle than in previous election years, with over 40 door-knocking volunteers stopping in on both Saturday and Sunday before Election Day, they said.
“This place was like a ghost town in 2022,” Donohue said.
UW-Oshkosh student Theodorus Guigley casts a ballot. Students and community members voted at the Culver Family Welcome Center at UW-Oshkosh in Oshkosh, Wis., on Nov. 5, 2024. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
The Chmura-Moore family, consisting of parents Sharon and Dylan and kids Sophia and Elliot, went to the polling site at Oshkosh Public Library in Oshkosh, Wis., on Nov. 5, 2024. Donning raincoats and umbrellas, several dozen voters lined up at the library before 7 a.m. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
The heightened energy is a sign of revival after 13 years of gerrymandering dampened the democratic process in places like Sheboygan all across the state.
Get-out-the-vote volunteers continued to filter into the office on Election Day, including Bryan Cones and Mike Schoen, who came from Chicago to knock on doors in Sheboygan for Democrats up and down the ballot. Cones, originally from Tennessee where Republicans have gerrymandered districts around Nashville, understands how skewed maps make people feel like their vote doesn’t count.
Another volunteer, Patrice Worel-Olson, said she had never before volunteered with the party but did so this year because of the new maps. “We have a chance,” she said.
Donohue was one of the original plaintiffs in a federal redistricting case that challenged the Republican gerrymander of the state Assembly. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the case on a technical issue. In a more recent legal challenge, a liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court tossed out the state’s Republican-friendly 2020 maps, leading to lawmakers in both parties to approve today’s more balanced maps.
Sheehan’s campaign raised nearly $1.3 million to Binsfeld’s $330,000, with the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee and the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee investing heavily in each race.
Binsfeld had a falling out with the Sheboygan County GOP earlier this year after she distanced herself from its anti-abortion stance and member concerns about election integrity, according to party chair Russ Otten. The GOP refused to distribute her campaign signs, and Otten predicted she would fall short in the race without local party support.
In stark contrast with Donohue’s ill-fated 2020 campaign, which raised $75,000, Sheehan told Wisconsin Watch he knocked on over 4,000 doors in the district, where voters shared their enthusiasm for his chances.
“That’s incredible that we got a voice, and now we can talk about some of the issues that really affect Sheboygan, which gerrymandering did not allow,” Sheehan said in an interview.
At the Sheboygan County Democratic Party headquarters on Nov. 5, 2024, local party co-chair Mary Lynne Donohue sits at her computer. Donohue ran for Assembly in 2020 as a “sacrificial lamb” because she lived in a Sheboygan district that had been gerrymandered to prevent Democrats from winning. On Tuesday her party won the new Sheboygan district made possible by new legislative maps. (Hallie Claflin / Wisconsin Watch)
End note: The polls were right
Republicans celebrated the continued legislative majorities alongside Trump’s victory in the state and nationally. Democrats breathed a sigh of relief as Sen. Tammy Baldwin eked out a win to secure a third term.
The results also brought relief to Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin. The final Marquette poll had both races in a statistical tie with Kamala Harris up by a point and Baldwin up by two. Trump in fact won by 0.8 points and Baldwin won by 0.9 points — well within the poll’s margin of error.
“We missed the president by 1.9 points and the Senate by 1.1 points, better than our 2.2 average error,” Franklin told Wisconsin Watch in an email. “SO I get to keep my job.”
For the first time in over a decade, control of the state Assembly is up for grabs after new legislative maps were approved in February, ending gerrymandering in Wisconsin — at least for now. Democrats now have a shot at a slim majority in one of the Legislature’s two houses, and the outcome of eight tight races could determine whether they flip the 99-member chamber.
There are 14 Assembly races to watch in districts with a partisan makeup that skew less than 10 percentage points in favor of either Democrats or Republicans, and eight of them are true toss-ups. The partisan splits of Assembly Districts 26, 30, 61, 85, 88, 89, 92 and 94 each hover within 3%, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns. Four of them are a tick more Republican, and the other four lean barely Democratic.
If election results align with the partisan lean — however slight — of each district, that would put Republicans at a one-member majority of 50-49 in the Assembly. If Democrats keep the four seats and flip one of the four Republican-leaning toss-ups, they will emerge with a 50-49 majority.
To calculate the partisan makeup of each district, Wisconsin Watch used a composite of election results in each district from the 2018 gubernatorial race, 2020 presidential race and 2022 gubernatorial race.
The additional six Assembly races in districts with a partisan makeup that skew less than 10 percentage points in favor of either party are worth watching but likely won’t be as close as the eight toss-ups. Those are districts 14, 21, 41, 49, 53 and 91. Four lean Democratic, while two lean Republican. Assuming the results of these races align with partisan makeup of each district, the fight for a narrow Assembly majority will come down to the aforementioned eight races.
Even a narrow Republican majority would be a remarkable turnaround from 2022. Republicans currently hold a 64-34 majority in the Legislature, with one Democratic vacancy.
The Republican majority in the state Senate is not likely to flip this year — only half of the seats are up for election this cycle — but Democrats are looking to make gains that could help them win a majority in 2026, when the map is more friendly to them.
In 2011, GOP lawmakers under former Gov. Scott Walker shaped Wisconsin’s legislative boundaries to secure a strong Republican majority in this 50-50 swing state, creating one of the most extreme and effective gerrymanders in the nation. A federal redistricting case challenging the Republican gerrymander of the Assembly went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, where it was thrown out on a technicality.
In 2012, former President Barack Obama won Wisconsin by more than 200,000 votes. Despite receiving less than 50% of the total votes that year, Republicans won 60 of the 99 seats in the Assembly and held on to their Senate majority.
With the help of skewed maps, the GOP’s lock on the state Legislature persisted for over a decade. That changed last year. The election of liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz led to a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The new court tossed out the still-GOP gerrymandered maps approved by the previous conservative-majority Supreme Court after the 2020 Census.
Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers agreed to pass Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed legislative maps to prevent the state’s liberal high court from drawing the new districts. It was the first time a politically divided Wisconsin Legislature and governor agreed on legislative maps.
Read about the eight toss-up districts that could decide the fate of the state Assembly here:
Assembly District 26
This toss-up district encompasses the city of Sheboygan and runs south along the lakefront toward Oostburg. It leans slightly Democratic.
Freshman Rep. Amy Binsfeld, R-Sheboygan, will face Democratic newcomer Joe Sheehan, a former Sheboygan Area School District superintendent and executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp. This new toss-up reunites the Democratic-leaning city of Sheboygan, which was split in half under the state’s previous, gerrymandered districts. Binsfeld served as chair of the Speaker’s Task Force on Truancy. She was also the lead author on a constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds supermajority of the Legislature to approve sales, corporate and income tax increases.
This western Wisconsin toss-up district encompasses River Falls, extending north to Hudson. It leans slightly Republican.
Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, seeks a fifth term in the Assembly. He served on the Speaker’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and also serves on the Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee. He faces a challenge from Democrat Alison Page, a former nurse who eventually became CEO of Western Wisconsin Health. She’s running to protect abortion access in Wisconsin and improve health care in rural parts of the state.
This toss-up district covers the southwestern Milwaukee villages of Greendale and Hales Corners and parts of Greenfield. It leans slightly Democratic.
This district features a rematch from 2022. Freshman Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield, will once again face off against Democrat LuAnn Bird, whom he defeated by just a few hundred voters. Donovan served on the Milwaukee Common Council for 20 years. In the Legislature, he serves as vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Local Government. He’s running for re-election because the district “needs a tested fighter for public safety and the interests of the common man, woman, and child, to bridge the gap between Madison and local governments,” according to his campaign website. Bird, who is a former executive director and lobbyist for the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, is running because “extreme MAGA politicians are taking away women’s rights to reproductive health care” and “blocking common-sense gun safety laws that would save lives and make our communities safer,” according to her campaign website.
This toss-up district covers Wausau, extending to also include Weston to the east. It leans slightly Republican.
Incumbent Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Schofield, faces a challenge from Democrat Yee Leng Xiong, who served on the DC Everest School Board and the Marathon County Board of Supervisors where he advocated for mental health services in schools, expanding a 911 dispatch line and enhancing public safety providers. He wants to fund domestic violence and sexual assault service providers and focus on the economy, environment and health care. Snyder, who has served in the Assembly since 2017, has spent time on the Schofield City Council. He has worked to improve broadband expansion, cut taxes, advocate for veterans and police, and alleviate the workforce crisis.
This toss-up district covers the southeastern part of Green Bay, including Allouez and Bellevue, and stretches down toward De Pere. It leans slightly Republican.
First-time candidates Republican Ben Franklin and Democrat Christy Welch, both of De Pere, will face off in the Nov. 5 election. Franklin is an Air Force veteran and small business owner. Welch, who serves as chair of the Democratic Party of Brown County, is centering her campaign around Medicaid and child care expansion, increased public education funding and reproductive rights.
Assembly District 89
This southwestern Green Bay district includes Ashwaubenon and borders the Fox River to the east. It is a toss-up district that leans slightly Democratic.
Two candidates with law enforcement experience will vie for the toss-up seat in the Nov. 5 election. Patrick Buckley of Green Bay, a Republican and chair of the Brown County Board, is a former Green Bay police officer and business owner. Ryan Spaude of Green Bay, a Democrat, serves as a prosecutor in the Brown County District Attorney’s Office.
Assembly District 92
This western Wisconsin toss-up district encompasses Menomonie and Chippewa Falls and lies to the north of Eau Claire. It leans slightly Republican.
Incumbent Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, faces former Rep. Joseph Plouff, D-Menomonie. First elected in 2020, Moses chairs the Assembly Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care. He also serves on the Assembly Agriculture Committee. Plouff served in the Assembly between 1997 and 2005. He’s running again to curb gun violence, protect the environment and “make Wisconsin work for the people.”
This western Wisconsin toss-up district covers parts of La Crosse and Trempealeau counties. It includes the cities of Galesville and Onalaska and the villages of Ettrick, Holmen and West Salem, along with part of the north side of La Crosse. It leans slightly Democratic.
Incumbent Rep. Steve Doyle, D-Onalaska, faces a rematch against Republican Ryan Huebsch, of Onalaska, in the Nov. 5 election. Huebsch lost to Doyle by only 756 votes in 2022. Doyle has represented the 94th District since 2011. He has served on several bipartisan legislative task forces, including one on suicide prevention. Huebsch is endorsed by the La Crosse County sheriff, Wisconsin Right to Life, the NRA and multiple state senators and representatives. His father, Mike Huebsch, previously represented the 94th District for 16 years, served as Assembly speaker and served in Gov. Scott Walker’s Cabinet.
Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them. See more comprehensive information about the elections in our statewide voter guide.
Thanks to new legislative maps, a Sheboygan Democrat, Joe Sheehan, has a chance at winning a toss-up district that could help flip the Republican-controlled Assembly in November. Sheehan will face off against incumbent Rep. Amy Binsfeld in the 26th District where housing, child care and education are among key issues.
The district now covers the entire city of Sheboygan, including the city’s UW-Green Bay branch campus. Voters in the majority blue city had no chance of electing a Democratic representative to the Assembly after Republicans redrew Wisconsin’s districts to secure a majority in 2011. Under those gerrymandered maps, Sheboygan was blatantly split in half, creating two districts that stretched into rural areas favoring Republicans.
Under new legislative maps signed into law in February, the district is a toss-up with just under a 3-point Democratic lean, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns.
Sheehan told Wisconsin Watch he likely wouldn’t have entered the race if it weren’t for the new maps. He spent 20 years as superintendent of the Sheboygan Area School District and later served as executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp. before retiring.
Mary Lynne Donohue, a Democrat who ran for the district in 2020 as a “sacrificial lamb,” told Wisconsin Watch that for years, left-leaning candidates almost never entered the race.
“That’s one of the horrible characteristics of a gerrymander,” Donohue said. “People stop participating because they know they can’t win.”
Donohue was one of the original plaintiffs in a federal redistricting case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the Republican gerrymander of the state Assembly. The case was thrown out on a technical issue. In a more recent legal challenge, a liberal majority Wisconsin Supreme Court tossed out the state’s maps that were redrawn after the 2020 Census to still favor Republicans, leading to Republican lawmakers and the Democratic governor agreeing on the current maps.
Democratic energy in Sheboygan is extraordinarily high this election year, Donohue said.
Binsfeld was first elected in 2022. She currently represents the 27th District, but decided to run in this district after being drawn into the same district as longtime Rep. Paul Tittl, R-Manitowoc, in the new 25th. Binsfeld serves as chair of the Speaker’s Task Force on Truancy. She did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview requests for this story.
Sheehan has raised nearly $1 million more than Binsfeld, with the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee contributing more than $1 million of the $1.27 million his campaign has raised. The Republican Assembly Campaign Committee has contributed more than $220,000 to Binsfeld’s $330,000 fundraising total.
Joe Sheehan, a Sheboygan Democrat, poses outside the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., in this photo from his campaign Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/sheehanforassembly/)
Housing
Housing in Sheboygan has tightened, and the supply of all types of housing has not kept pace with household and employment growth. One recent study found that the city could be in need of more than 5,200 housing units over the next five years.
Sheehan said the solution is to lower the cost of a new home for buyers while still allowing developers to make the best profit, which requires subsidies from the state. The state has the ability to incentivize the development of certain types of housing, such as workforce and entry-level housing, he said. If elected, he says he will consult with housing experts.
He is not in favor of allowing municipalities to establish rent control, adding that this creates an artificial market that is not sustainable long term.
In an interview with WisconsinEye, Binsfeld said that she is also against rent control and that housing is best dealt with at the local, private level. When asked if the state has any role to play, she added that the Legislature can provide some grants for specific housing projects to incentivize developers.
Rep. Amy Binsfeld, R-Sheboygan, is seen during a Wisconsin Assembly session on June 7, 2023, in the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Child care
Affordable and accessible child care has been a persistent issue across the state of Wisconsin, and cities like Sheboygan are no exception.
A Wisconsin Department of Children and Families child care supply and demand survey recently found that almost 60% of providers in Wisconsin have unused classroom capacity due to staff shortages. Providers report that if they were able to operate at full capacity, they could accept up to 33,000 more children. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to DCF.
The Economic Policy Institute found that a typical family in Wisconsin would have to spend a third of its income on child care for an infant and a 4-year-old. Based on 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services deemed child care affordable if it costs up to 7% of a family’s income.
The median hourly wage for a child care worker in Wisconsin is $13.78, according to May 2023 estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Binsfeld authored a bipartisan bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers this year, increasing Wisconsin’s child and dependent care tax credit.
Along with her Republican colleagues, Binsfeld also helped author a slate of child care bills during the most recent legislative session.
The GOP-backed package included bills that would have allowed parents to contribute $10,000 in pre-tax money to an account to pay for child care and established a new category of large family child care centers that could serve between four and 12 children.
Others would have lowered the minimum teaching age of assistant child care providers from 18 to 16 and increased the permitted ratio of children to workers in child care facilities. Providers and advocates argued these efforts would not help solve current challenges in the child care field.
None of the proposals became law.
Sheehan said those kinds of bills are not long-term solutions. He did not identify or express support for other types of child care policy, but said if elected, he would consult experts, parents and caregivers on the issue.
Education
Sheboygan is one of 192 school districts that went or will go to referendum this year, which is almost half of all Wisconsin school districts. Many districts, including Sheboygan, have raised concerns that state aid has not kept up with inflation. In 2009, the state decoupled per-pupil revenue limits from inflation. Districts have had to manage tighter budgets ever since.
While Sheboygan’s public school district is set to go to a capital referendum in November, many districts are increasingly going to an operational referendum. Wisconsin’s per-pupil K-12 spending increased at a lower rate than every other state in the nation besides Indiana and Idaho between 2002 and 2020, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Last year, Binsfeld voted in favor of legislation that increased per-pupil revenue limits in public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time. It was passed as part of a compromise between Republican lawmakers and Evers.
Sheehan told Wisconsin Watch he would not have supported that bill, adding that it sets public schools further behind. He expressed concerns over the amount of state funding going toward private school vouchers compared with per-pupil state aid, a figure that doesn’t account for local property taxes.
“We’ve always supported parochial schools. They do their job, they do it well. That’s a choice people make,” Sheehan said. “But to fund them, and not only fund them, but at a higher level, that’s just wrong.”
He said the state has fallen behind in public school funding over the last decade, “and that needs to change.” He added that recurring referendums are divisive to communities and school districts.
When asked about K-12 education in a recent WisconsinEye interview, Binsfeld expressed support for school choice and said investing more money in special education will be a top priority for her if reelected.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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Republicans and Democrats are looking to college as a key part of their strategy for electing their presidential and Senate candidates with the candidates making several appearances on college campuses in Wisconsin.
College students voting in their first presidential election are slightly more conservative than their older counterparts, but there’s also a growing gender gap with women more likely to support Democrats.
A new College Democrats chapter at Madison College seeks to mobilize more students on a campus that often gets overlooked.
With Election Day squarely in view, both Democrats and Republicans have shifted their focus to turning out every possible voter — including first-time presidential election voters on college campuses.
Every vote matters in Wisconsin. The last two presidential races in this critical battleground state have each been decided by about 21,000 votes, or 1%. And next week’s contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could be even closer, with polls in Wisconsin and other battleground states suggesting there’s little daylight separating the rivals.
Those margins of victory happen to be less than half the number of students currently enrolled at just UW-Madison. It’s also just a fraction of the more than 160,000 four-year students at UW System campuses and Marquette University as of the start of the 2024-25 academic year — and that doesn’t include the thousands of other students who attend smaller private institutions spread across Wisconsin.
Many of those students come from out of state, establish residency on or near campus and are eligible to vote — establishing a bulky pool of potential voters for campaigns to target. On UW System campuses in 2023, for example, some 51,000 students were from states other than Wisconsin. As of the start of this school year, 57% of Marquette’s 11,300 non-international students were from out of state.
College students could be the margin maker in the presidential race. With a week to go, both sides are responding accordingly.
Democrats invest in college campuses
Trudging through a hilly Madison neighborhood, Joey Wendtland and Ty Schanhofer, a pair of UW-Madison students, were on a mission: Win votes for Democrats.
Earnestly, the two, along with a small group of other student volunteers, knocked on doors up and down the streets immediately west of the university’s towering football stadium in a neighborhood home to a mixture of students and non-students.
Each encounter with a resident followed the same formula: Do you have plans to vote? Who are you voting for? What issues do you care about most? Here’s where Kamala Harris stands on them.
“Three votes per ward was the difference in 2020,” Wendtland told one voter as he implored her to get three friends to vote — a nod to President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state four years ago.
Democrats are investing heavily this year in turning out students on college campuses. The Wisconsin Democratic coordinated campaign, a collaboration between the Harris campaign and the state Democratic Party, has seven full-time organizers dedicated to college campuses across Wisconsin in addition to a youth organizing director, a Harris campaign official told Wisconsin Watch. Many of those organizers have been on campuses since the fall of 2023, looking to build relationships with local College Democrats chapters, student volunteers and allied student organizations.
Ty Schanhofer, 21, volunteer coordinator of College Democrats of UW-Madison, canvasses a neighborhood west of campus on Oct. 17, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Over the past year, the coordinated campaign has also been experimenting with a “relational organizing program,” the official said. Using a smartphone app, students are able to import their existing contacts and communicate with their friends, sharing material from a content library of premade, Wisconsin-specific infographics, videos and even memes about Harris and the presidential race.
Peer-to-peer organizing is the most effective way to motivate college voters, several student activists told Wisconsin Watch.
“The most effective way to get young people on your side — and what we’ve seen in the past election cycles — is just young people talking to young people,” said Matthew Lehner, chair of College Democrats of Wisconsin and a senior at UW-Eau Claire.
College students are better able to engage with other college students because they care about the same issues, he added, pointing to climate change, gun control, increasing the minimum wage and abortion rights as issues that many young people have shared views on.
Wendtland, a senior and chair of College Democrats of UW-Madison, said it was critical to “meet students where they’re at” and “talk to them about the issues they care about.”
But it’s also important “to generate that enthusiasm among our student base,” he said.
UW-Madison College Democrats has hosted events with prominent Madison-area Democrats, like U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and state Rep. Francesca Hong, to get people excited about next week’s election, Wendtland said. The group has also hosted more casual events, including bingo nights and bracelet-making events, to provide a forum for students to gather and get energized about the Democratic ticket.
Democrats are also hoping to make inroads on campuses that haven’t been front of mind in past elections. A College Democrats chapter was formed last spring at Madison Area Technical College and now has around 50 members, according to Kai Brito, a founding member of the student organization.
In previous election cycles, Brito said, he and other students at MATC felt like they had been forgotten and that they didn’t have a voice in politics.
“But now we’re saying, ‘No, we do.’ And I think it’s really important when you have someone taking the lead and saying, “Yeah, we have a voice, and we’re going to use it,’” he said. “I think we’re going to have hopefully a much higher turnout than we would have if we didn’t exist, because we’re keeping the conversation alive on campus.”
College Republicans push forward, face hurdles
Even during a busy afternoon on the campus, few students approached the College Republicans table at UW-Madison, an overwhelmingly liberal campus. A pair of students snagged Trump signs, and others accepted fliers for an upcoming event with U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde. One student, who said he studies nuclear engineering, stopped to talk about Trump’s nuclear policy.
Getting students to vote Republican is more of an uphill battle on typically liberal college campuses. Undeterred, conservative student groups on campuses like UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire press on with their efforts to appeal to young voters.
“A lot of the voters that we’re trying to get aren’t people who typically vote Democrat, but people who just typically don’t vote,” said Tatiana Bobrowicz, president of the UW-Eau Claire College Republicans.
A nuclear engineering student stops to talk with Thomas Pyle, UW-Madison College Republicans chair, and Korina Thomas about former President Donald Trump’s nuclear policy on Oct. 23, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (Hallie Claflin / Wisconsin Watch)
In Madison, the student group has set up a table on campus nearly every day in the weeks leading up to the election. Thomas Pyle, a college senior and chair of the UW-Madison College Republicans, said their efforts have been greeted by glares and even protesters in years past. Bobrowicz said students passing by their table on UW-Eau Claire’s campus have flipped them off and harassed them.
“Among Republicans, it’s more difficult, especially here at UW-Madison,” Pyle told Wisconsin Watch. “Having your voice heard, feeling comfortable in your vote and what you believe is really difficult when you’re surrounded by people who disagree with you.”
Turning Point Action, College Republicans of America, Young Republicans, the American Conservation Coalition and Trump Force 47 are among the larger conservative groups that have been active across Wisconsin’s campuses this year. Student groups also draw funding and support from their county GOPs, the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Tommy Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
“It’s really the lose by less mentality,” Hilario Deleon, 23, chair of the Milwaukee County Republican Party, said of college voters. “We’re not going to win areas like Milwaukee outright, we’re not going to win Dane County outright, but if we increase our voter percentage even by a few points, we win the state.”
Young people are concerned about jobs and the economy, making Trump an attractive candidate, according to Pyle. The Democratic Party “demonizes” young men, and they don’t feel welcome, Deleon said, adding that Trump’s message resonates with college students in the workforce.
“I think it’s gotten the attention of a lot of students, especially those who work in the service industry with the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime,” Deleon said, referencing Trump’s proposals. “That’s huge. That’s a huge win for young voters.”
A pair of students stop to talk with Thomas Pyle and Korina Thomas at the UW-Madison College Republicans table about their upcoming event with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde on Oct. 23, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (Hallie Claflin / Wisconsin Watch)
Bobrowicz said she and her colleagues are trying to make Republican politics more fun, akin to how young women have engaged with the Harris campaign through the vice president’s appearance on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast and Charli XCX campaign merch. From friendship bracelets to catchy stickers, the GOP Eau Claire campus group is trying to make its conservative message appealing to young women.
Meanwhile, Trump appeals to young men on his own, Bobrowicz said.
“(Trump’s) personality is a personality that attracts young men. He has that business-like personality,” she told Wisconsin Watch in an interview. “You can tell he was a former celebrity and has that catchy type personality that I think young men look up to in a sense, and find kind of fun.”
The UW-Eau Claire College Republicans also recently started a podcast called “Right on Campus” to attempt to reach young listeners. They discuss current issues and what it’s like to be conservative students on a liberal campus.
The student groups have also hosted events with Republican speakers, including former Gov. Thompson, Hovde, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, to get young voters engaged and energized.
Finally, given the competitive nature of Wisconsin, Bobrowicz said, College Republicans often encourage out-of-state UW-Eau Claire students to vote in Wisconsin instead of in their home states, and they even try to get in-state students to vote in Eau Claire instead of their hometowns.
Swirling political environment
The 2024 race comes at a politically unique time among young voters, who have exerted meaningful influence in recent high-profile elections in Wisconsin.
In 2022, young voters helped fuel Gov. Tony Evers’ reelection, which, at 3.4%, was a landslide by Wisconsin standards. Wisconsin had the highest young voter turnout in the country in 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, with 48.7% of 18- to 24-year-olds casting a ballot in the election.
In April 2023, during a nationally watched Wisconsin Supreme Court race, turnout on certain college campuses exploded, according to a Washington Post analysis. The energy among young voters that spring, at least in part, helped fuel Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s commanding 11-point victory — which flipped the high court to liberal control.
But this year’s contest between Harris and Trump could feature a twist: America’s youngest voters, 18- to 24-year-olds, report being more conservative than voters even just a few years older than them.
In a Harvard Youth Poll released in September, 23% of 18- to 24-year-olds identified as conservative compared to 29% who identified as liberal. By comparison, just 19% of 25- to 29-year-olds identified as conservative while 33% identified as liberal.
There’s also a growing gender gap among young voters, according to a Gallup analysis. Between 2001 and 2007, 28% of women and 25% of men ages 18 to 29 identified as liberal. Jump ahead to the period between 2017 and 2024, and a 15-point gap appears: 40% of young women identify as liberal while just 25% of young men say the same thing.
The shifts could mean campaign messages from past cycles might not resonate on campuses the same way today.
Joey Wendtland, 21, chair of College Democrats of UW-Madison, canvasses with stacks of literature supporting Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Oct. 17, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The 2024 campaign is unfolding as many Wisconsin Republicans have become increasingly hostile toward the UW System and college students.
During the state’s most recent budget negotiations, Republican lawmakers cut the system’s funding by $32 million in an escalation of a fight over diversity, equity and inclusion programs and sendings on college campuses. They set funding aside for programs aimed at growing the state’s workforce and eventually provided it to the UW System in February 2024.
Late last year, some Republican lawmakers also signaled they didn’t want out-of-state students to vote in Wisconsin: They proposed legislation that would have required the UW System Board of Regents to provide first-year out-of-state students with an application to request a ballot to vote in their home states.
When asked whether Republican policies affecting the UW System impact students’ votes, Pyle and Bobrowicz, the College Republicans leaders, said most students likely aren’t aware of it. Deleon agreed, adding that he spoke out against the party’s attempts to discourage out-of-state college voters from voting in Wisconsin because it sends a bad message to young people.
“These hostilities are happening because of their love for the state and because of their love for this institution,” Pyle said. “I think they’ve seen some issues with it in the past, and they want to do more to protect it, ensure our institution remains a world class institution… and that our taxpayers aren’t being stuck with a burden.”
‘Margin of victory’
In the waning days of the campaign, the focus on Wisconsin campuses has increased.
During a recent trip to Wisconsin, Harris held two events on UW campuses. First, she and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban met with a class of UW-Milwaukee business students to discuss the vice president’s proposed economic policies. Then, later that day, she and Cuban held a UW-La Crosse rally that drew a crowd of 3,000, according to an estimate from her campaign.
Earlier this month, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic candidate for vice president, made a campaign stop at UW-Eau Claire with U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota.
Kai Brito, College Democrats of Madison College treasurer, helped start a new chapter at the Madison technical college last spring. He says it felt like students on the campus had been forgotten in previous cycles, but now they have a voice. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Walz, who spoke to a group of students, was introduced by Kirsten Thell, president of the UW-Eau Claire College Democrats. Standing in front of a wall of “BLUGOLDS FOR HARRIS-WALZ” signs, Walz declared, “We need you. This is not a hyperbole. I think it’s very realistic to believe that this race will be won going through Wisconsin and going through some of these counties.”
On Wednesday, Harris will hold a get out the vote rally on UW-Madison’s campus, a campaign official confirmed to Wisconsin Watch. She’ll be joined by Gracie Abrams, Mumford & Sons and other musicians.
Prominent Republican voices have also zeroed in on college campuses. Conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk made a fiery visit to UW-Madison in September on the first stop of his “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour. He made another appearance over the weekend with the NELK Boys, a right-wing influencer group on YouTube.
Kirk said 120 new voters were registered in just two hours during his first visit to the UW-Madison campus.
On Tuesday, Hovde will join American Conservation Coalition Action on UW-Madison’s campus for a campaign event focused on energy policy and the economy. Tony Wied, a Republican businessman who is running for the U.S. House in the Green Bay area, will hold an early voting event on the campus of St. Norbert College, a small Catholic college in De Pere.
And while the approach from both sides is different — a centralized, coordinated effort from Democrats while Republicans rely on grassroots and allied organizations — the flurry of recent campus events underscores how valuable the votes of college voters can be.
“College students will be the margin of victory in 2024,” Lehner, the UW-Eau Claire student and College Democrats leader, predicted. “So I think young people are enthusiastic about making their voice heard.”
Wisconsin Watch reporter Khushboo Rathore contributed reporting to this story.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Control of the U.S. House of Representatives runs through a notoriously swingy region of western Wisconsin, where U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden faces a challenge from Rebecca Cooke.
Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District covers much of the Driftless Area in southwestern and western Wisconsin bordering Iowa and Minnesota. The district includes small towns and rural areas, as well as the cities of Eau Claire, La Crosse and Stevens Point, each with University of Wisconsin System campuses.
As both candidates trade attacks, they are vying for support from a block of moderates whose votes are tied less to political party and more to decency and character.
“They are able to have their minds changed on a partisan level,” said Republican Brian Westrate, a lifelong resident of the district and treasurer of the state Republican Party. “They are not committed to a party. They are voting, generally speaking, for a person.”
This district is being targeted nationally as one of Democrats’ top flip opportunities, and Cooke’s campaign has been added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s competitive “Red to Blue” program after the DCCC abandoned the district in 2022.
Democrats see Van Orden as a prime target. In the months since her campaign began, Cooke has laid into her opponent’s character. Van Orden is a close ally of former President Donald Trump, who endorsed the freshman congressman in May. Even before he took office, his time in the public spotlight has been tainted by a number of controversies.
Van Orden attended Trump’s Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021, allegedly lost his temper over an LGBTQ+ book display in a Prairie du Chien library, drew criticism from his own party after cursing at a group of young Senate pages in the U.S. Capitol for taking photos, shouted “lies” over President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and got into an altercation with a protester at the RNC this year.
“Derrick Van Orden is known as this very polarizing figure,” UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky said in an interview with PBS.
Van Orden’s campaign did not return numerous messages seeking an interview for this story.
Van Orden refers to his opponent as “Rebecca Crook” online, accusing her of lying about being a political outsider. As originally reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Cooke previously worked as a finance director for four Democratic congressional races and has a Democratic political and fundraising consulting firm registered in her name.
Cooke’s campaign did not follow through with Wisconsin Watch’s numerous attempts to schedule an interview.
Where there’s an energized Democratic electorate for Vice President Kamala Harris, there’s a chance of lifting Democratic turnout and narrowing the margin by which down-ballot Democrats in Republican-leaning areas must outperform the top of the ticket, said Amy Walter, a political analyst and editor-in-chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
“In the 3rd District in particular, the hope is that Democrats are able to make this — much like a referendum on Trump — a referendum on the Republican incumbent Van Orden and the controversies surrounding him,” Walter said.
The district
This district has historically favored moderates like former Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, who held office for 26 years before retiring in 2022. That year, Van Orden beat Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff by four points. Before Kind, moderate Republican Steve Gunderson held the House seat for 16 years.
The district twice voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama, then voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 as rural areas have trended further right.
“It’s hard for anyone to get too comfortable here because things can really change,” Chergosky said of the district in an interview with Wisconsin Watch.
Because of that, Harris, Tim Walz, Trump and JD Vance have all campaigned in the western Wisconsin district this year.
“Whoever wins western Wisconsin is going to win by less than three percentage points,” Westrate said.
He described district voters as practical, common-sense, down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth working folks and said that’s exactly what they look for in their candidates, especially at the local level.
“I like folks who have a family, who have a mortgage, who have the things that define most of our lives,” Westrate told Wisconsin Watch. “We want to know that our candidates know what our life is like.”
In 2022, Van Orden and Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson won the district, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won it too.
“It shows you that candidates matter in this district,” Chergosky said.
Christian Phelps, a Democrat running for an Assembly seat in western Wisconsin’s 93rd District, said Democratic energy in the region is high, especially after Republican lawmakers and Evers agreed on new legislative maps in February, ending more than a decade of partisan gerrymandering in the state.
“No voter was more disenfranchised than the rural progressive, and there’s a lot of progressive energy in rural Wisconsin,” Phelps told Wisconsin Watch.
Last year, the Cook Political Report moved Van Orden’s congressional seat from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”
Cooke’s success in the race will be closely tied to the turnout Harris gets in Wisconsin. The same can be said for Van Orden and the Trump ticket, Chergosky said. There appear to be far fewer ticket-splitting voters in the district who used to cast their ballot for a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic representative like Kind, he said.
Pfaff beat Cooke by 8 points in the district’s Democratic primary in 2022, but he ultimately lost to Van Orden. Wisconsin Democrats pointed fingers at the national party, blaming the DCCC for not investing in Pfaff’s race or putting the campaign on the committee’s “Red to Blue” priority list. The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC also cut its ad reservations for Pfaff after losing confidence in the race.
“This time, you can already see the investments from the DCCC, so western Wisconsin is not being overlooked like it was in 2022,” state Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler told Wisconsin Watch, calling Van Orden a “weak link.”
The DCCC recognizes its mistake and is much more involved this cycle, said William Garcia, Democratic chair of the 3rd Congressional District.
“They are here in a way that they were not years ago. I think it’s because they saw two years ago that they had a winnable seat and didn’t help,” Garcia told Wisconsin Watch. “Also, they see that Derrick Van Orden is in an exceptionally vulnerable position.”
The candidates
Van Orden is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who first ran in the district against Kind in 2020, when he lost by less than 3 points. Before running for office, he appeared in the 2012 film “Act of Valor,” authored a book and consulted with Fortune 500 companies.
Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (Provided photo)
“Here in southwestern Wisconsin, honestly, we want to talk about policy,” Van Orden told a PBS Wisconsin reporter at a Trump rally in La Crosse in August. “We want to talk about issues. We really don’t want to talk about personality.”
But the policy issues on his campaign website haven’t been updated since 2021. The page still mentions “getting our children back to school” after “the last year of imposed (COVID-19) restrictions.”
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney — who endorsed Harris in Wisconsin this month — told a reporter she would not vote for Van Orden if she were a Wisconsin resident. Cheney has widely criticized Trump and other members of her party for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“It makes sense that someone who is new to office, their first attempt at reelection is a referendum on their behavior in office, and Van Orden’s behavior has been abysmal,” Garcia said.
Much like Cooke, Van Orden brands himself as a political outsider. But the status may not hold up this election cycle given he is now a member of Congress.
“Clearly both Cooke and Van Orden have the view that the political outsider brand will resonate with voters, and there’s certainly a logic to that,” Chergosky said. “Congress is not popular. The political outsider brand is a way for someone to distance themselves from the mess in D.C.”
This has been a historically unproductive two years for the House, Chergosky said, having passed a much fewer number of substantive bills than previous sessions.
“That means that any House incumbent is going to have a complicated task in front of them,” Chergosky said. “Standard playbook for a House incumbent is to tout their policymaking achievements, but what happens if there aren’t really any policymaking achievements?”
The House passed four bills Van Orden sponsored, mostly relating to the armed services. Van Orden so far has the most moderate voting record of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, according to Voteview.
Hannah Testin, vice chair of the 3rd Congressional District GOP, said Van Orden “is somebody that voters in the 3rd District can really relate to.”
“In this era, voters seem to be wanting change in Washington,” Testin told Wisconsin Watch. “I don’t think you see that change in Washington by electing a political consultant.”
Rebecca Cooke (Courtesy of Rebecca Cooke)
Cooke, who came out on top of a three-way Democratic primary this year, is a small business owner and nonprofit director from Eau Claire. She grew up on a dairy farm and was appointed by Evers to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. She advertises herself as a working-class political newcomer, writing on social media, “I work as a waitress while running for Congress to make ends meet.”
“Like most folks in Wisconsin, I’m somewhere in the middle,” she said of her politics in a recent ad.
But she criticized the bipartisan record of her main Democratic primary opponent, state Rep. Katrina Shankland, D-Stevens Point.
After media outlets and opponents called out her background in political fundraising, Cooke’s campaign downplayed the role as one of her “interests” that “paid the bills,” adding that while she has worked in politics, she is not a career politician.
“I think that folks appreciate authenticity,” Westrate said. “Around here, they can handle a truth they don’t like. What they don’t want is to be lied to.”
During her first run in 2022, Cooke shared that she worked in politics in her early 20s.
Nevertheless, the criticism has delivered a blow to her political outsider status, especially given that she attacked Shankland for being a “career politician.” Shankland lost to Cooke by nearly 9 points after an unusually negative primary that prompted other Democrats like U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan to speak out in defense of Shankland.
After Shankland released an ad pointing to Cooke’s lack of experience in public office, Cooke put out a request for help from political action committees. Shankland later called Cooke out for accepting dark money from moderate Democratic PACs attacking her in the race after Cooke’s campaign accused Shankland of voting with Republican lawmakers to block Medicaid expansion, which was misleading.
Days after the primary, Cooke, Shankland and third Democratic primary candidate Eric Wilson “came together to showcase Democratic unity to defeat Derrick Van Orden.”
Garcia said Cooke excels at talking to voters in the district one-on-one and spends time at dairy breakfasts “milling around with people.”
“She is just incredible at this one-on-one politicking, and it’s something that Derrick Van Orden is not good at,” Garcia said. “He is kind of afraid of the public. He doesn’t like to mill around with people unless he knows they’re all Republicans. He doesn’t like to talk to the press unless he knows they are on his side, or at the very least, are very limited in the questions they can ask him.”
Testin mentioned some of Van Orden’s most recent campaign activities in the district, which were events hosted by local Republican parties, and said he recently knocked on doors with her husband, state Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point.
Chergosky said both candidates are strong fundraisers, but outside spending is going to significantly impact the race.
Van Orden has raised just over $6 million to Cooke’s $4.5 million, according to September campaign finance reports compiled by OpenSecrets. Cooke’s campaign pulled in more than $2.75 million in the third quarter alone.
A debate has not yet been scheduled and likely won’t be before Nov. 5. Cooke declined attempts to schedule a primary debate this summer, citing scheduling conflicts. Van Orden declined to debate Pfaff in 2022, accusing the media of being biased.
The Farm Bill
Van Orden and his supporters most often tout his appointment to the House Committee on Agriculture, becoming the first member of Wisconsin’s delegation in almost a decade to be on the committee, and the first from the rural 3rd District to be on it since 2002.
“I think when you have somebody who fights tooth and nail to get on a very important committee to his district, that speaks well for the effort of the individual,” Westrate said.
“I don’t serve on the agriculture committee. I will actually rely on Derrick for a lot of advice on some of these more detailed and complex issues in terms of agriculture,” Sen. Johnson told Wisconsin Watch. “That’s a real credit to him.”
The committee’s main piece of legislation is the bipartisan 2024 Farm Bill, which Van Orden said he and other lawmakers have spent “hundreds if not thousands of hours” working on. He added that it is “a remarkable piece of legislation that’s going to help everybody, from our smallest farmers all the way to the larger farms.”
But the bill that will establish food and farm policy for the next five years still hasn’t been signed into law and is more than a year behind schedule as lawmakers wrestle over how to pay for it.
In May, Van Orden voted to advance the bill with billions in potential cuts to food assistance programs like SNAP, which assists over 700,000 Wisconsin residents as of March 2024, including about 78,000 people in the 3rd District.
Still, Van Orden has touted provisions of the bill he says will help the 3rd District, including better compensating dairy farmers for their milk and providing whole milk products for children in school.
Cooke’s campaign site says she would restructure the Farm Bill to focus more on agriculture and the farming community “versus the bulky package it has become.”
Pharmaceutical, manufacturing and big agriculture interest groups spent over $400 million lobbying on the Farm Bill.
Cooke wrote on social media: “We need a Farm Bill that delivers for family farms in communities across Wisconsin, not one built around subsidizing agricultural conglomerates and prioritizing corporate profits.”
Last year, Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden criticized Van Orden for “choosing big corporations” over small dairy farms in the state.
“Despite raising these concerns with Van Orden’s office, he hasn’t included amendments to help small farms in the Farm Bill and hasn’t stood up to the big corporations who are using the current policies to put family farms out of business,” Von Ruden wrote in an op-ed.
Von Ruden told Wisconsin Watch he was happy to see that Van Orden got the position on the committee, but his “lack of agricultural knowledge” does nothing to help Wisconsin’s industry.
Abortion
Abortion is likely a top issue for voters in the district, according to Chergosky. While leaning Republican, the district still voted for Evers in 2022 after he ran a successful campaign against Republican Tim Michels focused largely on reproductive freedom. Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz also won the district in her successful 2022 campaign centered on state abortion rights.
“Reproductive rights is what is bringing people out and getting people motivated to knock on doors and volunteer and canvas,” Garcia said of voters in western Wisconsin.
Chergosky said it’s obvious Cooke sees opportunity on the issue of abortion in this race, calling Van Orden an extremist and highlighting concerns over a national abortion ban in campaign ads.
“I really have a very, very difficult time trying to justify abortion under any circumstance,” Van Orden said in a radio interview with WSAU Feedback in 2020, adding that seeking an abortion after instances of rape or incest is only “compounding the evil.”
But this year he wrote on social media: “I made my position crystal clear last April. This is a state issue. Period.”
Cooke supports codifying abortion rights into law. She says she will fight to keep western Wisconsin’s two Planned Parenthoods open and federally funded and advocate against the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid, from being used for abortions. Her site also says she will support federal programs that improve access to family planning services.
“I know Democrats want to turn this into a referendum on abortion, but what the Dobbs decision has done is turn that decision back over to the states,” Johnson said, referring to the court decision that overruled Roe vs. Wade. “An individual member of Congress’ view on this is basically irrelevant to the debate.”
Immigration
Van Orden has consistently attacked Cooke on immigration, criticizing her for not speaking out about a case he has widely circulated, in which Prairie du Chien police reported that a man tied to a Venezuelan criminal organization sexually assaulted a woman and attacked her daughter in September.
But Van Orden has made false claims that police in Madison arrested the suspect “for a series of violent crimes” but released him because it is a “sanctuary city.” The city police department and Dane County Sheriff’s Office confirmed he was never in their custody.
Cooke said in an ad that if elected, she will “stand up to Democrats to fight for a secure border,” but includes no specific policy priorities on her campaign site.
Van Orden, while a staunch opponent of southern border policy under President Joe Biden’s administration, also has not proposed or identified policy solutions.
More than 10,000 undocumented immigrant workers perform an estimated 70% of the labor on Wisconsin dairy farms, according to an April 2023 survey by the School for Workers at UW-Madison.
Rural health care
Access to rural health care is another important issue to the district as the region had two hospital and 19 clinic closures earlier this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.
Health care systems have pointed to low staffing, insufficient Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, higher health care costs and a declining number of patients on private health insurance.
Soon after the closures, Van Orden called for state and federal resources, introducing legislation to extend telehealth services in rural health clinics and other health centers. This year, he also helped secure $600,000 in federal funds for Gundersen Health System in La Crosse for emergency equipment to improve access to ambulance services in surrounding rural areas.
“Enforcing price transparency on hospitals and doctors offices will allow everyone, with or without insurance, to shop around and find services in their budget,” Van Orden wrote in a recent op-ed.
Cooke’s campaign site lists health care as her top priority and says she would take steps to expand Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing, annually lower the age that seniors can start receiving Medicare benefits, address antitrust issues in the health care system, provide more tax credits to lower premiums, and ensure affordable access to prescription drugs with prices negotiated through Medicare.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Leading up to this past spring’s Wausau mayoral election, conservative talk radio host Meg Ellefson of WSAU brought mayoral candidate Doug Diny on her show, and together they blamed incumbent Mayor Katie Rosenberg for high property taxes, raised water rates and a lack of economic development in the city.
“There seems to be a lot of dysfunction that follows this mayor around,” Ellefson said of Rosenberg.
At the end of the segment, Ellefson plugged Diny’s campaign website and encouraged listeners to donate to his campaign or volunteer to knock on doors on his behalf.
The day after Diny defeated Rosenberg in April, Ellefson invited him back to her show to celebrate. In that same broadcast, Ellefson also announced a new focus of her attention: ensuring Donald Trump’s presidential election.
“That’s what we have to do, is take this victory as motivation to win again in November,” Ellefson told a caller.
A powerful force in Wisconsin politics for three decades, conservative talk radio continues to wield significant influence at the state and local level.
For years, radio personalities like Mark Belling and Jay Weber at WISN, Vicki McKenna at WIBA and Charlie Sykes at WTMJ have banged the drum for conservative ideas and Republican politicians. Ellefson and others like Joe Giganti in Green Bay represent a new generation of conservative hosts employing similar methods.
Although less popular than local television and some other forms of media, local radio generally gains strong trust from those who listen, according to Mike Wagner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communication researcher and professor. In Wisconsin, during the 2016 election, radio stations were airing around 200 hours of conservative talk every day, according to one UW-Madison study.
In 2022, ahead of his re-election to a third term, Sen. Ron Johnson had made hundreds of talk radio appearances — the New York Times reported they tallied more than four full days of listening.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who regularly appears on conservative talk radio shows in the state, told Wisconsin Watch he tunes in daily for as much as a half hour while driving.
“I would say it’s as powerful as it’s ever been,” Vos said of conservative talk radio.
Liberal radio has struggled to gain a foothold in the state, giving Republicans an advantage over the airwaves. With large audiences and little partisan competition, conservative radio hosts wield significant influence over elections, politicians and more in Wisconsin.
And those with political interests in the state are keenly aware of their power. Republican politicians, conservative lobbying organizations and even lawyers helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election have turned to conservative radio to advance their political aims.
‘Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker’
Perhaps most famously, Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with former Gov. Scott Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. Having publicly exited the talk radio sphere in 2016 after refusing to endorse Trump, Sykes now takes responsibility for this role and what came of it.
“As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician,” Sykes said. “At that point, your show … becomes advocacy and propaganda, and it becomes more about winning and scoring points than it does about what’s right and what’s true. I really do know how you get sucked into that.”
Sykes’ WTMJ show was Walker’s primary connection to a statewide audience, according to Lew Friedland, distinguished journalism and mass communication professor emeritus and researcher at UW-Madison.
“Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker,” Friedland said, calling Sykes “one of the top three most important political actors” at the time.
Charlie Sykes: “As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician.” (Video screen shot)
Walker told Wisconsin Watch that Sykes had a unique listener block at WTMJ, made up of not just traditionally white men, but also stay-at-home moms and non-conservatives tuning in during the morning commute. Sykes had a larger influence because it was more than just conservatives listening, Walker noted.
“Years ago, before the surge of podcasts … this was the place for a lot of conservative candidates or officeholders to get their message out in ways they felt like they couldn’t elsewhere,” Walker said.
Walker used Sykes’ show as a testing ground for numerous political talking points. Private school vouchers were a key issue that created an avenue to attack the teachers unions and Milwaukee public schools, Friedland noted.
Vos said Walker’s early use of talk radio built his credibility among Republicans.
“The reason that I think Charlie Sykes had such an impact on people is because he was there for three hours a day for decades, so people just thought they knew Charlie Sykes and they trusted him,” Vos said. “That’s why I think Governor Walker had such a huge impact because he had that exposure on Charlie’s show.”
Sykes’ influence among Republicans was widely recognized, in and outside of party circles.
“The Sykes Republicans from southeastern Wisconsin are worried that he will castigate them by calling them RINOs, ‘Republicans in name only.’ So (he makes it) very difficult for Republicans to be independent of the party line on any issue,” Jay Heck, executive director of the nonpartisan group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said in a 2005 speech.
The final testament to Sykes’ influence as a host came during the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Sykes interviewed Trump live on air and hit him with hardball questions about Trump’s disparaging comments about opponent Ted Cruz’s wife. Sykes gave a far more supportive interview to Cruz, who went on to win the Wisconsin primary.
Short-lived bipartisanship during the pandemic
The pandemic’s 2020 onset prompted a brief period of bipartisanship in which even Republican state lawmakers and conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity-WI supported the COVID-19 relief bill that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers quickly signed into law.
Evers’ deputy chief of staff at the time, Melissa Baldauff, said the bill fell short of what was needed, and it reflected what Republicans had wanted to see in the legislation. But the governor signed it because quick relief was critical.
Nevertheless, WISN’s Belling used his conservative radio program to criticize the relief measures and the Republican lawmakers and groups supporting the bill, accusing them of “selling themselves out” and caving to Evers without fighting harder against stay-at-home restrictions.
“This level of frustration that I’m trying to communicate to you is real,” Belling told then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, on his show. “And people don’t know who to turn to because on the one hand they know Evers isn’t going to listen to them, but it is extremely apparent to me that conservative think tanks and Republican legislators are not listening.”
According to Baldauff, Republicans in the Legislature were initially willing to let Evers lead on these difficult policy decisions. But she said the narrative started to shift after radio hosts like Belling loudly condemned the pandemic-era restrictions, fomenting Republican opposition to Evers and COVID-19 policies.
“They feel the heat. They have a host like a Mark Belling talking about it and saying they should do this or they shouldn’t do this, and then lo and behold, a little while later they are taking that position,” Baldauff said. “I think that’s a lot of where the power is in conservative talk radio. Republican politicians know that it can really make or break their career.”
Vos had a different take. He told Wisconsin Watch that conservative radio hosts want to be the voice of what conservatives really think, rather than political influencers.
“I look at talk radio as being a mirror to what real people think, not being the one that leads real people to say x, y or z,” Vos said. “They are a megaphone for what the average person thinks, rather than being a mouthpiece that people just copy as if they didn’t have a brain.”
Alec Zimmerman, formerly a top Republican communications strategist for Sen. Johnson and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, said state politicians are aware of what is generally being said on conservative talk radio.
“You have to be aware of what they’re saying,” Zimmerman said. “I think all conservative electeds are. … That power does come from the audience and the listener that they can reach.”
Fake electors sought to tip off radio hosts
Attorneys who plotted to disrupt the 2020 election using fake Wisconsin electors discussed sending info to conservative radio hosts with the hope of influencing Wisconsin’s conservative Supreme Court justices.
In 2020, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, two of former President Trump’s attorneys, crafted a plan to overturn the results of the presidential election in Wisconsin and other swing states. The scheme was for 10 Republicans to pose as fake electors and file paperwork falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin.
Documents released following a March lawsuit settlement include texts that reveal Chesebro and Troupis planned to use conservative talk radio in Wisconsin to carry out their scheme.
In November 2020, as a Supreme Court decision loomed regarding Trump’s attempt to invalidate thousands of votes in Wisconsin, Troupis texted Chesebro, suggesting they “tip off” conservative talk radio hosts McKenna, Dan O’Donnell, Belling and Jay Weber, “Mostly to maximize the chance that SCOW (Supreme Court of Wisconsin) justices hear about this quickly and prejudge the case?”
In another message regarding his memo urging the Trump campaign to push back against his loss, Chesebro reminded Troupis to send copies to a number of conservative radio hosts, including McKenna and Belling.
Less than two weeks after the first text, Troupis joined McKenna on the air to discuss why the lawsuit seeking to invalidate over 200,000 ballots was “the strongest legal challenge in the country,” according to McKenna. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the challenge 4-3.
Talk radio flexes power in power line debate
In February, the Assembly passed a controversial bill related to transmission line construction via a voice vote that Vos approved, leaving no record of how each representative voted. The legislation, which had failed before, died without a vote from the Senate in March.
It would have blocked out-of-state competition on long-distance power line projects in Wisconsin, granting owners of in-state transmission lines the right of first refusal to build new projects.
Conservative lobbying groups like AFP-WI, nonpartisan consumer advocacy groups like AARP and free-market conservatives like WISN’s O’Donnell opposed the bill, claiming the lack of competition could drive up utility costs for Wisconsin ratepayers. Supporters, including Wisconsin-based American Transmission Company, said the bill would have protected in-state companies bidding on transmission line projects without raising costs.
LS Power, an out-of-state transmission line company, has lobbied against similar bills in other states, but did not register against it in Wisconsin. Ellen Nowak, a lobbyist for ATC, said in an email to a lawmaker that an LS Power lobbyist told her the reason the New York-based company didn’t register was because it turned to AFP-WI to handle lobbying so as not to look like a “carpetbagger.” The email was first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal.
AFP-WI turned to conservative talk radio to encourage listeners to oppose the otherwise low-profile legislation.
Shortly after the bill was introduced in October last year, Ellefson invited Megan Novak, state director of AFP-WI, to discuss opposition on her show. When Novak returned to Ellefson’s show to repeat her criticism in February, Ellefson noted that she used to work for AFP.
On Feb. 15, the day the Assembly voted on the bill, Jerry Ponio, legislative director of AFP-WI, tagged three prominent conservative radio hosts in a social media post.
“Why does no one want to put their name behind a bill that eliminates competition and leading to higher utility bills for families and businesses in #Wisconsin?” Ponio posted.
Earlier this year, Jerry Ponio, legislative director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, called on conservative radio hosts to help defeat a bill that would have given an advantage to Wisconsin-based companies in building new electrical transmission lines.
McKenna, one of the tagged hosts, responded that same day, posting:
“The GOP-controlled WI Assembly passed a bill on a VOICE VOTE with no debate that gives utilities a MONOPOLY in WI. Not because anyone who will pay the rate increases asked for the bill. Not because WI businesses are begging to see their electricity bills skyrocket. No … they did it because utility lobbyists PAID them. To f***k over WI.”
After Ponio’s tweet, conservative WIBA radio host Vicki McKenna and other conservative radio hosts railed against the transmission line bill. It never received a full Senate vote.
Belling, who winters in Florida and only occasionally appears on his WISN show during that time, devoted his one February appearance to railing against the bill.
In a statement to Wisconsin Watch, Novak said AFP-WI spoke to a variety of additional news outlets to express its position, including WPR, the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“AFP-WI’s goal for educating and informing Wisconsinites about the potentially harmful impact of (right of first refusal) was to reach as broad of an audience as we could,” Novak said.
Eric Bott, state director of AFP-WI, and LS Power’s senior vice president Sharon Segner denied the claims made by Nowak, the ATC lobbyist. They didn’t respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for further comment.
The Wausau mayoral race
In this year’s Wausau mayoral race, Rosenberg lost to Diny even after the Democratic Party of Wisconsin spent $191,000 in advertisements on her behalf, according to WisPolitics. Republicans spent heavily on Diny in the nonpartisan race.
Diny blamed Rosenberg for an increase in water rates following the discovery of PFAS contamination in city wells — a hike Rosenberg called necessary, but which many constituents opposed. Rosenberg said in an interview that issue shaped the race’s outcome more than any other, with Ellefson’s program playing a role.
On her Jan. 8 show, Ellefson read Diny’s campaign message stating that ratepayers should be “outraged” over these “unacceptable” and “unnecessary” water bill increases. She introduced the message saying “please God let him win” and followed that by calling Rosenberg “unfit” to be mayor.
“It did whip people up into frenzy,” Rosenberg said. “It connected this race to a more statewide network.”
In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, Ellefson downplayed her role in the election of Diny, who has been in the news recently for removing the city’s ballot drop box, an action under investigation by the state Department of Justice.
“I perhaps played a tiny little role in helping to get him elected,” Ellefson said. “I would say it was just giving him the opportunity to share his vision of what he wanted to do, and I’ll admit, being very critical of the former mayor.”
Ellefson’s advocacy for Diny, which doesn’t have to be disclosed as a campaign donation, is legal because of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2014 decision to stop enforcing the Zapple Doctrine. The doctrine used to require radio stations to provide another opportunity for the opposing side to come on the air.
The FCC’s decision to ditch the doctrine came after a 2012 complaint made by supporters of Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for governor of Wisconsin. The Barrett supporters claimed they were not being given free airtime on WISN, whereas WTMJ and WISN frequently aired statements supporting Walker, the Republican candidate.
The FCC decided that while WISN and WTMJ had violated the Zapple Doctrine, it was not enforceable because of its ties to the Fairness Doctrine, which the commission eliminated in 1987.
Gov. Scott Walker speaks at the State of the State address at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Jan. 24, 2018. Charlie Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Looking ahead in an election year
In April, O’Donnell of WISN interviewed Trump, then the presumed GOP presidential nominee, ahead of his rally in Green Bay. O’Donnell called himself the “officially Trump-endorsed host.”
Unlike Sykes’ hardball interview of Trump in 2016, O’Donnell, referring to the criminal indictments against Trump, asked how all of this “lawfare” against him has affected him and his family.
“I’m able to talk on shows like yours, which are very important shows. I’m able to talk about it,” Trump told O’Donnell of his criminal trials. “Because if I couldn’t talk about it … nobody would be able to explain that it’s a hoax.”
Share your views on talk radio
Talk radio still wields a lot of power and influence in Wisconsin politics, but the landscape is changing. Investigative journalism students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Wisconsin Watch spent the spring 2024 semester reporting on those changes, resulting in a six-part series: “Change is on the Air.”
One piece missing from that series: the perspectives of radio listeners. Do you listen to talk radio in Wisconsin? Do you listen to both conservative and liberal voices, or do you stay in one media bubble? Do you listen to local or national programs? Or during your commute have you switched entirely to podcasts?
Share your thoughts on the state of talk radio in Wisconsin, and we may publish your response in a future part of our series. Send an email to: changeisontheair@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them.
Rural health care access, affordable child care and public education are among key issues for western Wisconsin voters in the toss-up 92nd Assembly District where Republican Rep. Clint Moses will face a Democratic challenger who is no stranger to the state Assembly.
Former state Rep. Joe Plouff held office from 1997 to 2005, representing the area he is running in now — 20 years later.
The district covers parts of Chippewa and Dunn counties and includes the cities of Chippewa Falls and Menomonie, as well as parts of Eau Claire. Small villages like Elk Mound and Lake Hallie also fall within its boundaries.
First elected in 2020, Moses, 48, chairs the Assembly Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care. He also serves on the Assembly agriculture and rural development committees. He is a farmer, chiropractor and former Menomonie School Board member.
Plouff, a 74-year-old Army veteran, was previously a member of the Menomonie City Council and Dunn County Board of Supervisors. He is a retired teacher.
He narrowly beat Caden Berg in the district’s Aug. 13 Democratic primary. Berg is now Plouff’s campaign manager.
Plouff said in an interview with the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce that he came out of retirement because he “fears for” what he sees in the Legislature.
“I come from a time when we actually could work together,” Plouff said. “We used to go out with people from the opposite party, and we would enjoy a meal together …That has collapsed in the 20 years I’ve been gone.”
Moses pushed back, saying lawmakers from both parties still work together to get things done.
“That actually still happens,” Moses told Wisconsin Watch. “I regularly will have breakfast or lunch with one of my Democrat colleagues.”
A Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns suggests the district is now a toss-up after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new legislative maps earlier this year. The race is one to watch as Republicans defend their Assembly majority.
Moses has far outraised Plouff, with the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee contributing nearly $167,000 to his campaign. Plouff has raised just over $70,000 so far this year with about a third coming from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, according to campaign finance records.
Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, talks at a press conference on Nov. 14, 2023, in the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Rural health care
Access to rural health care is a key issue in this district. Two hospitals and 19 clinics in Eau Claire and across the Chippewa Valley closed this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.
Moses and other western Wisconsin lawmakers acted quickly after the closures, authoring bills to reallocate $15 million left over from the 2021-23 state budget to Eau Claire and Chippewa County for emergency room services.
Evers used partial vetoes to allow the emergency funds to be used for other health care services across the region besides just hospital emergency departments. Moses said $15 million only made a dent compared to what is needed, and after expanding the scope of the funds, the $15 million was “diluted.”
Moses said he submitted budget requests during both of his sessions for Medicaid reimbursement increases for all providers, and he plans to put in those same requests again if reelected. But he said he is not in favor of fully expanding Medicaid because it will not solve the problem.
Joe Plouff (Joe Plouff for Assembly Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/RepJoePlouff/)
Plouff disagreed, stressing that expansion is essential.
In 2023 Moses co-authored a bill that proposed stricter reapplication processes for Medicaid and would have required DHS to review participant eligibility every six months. In 2022, he co-authored legislation making anyone who refuses a job offer ineligible for Medicaid. Evers vetoed the bill.
“We are not trying to kick people off that are truly needy,” Moses said in 2023. “This bill simply prevents fraud in our state and helps get the needy the services that they need.”
Wisconsin is one of 10 states — the only in the Midwest — that has not yet expanded Medicaid. A survey published in 2022 found that 70% of Wisconsin voters support fully expanding BadgerCare. The Marquette Law School Poll has similarly found 60% or greater support for accepting Medicaid expansion.
Moses hopes to expand apprenticeship programs in Wisconsin, allowing hospitals to take on and attract more potential providers, especially in rural areas. He authored a bipartisan bill signed into law this year that created crisis urgent care and observation centers that provide immediate service to patients experiencing mental health and substance abuse emergencies, the first of which will be located in western Wisconsin where there is a lack of nearby mental health facilities.
Public education
The Menomonie area school district went to referendum this spring, asking the district’s property taxpayers for $4.2 million to exceed its levy limit and keep up with operating expenses after citing “inequitable revenue limits and inadequate funding from the state.” It failed overwhelmingly, leaving the district to navigate a multimillion-dollar budget deficit.
District administrator Joe Zydowsky told WQOW that cuts could include a reduction in programming, services and staff, as well as increased class sizes and the possibility of closing schools.
Menomonie is one of 192 school districts that went or will go to referendum this year, which is almost half of all Wisconsin school districts. Many districts have raised concerns that state aid has not kept up with inflation. In 2009, the state Legislature decoupled per-pupil revenue limits from inflation. School districts have had to manage tighter budgets ever since.
Moses told Wisconsin Watch the state has not kept up in funding, and he is in favor of tying revenue limits to inflation again. Among the residents and property taxpayers in the district, pushing to referendum is far less popular than increasing state aid to schools, he said.
“If we changed the levy limits, they wouldn’t have to be doing that,” Moses said. “If we did something to tie it more to inflation, I would be very much in favor of that.”
In 2023, Moses voted in favor of legislation that increased per-pupil revenue limits in public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time. It was passed as part of a compromise between Republican lawmakers and Evers.
Plouff raised concerns about the amount of money taxpayers are fronting for the private school voucher system in Menomonie. He said the per-pupil funding model for public education hasn’t been adjusted consistently, and it’s time to make changes.
“I don’t know off the top of my head what that might be,” Plouff said.
Child care
Affordable and accessible child care has been a persistent issue across the state of Wisconsin, and places like Eau Claire are no exception.
A Wisconsin Department of Children and Families child care supply and demand survey recently found that almost 60% of providers in Wisconsin have unused classroom capacity due to staff shortages. Providers report that if they were able to operate at full capacity, they could accept up to 33,000 more children. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to DCF.
Child care deserts exist across 70% of rural Wisconsin, according to a 2021 report from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. The Economic Policy Institute found that a typical family in Wisconsin would have to spend a third of its income on child care for an infant and a 4-year-old.
Based on 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services deemed child care affordable if it costs up to 7% of a family’s income.
The median hourly wage for a child care worker in Wisconsin is $13.78, according to May 2023 estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Moses said more needs to be done to encourage people to enter the child care field and make it financially rewarding for them, such as tax credits, benefits, health insurance and a living wage.
He co-authored a bipartisan bill signed by Evers earlier this year that increased the state child care tax credit.
Last year, Moses joined his Republican colleagues in voting for measures that would have lowered the minimum teaching age of assistant child care providers from 18 to 16 and increased the permitted ratio of children to workers in child care facilities. Providers and advocates say these efforts would not help current challenges in the child care field.
“I think the biggest problem is we have this ‘one size fits all’ for child care,” Moses told Wisconsin Watch. “I think we also need to look at some of the other options that are out there, like maybe supporting family members — grandma, grandpa.”
“The answer is not always throwing more money at it. Throwing more money at it gets you more inflation,” Moses said in 2023 in defense of a Republican-authored bill on child care, which he called a “low-cost solution.”
Plouff had a different take.
“He’s right, you can’t always throw money at this,” he said. “But at the same time, when you have money in your pocket and you see a problem, you can find a solution. And if that solution costs money, you spend that money.”
Plouff said he would use tax money to temporarily subsidize child care, adding that providers positively contribute to the economy and it is important to raise the value of the job. Unlike Moses, he is concerned about grandparents and family members having to be caretakers due to a lack of child care accessibility.
“I’m hearing from people that the parents and the grandparents are now becoming the child care providers,” Plouff said. “They almost have to. Their kids need help.”
Marijuana legalization
Wisconsin continues to stand out among Midwest states as one of few that haven’t legalized medicinal or recreational marijuana.
Statewide polling from the Marquette University Law School showed in January that 83% of respondents supported medical marijuana legalization, and 63% supported full legalization.
Last year, the Wisconsin Policy Forum estimated that more than half of all Wisconsin residents above the age of 21 live within a 75-minute drive from a marijuana dispensary in surrounding states. This estimate was before neighboring Minnesota legalized recreational use.
In 2022, marijuana sales to those residing in Wisconsin generated over $36 million in sales tax revenue for Illinois, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Approximately $165 million in annual sales tax revenue was projected under Evers’ full marijuana legalization plan that the Legislature’s GOP-controlled budget committee rejected in 2023.
In a district so close to the border of Minnesota, Moses said this issue is raised frequently. He supports medicinal marijuana legalization, but “would like to see how that goes first.”
He is hesitant to support recreational legalization due to safety concerns, particularly marijuana potentially being laced with fentanyl. If the Legislature agrees on legalization, he said lawmakers must ensure the supply will be safe.
Plouff said it is an embarrassment that the state hasn’t yet taken action to legalize medicinal marijuana. He said he would support recreational legalization “under controls,” preferably with professionals who can guide the consumer on safe use of the drug.
“I believe it’s time for Wisconsin to get into it,” Plouff said, noting the revenue and tax benefits.
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The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has banned donations of used books to prisoners in an effort to prevent drugs from entering state prisons through secondhand books.
Critics say the department is limiting inmates’ access to information while failing to address wider entry points for drugs, like prison staff.
The department has additionally spent about $4 million on restricting prisoner-bound mail in recent years — rerouting it to Maryland, where a company scans mail and sends a digital copy to those incarcerated.
Multiple Wisconsin prison workers have faced charges related to drug smuggling in recent years.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has halted the work of a nonprofit that donated used books to prisoners for nearly 20 years, calling it necessary to prevent drugs from entering state prisons through secondhand books.
The move is drawing pushback from leaders of the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners and prisoner rights advocates. They say the department is limiting inmates’ access to information while failing to narrow wider entry points for drugs, like prison staff.
The used book ban comes after Wisconsin rerouted prisoner-bound mail out of state in the name of blocking drug shipments — an effort that has cost millions yet has had little visible impact on the numbers.
As they restrict books and mail shipments, Wisconsin prison officials have shared less about plans to stop prison employees from bringing in drugs.
That’s despite last year’s launch of a federal investigation into employees suspected of smuggling contraband into Waupun Correctional Institution. Separately, multiple Wisconsin prison workers have faced charges related to drug smuggling in recent years.
Prison officials ban used book donations
Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), a small volunteer-run organization, has sent over 70,000 free books to state prisons since 2006.
Camy Matthay, the group’s director and co-founder, said she was alarmed in August to learn state prisons would no longer accept the group’s used books.
“The decision to bar WBTP from sending books unnecessarily restricts incarcerated peoples’ access to valuable educational resources, particularly when many facilities suffer from underfunded, outdated, or non-existent library service,” Matthay’s group wrote on social media when announcing the ban.
“We just want to send books to prisoners, that’s all,” Matthay said in an interview.
The organization inspected all books before sending to ensure they met prison “clean copy” criteria: no highlighting, underlining or marks of any kind, she said.
Returned packages are stacked alongside bookshelves in the Wisconsin Books to Prisoners library on Sept. 20, 2024, at the Social Justice Center in Madison, Wis. The Wisconsin Department of Corrections says it will no longer allow used books to be sent to prisoners, effectively halting the volunteer-run nonprofit’s work. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In an Aug. 16 email to the nonprofit, Division of Adult Institutions Administrator Sarah Cooper wrote that her agency is not concerned with the organization itself, “but with those who would impersonate your organization for nefarious means.”
“Bad actors” may send packages and books laced with drugs that “appear to be sent from the Child Support Agency, the IRS, the State Public Defender’s Office, the Department of Justice and individual attorneys,” she wrote.
The corrections department announced its latest ban of used books in January. Then Oshkosh Correctional Institution officials in February and March detected drugs in three shipments of books purporting to be from Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, spokesperson Beth Hardtke told reporters Monday in an email.
That was news to Matthay, she said Monday. The department never notified the group about the incidents, nor did Cooper’s August email mention them.
Latest effort to restrict book donations
This isn’t the first time restrictions have threatened the group’s work.
Prison officials cited drug concerns in halting the nonprofit’s donations in 2008 before eventually agreeing to let it send only new books, following ACLU of Wisconsin intervention. In 2018, the department clarified that the nonprofit, as an approved vendor, could send used books so long as they were clean copies. It reaffirmed that decision in 2021.
Hardtke said the latest restrictions don’t specifically target Wisconsin Books to Prisoners. They are instead part of a broader ban on all secondhand book deliveries. Prisoners may still receive new books sent directly from a publisher or retailer with a receipt, she said.
Matthay’s group cannot keep up with demands while being limited to only new books, she said.
Letters containing prisoners’ unfulfilled book requests are shown at the Wisconsin Books to Prisoners library on Sept. 20, 2024, at the Social Justice Center in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The policy will chill prisoners’ access to information, said Moira Marquis, a senior manager at the freedom of expression advocacy group PEN America. Marquis authored the report “Reading Between the Bars,” which detailed state book restrictions nationwide.
Wisconsin Books to Prisoners sent donated books to inmates for free to address a specific barrier to information. Many prisoners, who in 2023 made as little as five cents per hour in jobs behind bars, cannot afford to buy new books from retailers.
“If you’re going to limit somebody’s First Amendment rights excessively, you really should have a very strong burden of proof that not only is this necessary, but also that it’s effective,” Marquis said.
Wisconsin Watch asked the corrections department for evidence that necessitated the ban.
“Unfortunately, in recent years individuals have repeatedly used paper, including letters and books, as a way to try to smuggle drugs into DOC institutions,” Hardtke said in an email.
The department since 2019 has flagged 214 incidents of drugs being found on paper, representing a quarter of all 881 contraband incidents flagged during that time, according to figures Hardtke provided.
“DOC is continuing the conversation with Wisconsin Books to Prisoners in the hopes we can come to an agreement to help fulfill the reading requests of those in our care and do so safely,” Hardtke wrote.
Matthay in August asked the department if providing tracking information on its packages could help it verify that book shipments were indeed coming from Wisconsin Books to Prisoners.
The department has yet to respond, she said Monday.
Millions spent rerouting prison mail to Maryland
The corrections department’s broader efforts to restrict mail do not appear to have slowed the flow of drugs. The department counted more incident reports of drugs being found on paper (55) thus far in 2024 than it did in 2021 (49), the year it overhauled its mailing system, the figures Hardtke provided show.
Not all incident reports flagged as drug-related turn out to actually be so, Hardtke noted, and the figures may not account for drug-related incidents logged in separate medical or conduct reports.
In December 2021, the department began rerouting all prisoner-bound mail to Maryland, where a company called TextBehind scans each piece of mail and sends a digital copy to those incarcerated. The department has paid nearly $4 million for those services since they began, according to information Wisconsin Watch obtained through an open records request.
Some incarcerated people told Wisconsin Watch the loss of physical mail has increased their feelings of isolation. They can no longer hold the same handwritten letters and photographs their loved ones sent; photocopies aren’t the same.
“I don’t get to smell the perfume on a letter. I don’t get the actual drawings my kid sends me. It takes away from the sentimental value of it,” said a Waupun prisoner who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
A range of research has shown that maintaining connections to loved ones improves the likelihood that a prisoner will reintegrate into society and avoid recidivism.
The prisoner said the mail policy hasn’t stopped the flow of drugs into prison.
“Every day I smell weed,” he said. “They’re trying to blame us for the drugs, but if the administration doesn’t hold their staff accountable for their actions, it won’t solve the problem.”
Kyle Wienke, liaison to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), poses for a portrait in the WBTP library on Sept. 20, 2024, at the Social Justice Center in Madison, Wis. He says the volunteer-run nonprofit has about 250 unfulfilled book requests from prisoners since the corrections department banned used book donations earlier this year. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Lockdowns don’t stop drug flow
Wisconsin in recent years has locked down prisons, limiting inmate movement and privileges to alleviate staffing shortages. Drugs kept flowing even after in-person visits and direct mail to prisoners stopped.
The department counted 214 total drug-related contraband incident reports in 2024, up from 142 a year earlier and 164 in 2022.
Last year, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into a possible drug and contraband smuggling ring prompted the state to place 11 Waupun prison employees on leave. In September, a former Waupun prison employee was convicted of smuggling contraband into prisons under the guise of completing repairs.
And in October 2023, three months after state officials asked federal authorities to investigate staff-led smuggling inside Waupun’s prison, 30-year-old Tyshun Lemons was found dead from fentanyl poisoning. In June, prosecutors criminally charged nine Waupun prison workers, including the former warden, following multiple inmate deaths, including Lemons’.
At least two dozen correctional officers have been caught smuggling contraband into Wisconsin prisons since 2019, according to public records obtained by the advocacy group Ladies of SCI and shared with Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin Watch is awaiting department records requested Sept. 5 detailing additional information related to recent drug incidents in its adult facilities.
Files on Wisconsin state prisons sit in a box atop bookshelves at the Wisconsin Books to Prisoners library on Sept. 20, 2024, at the Social Justice Center in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Mail restrictions scrutinized in other states
Multiple states have restricted books and mail since 2015, citing drug smuggling concerns, Marquis said. Meanwhile, prisoners have increasingly relied on electronic tablets, which have come with new limits on what they can read, Marquis said.
Have such restrictions limited the flow of drugs in those states? Not necessarily, news reports have found.
A Texas Tribune/Marshall Project investigation in 2021 found that curtailing mail did not curb drugs found in Texas prisons. Guards wrote up even more prisoners for drugs after the policy change. Prisoners and employees reported that staff were most responsible for smuggling drugs.
Pennsylvania’s prison officials banned physical mail in 2018 after blaming a series of staff illnesses on drugs allegedly sent by mail. But less than five years later, the number of prisoners who tested positive on random drug tests substantially increased, The Patriot News reported last year.
Florida in 2021 stopped all paper mail from entering prisons, citing 35,000 contraband items found in mail between January 2019 and April 2021. But those represented less than 2% of all such items found in the prisons during that period, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Wisconsin in 2022 issued new screening requirements for people entering prisons and added metal detectors at points of entry. But one Waupun prison worker said screeners at entrances do not routinely inspect employees’ bags or lunches, allowing drugs to pass through undetected. The prison worker requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media.
“If it were me trying to stop drugs, the first thing I would do is come up with a system where employees are screened better,” he said.
To Rebecca Aubart, executive director of Ladies of SCI, the secondhand book ban is an example of how policies touted as safety measures harm incarcerated people.
“To me this policy is another way DOC is blaming families and the people they incarcerate for the problems their staff can’t or won’t address,” she said.
“It’s a false narrative that gets repeated, and when it becomes policy, the false narrative gets reinforced.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them.
Rural health care access, affordable child care and public education are key issues for western Wisconsin voters in the toss-up 30th Assembly District where Democratic candidate Alison Page will seek to unseat incumbent Rep. Shannon Zimmerman in November.
This district covers parts of St. Croix and Pierce counties. It includes the cities of Hudson and River Falls, as well as the village of North Hudson. It also contains the UW-River Falls campus and Willow River State Park.
A Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns suggests the district is now a toss-up after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new legislative maps earlier this year.
Zimmerman, 52, has represented the district since 2017. He co-chairs the Joint Committee on Information Policy and Technology. He is also part of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which oversees the state budget. He is the founder of a language translation company and owns a small business.
Zimmerman did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s repeated requests for an interview.
Page, 68, spent her career as a nurse and later as CEO of Western Wisconsin Health. She is a River Falls school board member and served on the Workforce Development Board of Western Wisconsin. In 2022, Page ran against Republican Rep. Warren Petryk in the old 93rd Assembly District, where she lost by more than 5,000 votes.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee — a national group — recently announced that Page and the 30th Assembly District are on its target list “to build Democratic power across Wisconsin” and “shift the balance of power in the Legislature for the first time in over a decade.”
“Instead of taking my agenda from the powers that be in the Republican Legislature or the Democratic Legislature, I would take my agenda from the people of this region,” Page said when asked what sets her apart from her opponent.
In a recent interview with the Western Wisconsin Journal, Zimmerman said he brings a “practical, common-sense approach.”
“I will be called too moderate for the Republicans, and not in favor with the Democrats,” Zimmerman said. “That’s probably right where you want to be because I think that’s where you get things done.”
In the last legislative session, there were 437 instances of not voting in the Assembly, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau. If distributed evenly among all 99 members, that would amount to four or five instances per member. Zimmerman had 38 instances of not voting. He was granted a leave of absence for four floor sessions during which lawmakers voted on multiple bills. He told Wisconsin Watch his absence was due to a health issue.
Wisconsin state Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, is seen at Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address on Jan. 24, 2023, in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Rural health care
Access to rural health care is a key issue in western Wisconsin. Two hospitals and 19 clinics in the region closed this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.
Page said the solution requires the state to work with the federal government.
Medicaid expansion, which Republicans in the Legislature have blocked, could help by allowing people earning more than the federal poverty level to access government-funded health care and bringing more money into the state, Page said. Wisconsin is one of 10 states — the only one in the Midwest — that has not yet expanded Medicaid.
“If I could wave a magic wand and do good things for health care, I would build health care into the public school system, so that every child would have a health care check-up, and provide basic preventative health care counseling, including mental health care,” Page said.
During the last legislative session, Zimmerman co-authored a bill that would establish a certification process and grant program for crisis urgent care and observation facilities, which treat mental health and substance use disorders.
Zimmerman has opposed efforts to expand Medicaid. In 2023, he was part of the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee that voted to remove Medicaid expansion funding from Evers’ budget proposal.
“We’re literally to the point now where the federal government is trying to buy Wisconsin into greater government dependence,” Zimmerman said of Medicaid expansion in 2021, according to WPR. “That’s absurd.”
A survey published in 2022 found that 70% of Wisconsin voters support fully expanding BadgerCare. The Marquette Law School Poll has similarly found 60% or greater support for accepting Medicaid expansion.
In 2017, Zimmerman responded to questions from the Republican Eagle and said he supported “adding provisions to the budget that established matching grant programs for rural clinics and hospitals that train advanced practice clinicians and allied health professionals.”
Education
The Hudson School District recently estimated it would experience a budget deficit of $7.5 million by the 2028-29 school year due to declining enrollment and frozen revenue limits. Now the district will go to operational referendum in November to exceed its revenue cap by $5 million on a recurring basis, asking property taxpayers to pay for its operations, maintenance and staffing costs.
This fall, 120 school districts in Wisconsin are holding referendums, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Many districts, including Hudson, have raised concerns that state aid increases have not kept up with inflation.
Page said the state needs to “step back,” look at other states and determine what the best, most fair way to fund public education is. The solution could be a blend of both state aid and referendums, but what’s happening now is not working, she said.
“If the state is underfunding — so they’re not keeping pace — and you’re going to referendum for operating revenue, then you’re gradually transitioning the cost of public education from the general fund onto the real estate taxpayer, and that is not a good idea,” Page said.
She believes public education is handled most efficiently — “with the best product at the lowest cost” — through one unified public school system.
“Siphoning off money to support schools that are not the public school system — I don’t think makes sense for the state for the long run,” Page said.
But she doesn’t have anything against private schools and parents wanting their children to be privately educated.
“Access to a free, excellent education is a right of every child in the state,” Page said. “Access to a private education that may be part of a spiritual organization is not a right.”
Under the current per-pupil funding model, school districts across the state, including Hudson, need to close and consolidate due to declining enrollment, Zimmerman said in a recent interview.
In 2023, legislation that increased per-pupil revenue limits in public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time passed as part of a compromise between Republican lawmakers and Evers. Zimmerman was on a leave of absence and did not vote on the bill.
In 2024, he voted in favor of a bill that would have repealed reductions of state aid paid to school districts under Wisconsin’s private school voucher programs — allowing funding to come directly from the state rather than from reductions in public school districts’ funds.
Child care
Affordable and accessible child care has been a persistent issue across the state of Wisconsin, and places like Hudson in the 30th Assembly District are no exception. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.
Child care deserts exist across 70% of rural Wisconsin, according to a 2021 report from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. The Economic Policy Institute found that a typical family in Wisconsin would have to spend a third of its income on child care for an infant and a 4-year-old.
Based on 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services deemed child care affordable if it costs up to 7% of a family’s income.
Page said she would consider multiple solutions, such as supporting those who enter or want to enter the child care field, incorporating child care into the K-12 public school system and working with community religious organizations to provide child care.
In 2023, the Joint Finance Committee voted to end funding for the Child Care Counts program — a pandemic-era subsidy program. Zimmerman was not present for that vote.
Last year, Zimmerman joined his Republican colleagues in voting for measures that would have lowered the minimum teaching age of assistant child care providers from 18 to 16 and increased the permitted ratio of children to workers in child care facilities. Providers and advocates say these efforts would not help current challenges in the child care field.
Income tax reciprocity
Tax reciprocity between states is an agreement that allows people who commute to work across state lines to pay taxes in the state where they reside. It is especially important to western Wisconsin residents near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border who travel across state lines for work.
This year, Zimmerman authored a bill signed into law by Evers that will begin the process of reestablishing income tax reciprocity between the two states, which was discontinued in 2009.
Page would support income tax reciprocity and said it’s an important issue she frequently hears from constituents in the 30th Assembly District.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Come Nov. 5, nearly half of all Wisconsin school districts will have gone to referendum in 2024, asking for almost $6 billion in total from Wisconsin residents in districts scattered across the state.
At least 192 school districts — of the state’s 421 — will have posed 241 referendum questions to residents of their districts this year, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. That includes seven school districts that posed 10 questions in February, 86 districts that posed 93 questions in April, one district that posed one question in August, and at least 121 school districts that will pose some 137 questions to voters in November. (Some school districts ask voters to consider more than one referendum question on the same ballot.)
The push from districts for additional funding comes as the debate over state aid for K-12 public schools has become central to many competitive legislative races. Lawmakers increased funding for public schools by $1 billion during the state’s most recent budget cycle, though that increase was tied to additional funding for public charter and private voucher schools. Gov. Tony Evers and legislative Democrats are likely to once again push for additional funding during budget negotiations next summer.
Federal pandemic relief funds that Wisconsin school districts have been able to spend since 2020 will expire this month.
Voters approved 62 of the 103 school referendums on the primary and general election ballots this spring — a record number since at least 2000. The 60% approval rate was the lowest in a midterm or presidential election year since 2010, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Why are schools pushing to referendum?
As districts across the state grapple with declining enrollment, many are forced to close and consolidate schools in their district to cut back on costs, particularly operating expenses. The Kenosha Unified School District closed six of its schools this year due to declining enrollment after facing a $15 million deficit.
“Schools are funded based on the number of students we have, so as we have fewer students, our budget shrinks,” Kenosha Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin’s per-pupil K-12 spending has increased at a lower rate than every other state in the nation besides Indiana and Idaho between 2002 and 2020, according to the Policy Forum.
Enrollment losses create conditions where costs exceed the per-pupil revenue available to the district. State law allows school districts to then go to referendum to ask their voters to authorize their district to exceed their revenue caps at the expense of property taxpayers.
In 2009, the state Legislature decoupled per-pupil revenue limits from inflation. Without matching inflation, school districts have been slashing their budgets for years.
“Keeping the revenue limit up with inflation is probably the biggest need that the district has,” Weiss said. “For 2025-26, we’re looking at another significant deficit.”
The La Crosse School District’s November referendum is asking for $53.5 million to build a new elementary school and add new classrooms to another. The district would subsequently close multiple elementary schools and relocate students.
“Frankly, when you have fewer kids you need fewer buildings,” Superintendent Aaron Engel said. “Changing revenue limits isn’t going to change the need for school districts across the state, if they’re larger like ours, to close buildings and consolidate.”
Engel said tying the revenue limits to inflation was a great model, and the gap between inflationary increases and what they are provided is now over $3,000 per student. That represents $18 million in lost revenue over the last 16 years. This significantly affects the district’s ability to operate its schools, he said.
Declining enrollment
There are multiple factors contributing to declining enrollment in schools, one of the largest being declining birth rates. But housing shortages in some districts like La Crosse have also made matters worse.
Much of the housing being built in La Crosse is multifamily or medium-density housing, according to Engel. The district has found that multifamily housing generates far fewer school-aged children than single-family housing.
“There isn’t really space for new housing or single-family homes,” Engel said. “With declining birth rates and people having fewer kids in their households — naturally, with the same level of housing — our enrollment has declined.”
Private school vouchers and open enrollment have also contributed to declining enrollment, Engel said. The use of open enrollment in Wisconsin has increased over the last decade.
How will candidates for office address it?
Seven-term Rep. Steve Doyle — a Democrat seeking reelection in the La Crosse area — said that having to push to referendum “is the worst way to do it” and that funding public schools shouldn’t be left up to the property taxpayers.
“It’s really kind of a stab in the back when we’re having to approve a referendum that we know needs to be passed, but it really is covering something that the state should be covering,” Doyle said.
Last year Doyle co-authored a bill that would have allowed public schools with failed referendums to benefit from the state’s increased revenue limits.
But Rep. Tom Michalski — a Republican from Elm Grove seeking a second term — said the issue in Wauwatosa’s school district isn’t funding, and “the billion dollars that we’re giving out … demonstrates that.”
The Wauwatosa School District will go to both capital and operational referendum this November, totaling $124.4 million. The district is expected to face a $9.3 million deficit this school year.
“I don’t think raising taxes is ever popular, but the citizens of Wauwatosa need to question what they’re getting for their money,” Michalski said of referendums in the district. “If the school has dropped in its performance over the past years, they should really look at where the money is going.”
Since the school district is “on the decline,” parents have every right to send their kids to a private school, Michalski said. If Wauwatosa schools can’t compete, “that is their problem.”
Last year, Michalski co-sponsored legislation passed as part of a compromise between Republicans and Evers that raised revenue ceilings for public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time.
Jack Kelly contributed reporting to this story.
Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.
Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them.
Education funding, health care access and housing affordability are key issues in the 94th Assembly District — a toss-up district in the La Crosse area that could help Republicans hold on to their Assembly majority if they can defeat a longtime Democratic incumbent.
The race pits seven-term Democratic Rep. Steve Doyle — once named the most bipartisan Assembly member — against GOP challenger Ryan Huebsch in a rematch from 2022.
Located in western Wisconsin, the district covers parts of La Crosse and Trempealeau counties, including small villages like Ettrick, Holmen and West Salem. It also includes the cities of Galesville and Onalaska and part of the city of La Crosse.
A Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns suggests the district is now a toss-up.
Under the old legislative maps in 2022, Doyle beat Huebsch by fewer than 800 votes. It was the most expensive Assembly race that year, with Doyle spending $1.14 million, Huebsch spending $551,000 and outside groups spending almost $400,000, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks campaign spending.
But the 66-year-old incumbent still feels confident he can win. While the district looks a little different, he said it includes the “same general kind of folks” he has represented.
In 2020, the Legislative Reference Bureau found that Doyle — a La Crosse County Board member, attorney and former UW-La Crosse instructor — co-authored the most bipartisan bills during his time in office.
His 29-year-old Republican challenger claims he will bring “fresh energy and common-sense ideas” to the Assembly. Huebsch was previously a legislative aide and campaign manager to three Republican state senators. He is now executive director of the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum.
Huebsch is endorsed by the La Crosse County sheriff, Wisconsin Right to Life and the National Rifle Association. His father previously represented the 94th District for 16 years, including a term as Assembly speaker, and served in Gov. Scott Walker’s Cabinet.
Huebsch did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview requests for this story.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported on several offensive social media posts Huebsch made when he was a teenager — one including an ethnic slur. He has since apologized and taken the posts down.
Doyle declined to comment on the discovery of Huebsch’s posts, but added people shouldn’t base their vote solely on that. Their choice should instead be based upon who they think could do a better job in office, he said.
With control of the Assembly on the line for both Democrats and Republicans, this race is being heavily targeted by both parties. Doyle has raised more than $600,000 so far this year, most of which came from the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee. Huebsch has raised nearly $120,000 in that time, most of which came from the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee.
Rep. Steve Doyle, D-Onalaska, is seen at Gov. Tony Evers’ second State of the State address at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Jan. 22, 2020. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Education
Due to declining enrollment largely caused by declining birth rates, the La Crosse School District is facing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Fewer students mean shrinking state funding, and the Board of Education proposed a $53.5 million referendum to close and consolidate several schools in order to cut costs.
Doyle said a housing shortage in La Crosse is also contributing to declining enrollment. Superintendent Aaron Engel agreed, adding that the area around the school district where housing for families with school-aged children can be built is limited and landlocked.
Republican Ryan Huebsch (Photo from electhuebsch.com)
Private school vouchers and open enrollment have also had a smaller impact on the school district’s declining enrollment, Engel said.
Last year Doyle co-authored a bill that would have allowed public schools with failed referendums to benefit from the state’s increased revenue limits. That year, he also voted against a bill — passed as part of a compromise between Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — that increased revenue ceilings for public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time.
Doyle said that education should be decided locally but funded by the state and that pushing funding to referendum is the worst way to solve budget deficits. All schools need revenue and assistance from the state, and heavy costs shouldn’t be placed on property taxpayers, Doyle said.
On education, Huebsch supports expanding private school voucher programs and is concerned about children in public schools being taught “the latest educational fad or social justice cause.” His campaign website says he will support policies that give parents oversight on how school funds are spent.
Child care
On the issue of child care accessibility, Doyle supports the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program, tax credits for child care workers and the Child Care Counts program, which has subsidized child care providers with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds.
“We can solve a little bit of the problem at the county level, but it really is more of a state issue,” Doyle told Wisconsin Watch. “We have to make it worthwhile for people to go into and to stay in that profession.”
In 2023, Doyle co-authored a bill that would have created a new child care payment program in addition to the Wisconsin Shares program. It also would have established grants for facilities that provide child care to their employees.
La Crosse County has lost more than 350 child care facilities in the last two decades, and hundreds more have closed across the state.
Huebsch’s campaign site does not mention plans for child care but states he will vote to lower taxes on individuals.
Health care
The western Wisconsin region is experiencing a shortage of accessible health care in rural areas. Two hospitals and 19 clinics in the area closed this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.
Doyle said this is just the beginning of rural hospital closures in the state, and Medicaid expansion is “an absolute necessity” but is only part of the solution. The state needs to create financial incentives for doctors to come to and stay at rural hospitals, Doyle said.
In 2023, Doyle co-sponsored a bill that would have used federal funds to expand BadgerCare, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income adults and families.
Huebsch’s campaign site states he “will support policies that give each of us the opportunity to get the health care we deserve.”
Housing
La Crosse, like many other parts of Wisconsin, is experiencing an affordable housing shortage.
Doyle said the state is best positioned to deal with workforce housing shortages in Wisconsin by offering incentives to developers to build that kind of housing. In 2023, he co-authored three bills signed into law that incentivize affordable housing projects in the state.
“If we improve the availability of workforce housing, A: We’re helping people find housing they can afford. B: We’re helping our schools with their declining enrollment. C: We’re putting property on the tax rolls that is going to help balance local budgets,” Doyle said. “It’s a win, win win scenario.”
This year, Doyle authored a bill that would have allowed the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority to offer loans and grants to housing cooperatives for infrastructure improvements.
Huebsch’s campaign site mentions the price of housing is going up, but doesn’t mention specific plans for affordable housing.
“He will vote to lower the tax burden on each of us and support policies that will encourage investment in jobs and our communities,” Huebsch’s website says.
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Wisconsin continues to stand out among Midwest states as one of few that haven’t legalized medicinal and recreational marijuana, and fingers have long pointed to the Tavern League of Wisconsin as the main adversary to legalization.
But according to public lobbying records — which organizations attempting to influence policy must report with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission — the trade association has never lobbied for or against it, nor does it take a stance on the issue, according to the Tavern League’s government affairs spokesperson Scott Stenger.
“We will not weigh in on that issue, it’s just not something our members care about,” Stenger said.
Stenger said the Tavern League takes the lobbying reporting laws very seriously. Despite countering the claims that the league opposes marijuana legalization, he said he still receives calls from people who are “belligerent” over the issue.
“It would seem to me that there’d be more reasons for us to support than oppose, but we never have,” Stenger said. “This idea that if you legalize marijuana, people aren’t going to go to taverns — marijuana is legal in a lot of states, and the on-premise industry hasn’t declined. So there’s no correlation whatsoever.”
Then why do so many believe the Tavern League is against marijuana?
Studies on whether the legalization of cannabis products leads to a decrease in alcohol sales have shown mixed results. Data from a study in Canada showed that cannabis legalization was associated with a decline in beer sales, though not spirits sales, implying marijuana is being used as a substitute for beer.
But a study of Washington, Colorado and Oregon — three U.S. states where recreational cannabis has been legal the longest — found no evidence that legalization has impacted total alcohol sales.
So who actually is lobbying against marijuana legalization in Wisconsin?
Since 2003, three interest groups have lobbied directly against bills that would have legalized medicinal and/or recreational marijuana: Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association and Wisconsin Medical Society.
The Medical Society has lobbied against legalizing medicinal use for years. The last time the group lobbied directly on a medical marijuana bill in the Legislature was in 2022. The association still opposes medicinal legalization, according to its chief policy and advocacy officer Mark Grapentine.
“Medicines” are substances approved by the FDA after rigorous testing to make sure any drug is effective and safe, Grapentine told Wisconsin Watch.
“We do not support so-called ‘medical’ marijuana schemes because they are designed to sound like marijuana research has gone through that kind of trusted process, but it has not,” he said.
The Medical Society does support moving marijuana to a place in the Controlled Substances Act that allows for more widespread study and clinical research for the development of cannabis medicines.
“I think it’s one of those perpetual issues — it’s always either ‘medical’ marijuana of some kind or full-blown legalization,” Grapentine said in an email when asked about the future of marijuana bills in the Legislature.
In 2022, 2017 and 2015, the Chiefs of Police Association lobbied against both recreational and medicinal marijuana legislation. The association declined to comment for this story.
Wisconsin Family Action lobbied against one of the most recent marijuana bills in the Legislature in 2023. The bill, introduced by state Sen. Melissa Agard, would have legalized both recreational and medicinal cannabis. It died in the state Senate.
Wisconsin Family Action did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s repeated requests for comment. In 2022, the group released a statement saying “Christians should oppose” Gov. Tony Evers and included his support for recreational marijuana legalization as one of the reasons.
In 2010 and 2019, the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association lobbied against bipartisan bills that would have established a medical necessity defense to marijuana-related prosecutions. When asked what the group’s current stance on marijuana is, business manager Sandy Schueller said “we aren’t taking a formal position until we see the official legislation during the next session of the Legislature.”
In 2019, the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association also lobbied against bipartisan legislation that would have established a medical use defense, as well as a medical cannabis registry. The association president, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, told Wisconsin Watch the group remains opposed to both medical and recreational marijuana.
Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.
Two Republicans — one backed by Donald Trump, the other a state senator who decided to run for Assembly after redistricting paired him with another GOP incumbent — square off in a rematch in the 24th Assembly District primary on Aug. 13.
Incumbent Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, and state Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, last year both ran for the 8th Senate District, where Knodl handily won 57% of the Republican primary vote despite Trump endorsing Brandtjen.
Knodl opted not to run for the Senate seat he won in a special election last spring after new legislative maps drew him into the district with Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, who has held office in the 20th Senate District since 2015. Knodl said the 24th Assembly District needs “a conservative who is respected by his colleagues.” He previously represented the district in the Assembly from 2009 to 2023.
Both Knodl and Brandtjen did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for an interview.
The safe Republican district covers parts of Washington and Waukesha counties. It includes the villages of Menomonee Falls and Lannon, as well as half the village of Germantown. Whoever wins the Republican primary will face Democrat William Walter on Nov. 5.
Brandtjen, who has represented the 22nd Assembly District since 2015, announced her decision to run again in the new 24th earlier this year after Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper decided not to file charges recommended by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission against her for an alleged plot to skirt campaign finance laws.
The ethics commission recommended felony charges against Brandtjen, Adam Steen’s campaign, county GOP officials and Trump’s Save America fundraising committee regarding an effort to oust Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and illegally steer money to Steen, his unsuccessful GOP primary challenger in 2022.
That year, Brandtjen’s colleagues voted to ban her from attending Assembly Republican closed caucus meetings after losing trust in her.
This year, Trump has backed U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde and 8th Congressional District candidate Tony Wied, but Brandtjen remains the only candidate he has endorsed for the state Legislature, according to Ballotpedia.
Brandtjen won Trump’s favor when she promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and called for President Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin to be overturned. She and Trump attempted to pressure Vos to take illegal steps to throw out the election results.
A screenshot is shown of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, posted through his Truth Social account.
Vos removed Brandtjen from her position as chair of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections for using the role to promote other election deniers and support illegal efforts to decertify the election. Rep. Scott Krug, R-Nekoosa, replaced her and has since pushed for more bipartisan election reforms.
Both Knodl and Brandtjen joined other lawmakers in signing a 2021 letter asking former Vice President Mike Pence to delay certifying the 2020 election results.
Brandtjen has spoken in favor of legislation that would ban transgender girls from participating in women’s sports in schools. She also led attempts to impeach Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Megan Wolfe, drawing criticism from many of her Republican colleagues.
In 2023, Brandtjen sponsored unsuccessful legislation that would have given local governments and municipalities greater power to regulate the installation of wind and energy systems.
Last year, Knodl authored legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers creating a driver’s education grant program for students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch in schools. Another bipartisan bill he wrote requires the closure of campaign finance accounts belonging to candidates that have been found guilty of campaign finance or election fraud laws.
Knodl was a legislative leader in the effort to repeal the personal property tax in Wisconsin. He also co-sponsored an unsuccessful 14-week abortion ban, as well as legislation that would have required citizenship information on state drivers’ licenses — what he said was an attempt to ensure non-citizens don’t vote.
According to most recent campaign finance reports, Knodl has raised $71,403 this year, far more than Brandtjen with $16,439.
One of two Democratic candidates vying for the 96th Assembly District will have the chance to flip the seat in November now that the district has been redrawn. But incumbent Rep. Loren Oldenburg, R-Viroqua, says he’s still the right candidate for the district, even though it’s now a likely Democratic seat after being a Republican stronghold for years.
Former La Crosse County Board chair Tara Johnson, D-La Crosse, and businessman Steve Campbell, D-Viroqua, are each confident they will be the one to beat Oldenburg and flip the district. Oldenburg has held office since being elected in 2018.
The 96th is a blend of both rural and urban communities, covering all of Vernon County and now the south side of the city of La Crosse. An analysis of past voting patterns suggests a 56-42 Democratic advantage. The Nov. 5 election will be a test of incumbency against new district lines, but the Aug. 13 primary will test which brand of Democrat can win over rural voters.
Campbell owns an assisted living business for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and improving mental health systems is a focus of his campaign. He describes himself as a moderate, common-sense Democrat who knows rural voters.
“Tara is not quiet about the fact that she’s a very progressive candidate, which I think works very well in La Crosse,” Campbell said. “I don’t know that that works very well in Vernon County with rural voters.”
But Johnson said the progressive versus moderate frame is not what she’s been hearing from constituents in the district. She pointed to her work on the county board with members from all sides of the political aisle.
“I absolutely would defend my track record as a pragmatic leader who gets stuff done, and that means you work with everybody,” Johnson said. “I don’t have to move my personal values to the center to be an effective legislator.”
Both Democratic candidates agreed that funding for public education is a key issue for voters in the 96th. They each have concerns about private school voucher programs and the funding public schools are losing in the district.
Safeguarding abortion access is another top-of-mind issue they’ve heard from Democratic voters, and Campbell admitted Johnson could have a leg up as people seem excited about voting more women into office. Johnson said women bring a unique set of eyes and ears to political office.
Johnson has received a long list of endorsements, including Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, State Sens. Brad Pfaff and Melissa Agard, and the La Crosse County sheriff.
Rep. Loren Oldenburg
Oldenburg is relying on name recognition from his 146-year-old family farm and his six-year incumbency to win. He said he’s no stranger to representing both sides of the aisle in the 96th. As a farmer, he also says he knows rural issues. After significant flooding along the Mississippi River last spring, Oldenburg sponsored a bill creating a pre-disaster flood resilience grant program that was signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in April.
“In the 96th, they want representation of people that are not extreme one way or the other,” Oldenburg said.
Last year, Oldenburg and other Republicans sponsored an “Iowa-style” redistricting bill, which would have allowed the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to draw the new maps and submit them to the Republican-controlled Legislature for approval. The maps could have been rejected and redrawn until lawmakers approved the plan, which drew criticism from Democrats.
“Loren Oldenburg may have been an okay fit for the old 96th, but this is not that 96th,” Johnson said. “This district has swung so dramatically.”
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