Among registered voters, 49 percent said they would vote for a Democrat for Congress if the election were held today compared to 44 percent who said they'd vote for a Republican.
The post Marquette pollster: National survey results ‘huge’ problem for GOP appeared first on WPR.
In total, 127 cases of potential fraud or irregularities covering several elections were referred to prosecutors between Sept. 13, 2024, and Nov. 5, 2025, the Wisconsin Elections Commission report made public on Wednesday showed.
The post Wisconsin clerks refer 46 cases of suspected fraud, irregularities in 2024 presidential election appeared first on WPR.
A Republican proposal to require every Wisconsin municipality to offer early-voting hours has divided groups representing voters and election officials, with voters calling the proposal a net gain for voting access and some clerks calling the requirements onerous, especially for small municipalities.
The bill originally required every municipality to offer at least 20 hours of in-person early voting at the clerk’s office or an alternate site. It was amended Tuesday, based on clerk feedback, to allow for fewer required hours in some smaller municipalities.
Municipalities that can’t hold their own early-voting hours would be able to offer it in a neighboring municipality or the county clerk’s office under the bill. A separate measure would provide $1.5 million to municipalities extending their early-voting hours — lowered from an originally proposed $10 million — but that would be available only for the 2025-26 fiscal year, while the early-voting requirements appear to be indefinite. The proposal would apply to the April and November elections.
Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, a Republican, previously told Votebeat she wrote the bill after noticing the stark difference in early-voting availability between rural and urban municipalities. Cities such as Milwaukee and Madison offer multiple days for early voting, while some rural municipalities offer just a couple of hours, or do it by appointment only.
Cabral-Guevara didn’t directly answer a follow-up question from Votebeat on Tuesday about whether the Senate would fund the measure, but said she’s hoping it passes. Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican who wrote the bill with her, told Votebeat he hopes the Senate will pass the measure since he lowered the amount of proposed funding.
“It’s only going to create more opportunities for voting,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. “That for us is always the key. It should be funded for more than one year.”
The amended bill would set the minimum early-voting period at 10 hours in municipalities with fewer than 600 voters,15 hours in municipalities with between 600 and 799 voters and 20 hours in towns with 800 or more voters.
But some clerks said any hourly requirement would be too burdensome — and could have the unintended consequence of decreasing voter access. Because Wisconsin’s elections are run at the municipal level, a small number of clerks serving only a few dozen voters would still be required to adhere to the minimum hours.
Omro Town Clerk Dana Woods called this “too drastic of a measure” and said the requirements may lead to “honorable public servants” choosing to leave their jobs.
Most Wisconsin clerks work part time, with some scheduled only a few hours per week. Woods, for example, is scheduled to be in her office just seven hours per week and serves 1,800 registered voters.
Lisa Tollefson, the Rock County clerk, acknowledged that the proposal could increase voting across the state but said it still doesn’t make sense in the smallest municipalities, where voters typically choose to vote on Election Day.
Joe Ruth, government affairs director at the Wisconsin Towns Association, said at a public hearing for the proposal that clerks would likely stop offering early voting by appointment if they have to fulfill the proposed hourly requirement. And if they do so, he added, the voters who can’t come during the set hours would lose their opportunity to vote early in person.
Ruth didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the amendment alleviated his concerns.
In an Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections executive session, the five Republicans on the committee voted in favor and the two Democrats voted against it. It is scheduled for an Assembly floor vote on Wednesday.
Republican Rep. Dave Maxey, who chairs the Assembly elections committee, called the bill a great idea and questioned why people would vote against a funded mandate that would expand voting. He said there would be a mechanism to fund early voting in future years through the budget.
Rep. Lee Snodgrass, a Democrat, told Votebeat that she voted against the bill because it allows a county board to decide whether a municipality can hold early-voting hours at the county clerk’s office. She said county boards shouldn’t have oversight over elections. The latest tweak to the bill now requires consent from both the county board and clerk.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
Wisconsin election officials skeptical of proposed early-voting mandate for municipalities is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Assembly lawmakers on Wednesday approved a slate of GOP-authored election bills, including one that would change how absentee ballots are processed and eliminate the use of central count locations.
The post GOP elections bills advance in Wisconsin Assembly appeared first on WPR.
A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely.
The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.
That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin.
Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers.
To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that (Evers) would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”
In response to questions, she dismissed an Associated Press survey of election officials that found no widespread fraud from drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election that could have affected the results, saying she wasn’t sure she considered the AP a valid source.
“You and I find truth in different spots,” she told a Democratic lawmaker.
During the hearing, Maxey let others speak at length, including Peter Bernegger — a conspiracy theorist fined by the Wisconsin Elections Commission for making frivolous complaints — who echoed unfounded claims of widespread drop box fraud in Wisconsin.
When Krug scrutinized Brill’s proposal, though, Maxey interrupted him, leading a visibly frustrated Krug to ask him to “give me the last sentence, like we’ve let others have.”
This clash between the two views on election policy “is long-standing and is not going to be resolved anytime soon,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor and founder of the Elections Research Center. “Right now, it seems like neither path is really working.”
Assembly Republican leaders typically only advance bills that have 50 GOP votes, enough to pass without Democratic support. They once held 64 of 99 seats, nearly a supermajority, but now have just 54, meaning they can afford to lose only four GOP votes to advance legislation. That math and the internal distrust make passing even modest reforms difficult. Unless they can rally the more skeptical voices in their caucus, Burden said, Republicans have to be willing to cross the aisle and court Democratic votes.
Maxey, who co-authored Brill’s bill, told Votebeat that drop boxes “are about as effective for election integrity as a mask is at preventing COVID,” an analogy that left his meaning muddled: Drop boxes in Wisconsin have never been proven to be a means for widespread fraud, whereas masks have been shown to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Maxey said his worries weren’t “wild conspiracy theories” but came from past ballot issues in Madison, though none of those involved drop boxes. He told Votebeat that he fears tampering and that voters using drop boxes might be unable to fix ballot errors.
Burden noted that valid ballots deposited in drop boxes are like any other absentee ballot and contain voters’ and witnesses’ information, which helps prevent fraud.
Krug’s draft proposal to let local clerks begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before an election was a change long sought by election officials to help speed up the reporting of results, but blocked by a few conservative lawmakers. Krug and other GOP leaders hoped his proposal could win them over because it was part of a broader package that included measures conservatives want, including an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on absentee ballot envelopes, and the stricter regulation of drop boxes.
But at a hearing on Nov. 6, Krug conceded that both the preprocessing and drop box proposals were in jeopardy because of GOP opposition. Those measures were stripped out of the package after pushback from Brill, Maxey and other conservatives, who released their own bill to ban drop boxes entirely.
Maxey told Votebeat that he would likely give a Monday processing proposal a hearing in his committee but would vote against it — adding that he knows other Assembly Republicans are against it, too.
Krug — who previously told Votebeat that he “would use every little ounce of political capital effort created on elections to get Monday processing done” — appeared to downplay the measure’s importance, saying it was only an issue in Milwaukee, where late-night reporting of election results often leads to conspiracy theories about fraudulent ballot dumps.
Clerks elsewhere disagree that the problem is so localized. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, told Votebeat she hopes Krug “hasn’t entirely given up” on the Monday processing proposal, though “that’s what it sounds like for this session, at least.”
Krug also blamed its failure so far on the governor’s office, which he said received the draft Monday processing proposal months ago but never got back to him.
“Scott Krug has taken enough you-know-what in every community in the state of Wisconsin for being bold on this issue and saying we have to do it,” Krug said. “I need partners.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
Wisconsin election reforms sought by clerks are stalled by GOP infighting is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, accompanied by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., points to a poster depicting rising medical costs if Congress allows the Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire in December as he speaks to reporters following a Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Congress has roughly two months to find bipartisan agreement to curb rising health insurance costs if lawmakers want to avoid another government shutdown.
That herculean task would be difficult in the best circumstances, but is much more challenging after lawmakers spent the last 43 days criticizing each other instead of building the types of trust that are usually needed for large deals. Democrats maintained they wanted to address skyrocketing premiums for individual health care plans, while Republicans insisted those talks had to occur when the government was open.
At the same time, congressional leaders will try to wrap up work on the nine full-year government funding bills that were supposed to become law before Oct. 1 and weren’t included in the package that reopened the government.
Congress must pass all of those bills or another stopgap measure before the new Jan. 30 deadline, regardless of how well or disastrous talks on a health care bill turn out.
The two-track negotiations will push party leaders to compromise on issues they’d rather not, especially as next year’s November midterm elections inch closer.
Early signs were not good.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Wednesday night press conference the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire at the end of the year are a “boondoggle” and that “Republicans would demand a lot of reforms” before agreeing to extend those in any way.
“We currently have 433 members of the House of Representatives. There’s a lot of opinions in this building. And on our side, certainly, a lot of opinions on how to fix health care and make it more affordable. I have to allow that process to play out,” Johnson, R-La., said.
While Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made a commitment to hold a vote on a health care bill before the end of December to conclude the shutdown, Johnson has avoided giving a timeline for when he would bring any similar legislation to the floor.
President Donald Trump, aside from throwing insults at Democrats, largely stayed on the sidelines of the shutdown fight, though he suggested the funds used for the tax credits should in some way go directly to individuals instead of large insurance companies.
The shutdown highlighted the stark differences Republicans and Democrats hold on health care as prices for insurance continue to spike, forcing millions of Americans to choose between taking care of themselves and breaking their budgets, States Newsroom found in interviews with members of Congress.
GOP leaders held together throughout the funding lapse and didn’t negotiate on the expiring ACA marketplace tax credits, or anything else.
Now that it’s over, Republicans will need to put something forward.
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said her sense is that Congress will “probably be in the same place on January 30th that we are now.”
“We have two parties here, two sides,” DeLauro said. “In the past … we’ve had serious negotiation back and forth, and that’s what we need to do, and that’s not happening.”
While Republicans have unified control of government, major legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance in that chamber. Republicans hold 53 seats at the moment, meaning at least some Democrats must support a bill for it to pass.
DeLauro did not rule out another shutdown, saying Democrats plan to take the next few months “one day at a time,” while closely watching what Republicans are willing to do on the nine full-year appropriations bills and health care costs.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, former House majority leader and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said Republican leaders keeping that chamber in recess for nearly two months leading up to and during the shutdown significantly delayed work on the full-year government funding bills.
Hoyer said that scheduling decision was a clear “indication they’re not interested in solving the problem.”
“If they were, they would have had members here working on appropriation bills,” Hoyer said. “And the only way you’re going to ultimately solve this problem is to pass appropriation bills.”
Hoyer said the real question facing Congress now isn’t whether there is time to work out agreement on the remaining nine government spending bills, but whether there’s a will to make the types of compromises needed.
The spending package that reopened the government included three of the dozen full-year bills, funding the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration, Legislative Branch, military construction projects and Department of Veterans Affairs.
The remaining appropriations bills will be considerably tougher to resolve, especially because the House and Senate have yet to agree on how much they want to spend across the thousands of programs. Trump proposed major cutbacks in multiple programs in his budget request earlier this year that Democrats have strongly resisted.
The Defense, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education and State-Foreign Operations bills will be some of the more difficult to settle.
Congress could always lean on another stopgap spending bill to keep funding relatively flat for the departments and agencies not covered by a full-year bill before Jan. 30. But lawmakers will need bipartisan support to advance in the Senate.
Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Republicans don’t seem to grasp how much Americans are struggling with the cost of living, including for health insurance and health care.
“My constituents are already telling me that they’re making that choice between having health insurance or having a house to live in, and they’re going to choose the house,” Jayapal said.
Whether or not a partial government shutdown begins in early 2026 will likely depend on whether Republican lawmakers from swing districts force bipartisanship on a health care bill.
“I really don’t know,” Jayapal said. “I think it depends on these vulnerable House Republicans, who are not going to be able to go back to their constituents without telling them that they’ve done something on health care.”
Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico said she wouldn’t be surprised if Congress is unable to strike a deal on government funding and winds up in a partial shutdown by February.
“Do I think that the Republicans have the political juice to get … the rest of their appropriation bills across the finish line and a health care deal? No,” Stansbury said.
She added that she hopes a handful of Republicans decide to join Democrats on the discharge petition bill that would force a floor vote on a bill to extend the ACA marketplace subsidies for three years.
“We gotta find a few brave Republicans who still have a backbone and some guts to stand up to this administration and actually care for their constituents,” Stansbury said.
But any bipartisan deal to extend those health care tax credits seems fraught, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed Republicans as having “zero credibility on this issue.”
He pointed to Republicans trying several times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including their last attempt in 2017, when GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and the late John McCain of Arizona crossed party lines to vote against repealing the 2010 law.
“There’s no evidence that they’re serious about extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries, of New York, said. “Republicans have zero interest in fixing the health care crisis that they’ve created.”
When Democrats controlled both chambers, temporary health care subsidies were originally passed as part of the COVID-19-era American Rescue Plan in 2021 for two years.
With Democrats still controlling both chambers, lawmakers approved the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 signature climate policy bill from the Biden administration, that extended those health care subsidies for three years, expiring at the end of December 2025.
The outcome of the just concluded shutdown is shaping some House Democrats’ views.
Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott said if there is a new shutdown come February, Senate Democrats will have to decide whether they’re going to “cave again, or at least engage in negotiations.”
“When the (Senate) Democrats say: ‘Our strategy wasn’t working,’ it wasn’t working because they assume you’re going to cave, which you just proved,” Scott told States Newsroom. “Their strategy worked — trying to get them to negotiate and talk to you doesn’t because they know you’re going to cave.”
Scott said “there’s no point in taking 41 days to cave,” pointing to the eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who broke ranks to advance and later approve the package to reopen the government.
“Why don’t you just cave right at the beginning, on February 2nd?” he said. “If the Republican strategy is: ‘We’re not going to negotiate at all because you’re going to cave,’ you have to show them that you’re not going to cave, then you can have a discussion.”
Scott said the same health care issues will still exist if nothing happens between now and the package’s Jan. 30 government funding deadline.
“By then, we’ll know that several million people don’t have health insurance, we’ll know that rural hospitals are beginning to suffer,” Scott said.
Delaware Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride said that “from today through November (2026) and after, we will continue to be talking about health care, to be fighting for health care.”
“I think what you’ve seen over the last several months, you will continue to see from us through November and then, God willing, once we’re in a majority, we’ll do all that we can to reverse these cuts and restore care and expand access to it,” she said.
With a year to go until the 2026 midterm elections, some are wondering if last week's Democratic sweeps in states like Virginia and New Jersey could be a sign of things to come in Wisconsin.
The post Do big Democratic wins last week signal a Wisconsin midterm wave? appeared first on WPR.
Despite past bipartisan backing, a Republican state lawmaker says he has to "punt" an initiative to let election clerks process absentee ballots before election day because it doesn't have enough GOP support.
The post Monday absentee ballot processing bill stalls again due to lack of GOP support appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin voters line up outside of a Milwaukee polling place on Nov. 5, 2024. Wisconsin (Andy Manis | Getty Images)
Democrats are euphoric about Tuesday’s elections, in which voters across the country delivered a resounding rebuke to Republicans and President Donald Trump. “The Democratic Party is back!” Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee chair, declared in a post-election press call with other national party leaders.
Democratic wins in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, the mayoral race in New York City, state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, even a historic victory that broke the Republican supermajority in the Mississippi legislature, along with a bevy of downballot victories in historically Republican districts, showed voters have had enough of the misery inflicted by the MAGA right.
In a scene familiar to Wisconsinites, Pennsylvania voters beat back an effort by a MAGA billionaire to buy their state supreme court. “People don’t want corporate control of the courts,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale said of the millions wasted on that race by TikTok billionaire Jeff Yass — a repeat of Elon Musk’s failed bid to buy a friendly majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The results are a concrete sign that there is a political price associated with the chaos Trump and his GOP enablers have unleashed, sending federal agents to terrorize American cities, driving up health care costs and inflicting unnecessary suffering and hunger on Americans during the longest government shutdown in history.
Young men, Black and Latino voters, working-class people — all the demographic groups that abandoned Democrats in 2024 returned in droves on Tuesday. As the Democrats celebrated their wins, they also seemed to concede that they were benefitting from the mess Republicans have made of governing. People are hurting, their outlook is grim, and they are in the mood to throw out the party in power after just six months.
Democrats need to form an aggressive, unified opposition to champion the will of those voters and not just take their support for granted. And Republicans had better re-examine their unwavering loyalty to Trump.
So far, in Wisconsin, Republican members of Congress have not signaled that they care about the catastrophic effects of Trump’s policies on their constituents.
In an interview with “UpFront” on WISN 12 News on Sunday, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden wouldn’t say if he supports extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, even as Wisconsinites are receiving the news that without the subsidies their premiums are set to skyrocket by 45% to 800% depending on where in the state they live.
Van Orden, who supports a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, repeatedly declared on “UpFront” that he “won’t be held hostage” by Democrats who have made preventing a huge spike in health care costs for people who buy insurance on the ACA marketplace — more than 310,000 of them in Wisconsin — a condition of their votes to reopen the government. Nor has he been willing to say whether he supports or opposes the Trump administration’s decision to withhold food assistance from 700,000 Wisconsinites during the shutdown.
U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, also supports repealing the Affordable Care Act and this month called on Republicans to “hold firm” against extending ACA tax credits, repeating the lie that Democrats are shutting down the government because they want to give health care to “illegal aliens.”
U.S. Rep Bryan Steil told “UpFront” that the Trump administration is in “a very difficult position” as it makes the decision to fire thousands of federal workers during the shutdown. He also claimed he might support extending ACA subsidies, but only after the shutdown ends, and if there are “significant changes to that program to root out waste, fraud and abuse.”
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, took the opportunity, as health care subsidies lapse and insurance premiums spike, to hold a hearing Thursday on the “harms” caused by extending health care coverage to millions of Americans through the Affordable Care Act.
Is it any wonder that voters are not thrilled with how the party that holds complete control in Washington is governing?
What’s significant about Tuesday’s election is that it puts everyone on notice that voters will push back.
Over and over, during the Democrats’ Wednesday press conference, various national leaders eagerly declared that theirs is the party of “affordability.” But Martin acknowledged that his party had lost touch with working class voters worried about making ends meet. He said Democrats “didn’t focus on that anxiety enough over the years.” and that they have to “give working class people the sense that we’re fighting for them.”
It doesn’t take a political genius to see the vulnerability in the wretched excesses of the Trump administration, which is forcing children to go hungry while throwing a lavish “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago and building a massive, gilded ballroom at the White House.
If nothing else, Democrats are the populist alternative by default. But there also seems to be a sincere effort underway to build a democratic resistance that will fight for most Americans against the MAGA oligarchs who are liquidating civil society and sucking up the common wealth of the nation to enrich themselves.
Martin and the other Dems on the Wednesday call trumpeted the importance of state-level politics. “The path back to building Democratic power runs through state legislatures,” declared Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, adding, “the center of gravity has moved to the states.”
Martin agreed. “I believe this party has ignored building power at the state level for too long,” he said. “We cannot just build federal power.”
The stars of this new strategy are Democratic governors — the most popular Democratic politicians in America, according to the panel, which made a passing mention of the importance of the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race. Certainly Virginia Democrats, who won back both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, gave hope to Wisconsin Dems who are hoping to do the same.
But how much the national party will engage in Wisconsin and who will emerge from a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls in the first open election for governor here in 15 years is very much up in the air.
On Thursday, at a gubernatorial candidate forum covered by Baylor Spears, candidates were asked to name the greatest threat to Wisconsin’s economy. Few had a simple, appealing answer that connected to most voters’ most immediate concerns — skyrocketing prices, a shredding safety net and the disappearing prospect of shared prosperity.
Tuesday’s elections showed that we still have a democracy, that voters have a say in how the government is run, and that they won’t put up with an endless cycle of abuse.
That should embolden everyone who is shocked and appalled by what is happening to our country — including those Wisconsin Republicans who have so far been afraid to criticize Trump, as well as the Democrats who need to point the way to a better future.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democrats' headquarters on Nov. 4, 2025 in Sacramento. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democrats’ sweep of the biggest races in Tuesday’s off-year elections, including a California ballot measure to redraw that state’s congressional lines to give the party up to five more seats in the U.S. House, gave the party new confidence heading into the midterm elections next year.
Democrats proclaimed the performances of Govs.-elect Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani showed voters’ rejection of President Donald Trump.
“The election results were not vague,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday. “They were not unclear. They were a lightning bolt: Trump, America doesn’t like what you’re doing. Change course.”
Republicans won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress one year ago, leaving Democrats without a clear leader or agenda at the national level.
Tuesday’s results helped clarify for the party that a focus on economic issues was a winning message that Democrats could carry into the midterms.
Those messengers included Sherrill and Spanberger on the one end of the party’s ideological spectrum, and the Democratic Socialist Mamdani on the other. All three shared a campaign message centered on addressing the cost of living.
Effective campaigning may not be the only path Democrats are expected to take as they seek to regain power at the federal level. A wing of the party led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing other Democratic governors to redraw congressional lines to be more favorable to them.
The new California map is likely to be tied up in courts, at least in the short term. California Republicans sued in federal court Wednesday morning to block it.
Republicans, meanwhile, sought to downplay the importance of elections in largely Democratic areas while attempting to make Mamdani the new face of Democrats nationally.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday there were “no surprises” in the previous day’s elections.
“What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue,” the Louisiana Republican said. “We all saw that coming, and no one should read too much into last night’s election results — off-year elections are not indicative of what’s to come.”
The wins in Tuesday’s elections galvanized congressional Democrats to restart negotiations to end the government shutdown on their terms, with Democratic leaders of the House and Senate sending Trump a three-sentence letter “to demand” a meeting to negotiate an end to the longest government shutdown in history.
Democrats said Wednesday the results showed they were within striking distance of regaining majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Democrats would have to net four seats in the House and the Senate to win control of a respective chamber.
Schumer said Tuesday’s results showed that was possible in the Senate.
“The election showed that Democrats’ control of the Senate is much closer than the people and the prognosticators realize,” Schumer said. “The more Republicans double down on raising costs and bowing down to Trump, the more their Senate majority is at risk.”
Vice President JD Vance was dismissive of Democratic gains Wednesday, saying on social media it was “idiotic to overreact to a couple elections in blue states” and praising Republican organizing efforts.
But Democratic campaign officials said Wednesday that analysis belied wins lower on the ballot, including flipping 13 Virginia House of Delegates seats, half of which Republicans held for decades, and statewide wins for low-profile offices in the key swing states of Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin responded to Vance’s claim during a press call.
“That’s bullsh—,” he said. “We won all over the country in red counties and purple counties and in blue counties. The reality is, is this was a huge rejection of the Trump extremism and an embrace of the hopeful, positive message that Democrats are offering up.”
Martin and other Democrats praised Tuesday’s winners for relentlessly focusing on economic issues, and said Democratic candidates in 2026 would keep that focus.
Newsom, the chief backer of the referendum to temporarily revoke power from the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, told other Democratic governors to take similar measures to enhance the party’s chances of winning a U.S. House majority.
“We need Virginia … we need Maryland … we need our friends in New York and Illinois and Colorado — we need to see other states meet this moment head-on as well,” Newsom said in a fundraising email Wednesday.
Martin characterized the passage of the California referendum, known as Proposition 50, as a reaction to Republican states’ moves to redraw their lines.
“What happened in Prop 50 was the counterpunch to level the playing field,” Martin said.
He indicated Democratic states would be happy to leave congressional districts as they are, but said the party would not hesitate to respond to GOP gerrymanders.
“Now, they want to keep doing it? Guess what: This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party,” Martin said. “We will meet you in every single state that you decide to try to steal more seats. We’re going to meet you in other states. We are not going to play with one hand behind our back. We’re not going to roll over. We are going to meet you, fire with fire.”
Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the U.S. House Republican campaign organization, predicted in a statement that efforts to redraw congressional districts would not allow Democrats to win a majority in that chamber.
“No matter how Democrats redraw the lines to satisfy Gavin Newsom’s power grab, they can’t redraw their record of failure, and that’s why they will fail to take the House majority,” Hudson said. “Even under this new map, Republicans have clear opportunities to flip seats because Californians are fed up with Democrat chaos. We will continue to compete and win because our candidates are stronger, our message is resonating, and Californians are tired of being ignored.”
At a Wednesday breakfast with GOP senators, Trump had another idea for solidifying GOP power, saying the Senate needs to abolish the filibuster in order to end the shutdown and enact GOP policy while the party is still in the majority.
Senate rules require at least 60 senators to advance a bill past the filibuster. Republicans’ narrow 53-seat majority has created obstacles in moving forward their agenda — including the House-passed stopgap spending bill to keep the government open that’s now failed more than a dozen times.
“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump said at the breakfast. “It’s the only way you can do it, and if you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape — we won’t pass any legislation.”
He added: “We will pass legislation at levels you’ve never seen before, and it’ll be impossible to beat us.”
In a social media post Tuesday night, Trump said pollsters attributed Republicans’ election losses to his name not being on the ballot along with the ongoing shutdown.
Trump wrote in a separate post earlier Tuesday that “the Democrats are far more likely to win the Midterms, and the next Presidential Election, if we don’t do the Termination of the Filibuster (The Nuclear Option!).”
However, Trump’s push to do away with the filibuster has garnered little enthusiasm from GOP senators, including Majority Leader John Thune.
The South Dakota Republican reiterated on Wednesday that “there are not the votes there,” telling reporters that “the main thing we need to be focused on right now, in my view, is get the government opened up again.”
But some GOP senators appear to be on board with the idea, including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who said he expressed his support for eliminating the filibuster during the breakfast.
“President Trump made a very convincing case,” Johnson told reporters. “We know the minute Democrats get (a) majority in the Senate, they’re going to get rid of the filibuster.”
“We better beat them to the punch and act while we can pass legislation for the benefit of the American public,” he added.
Sen. Jim Justice said that though he’s not in favor of getting rid of the filibuster, he wants to support Trump and would like the shutdown to end.
“I mean, because you got a lot of people that are really hurting, that’s all there is to it, and if it’s the only option to stop this nonsense, then I would support,” the West Virginia Republican said.
Sen. John Kennedy remained firm in his position, telling reporters that “the role of the senator is not just to advance good ideas, the role of the senator is to kill bad ideas, and when you’re in the minority — we’re not now, but we could be someday — it’s important to have a filibuster.”
The Louisiana Republican noted that “we killed a lot of (former) President Biden’s goofy ideas through a filibuster, and someday the shoe will be on the other foot, and that’s why I’ve always supported the filibuster.”
Speaker Johnson and fellow House Republican leaders also sought to tie Mamdani to the Democratic Party.
Johnson said Mamdani “is truly a committed Marxist, and the results of that race tell you everything you need to know about where the Democrats in their party are headed,” adding that “from the backbench to their leadership, Democrats have fallen in line behind the socialist candidates.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana echoed that “when the city of New York elected Zohran Mamdani, he became the new leader of the Democrat(ic) Party.”
Scalise said that while the Democratic Party “had no problem making the shift to socialism — which they embraced wholeheartedly, led by Hakeem Jeffries and others here — America, mainstream Americans, Blue Dog Democrats across America, have not embraced socialism.”
House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan said “over the past year, Democrats have wandered around with no plan, no vision and no leader, but today, they finally found their leader — the radical communist mayor(-elect) of New York City, a self-proclaimed communist who wants Americans to pay for global health care.”
She added: “Well, you wanted it. You got it: A communist who wants the government to own grocery stores and a communist who wants the government to tell you what to do with your hard-earned money.”
Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report
A Republican bill that would ban absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin spurred debate among GOP lawmakers Tuesday about whether the proposal is based in reality.
The post GOP bill to ban ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin spurs intraparty debate appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin candidates now have a path to get off the ballot besides dying, thanks to a proposal Gov. Tony Evers signed into law on Friday.
The proposal was triggered by 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s failed attempt to withdraw from the ballot in a bid to boost President Donald Trump’s candidacy. The case made its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which rejected Kennedy’s argument after a lower court ruled that death was the only way for nominees to drop off the ballot.
Under the measure that Evers, a Democrat, signed into law, candidates can now get off the ballot as long as they file to withdraw at least seven business days before the Wisconsin Elections Commission certifies candidates ahead of the August and November elections and pay processing fees to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The measure doesn’t apply to the February and April elections.
Many county clerks had opposed an earlier version of the legislation because the originally proposed deadline to drop out would have disrupted tight timelines to prepare, print and send off ballots on time. That deadline would have allowed candidates to get off the ballot any time before the election commission certified candidates’ names.
To address those concerns, Rep. David Steffen, the Republican author of the measure, amended the proposal to require candidates to let the commission know at least seven business days ahead of time. The law also would charge anybody impersonating a candidate to get off the ballot with a felony.
The measure passed the Assembly with a voice vote. It passed the Senate 19-14, with just two Democratic votes in favor.
Steffen called the new law a win for Wisconsin voters, adding in a statement that it will “reduce unnecessary voter confusion.”
The new law won’t change operations much, said Wood County Clerk Trent Miner, a Republican in a county of about 74,000. Miner’s office programs and prepares the county’s ballots, which he said would make readjusting the ballots easier.
La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer, a Democrat, said a candidate dropping out at the last minute would still lead to extra hours of work since ballots are generally ready to be printed by then. But Dankmeyer added that it’s still doable and won’t stress her out. She said the new deadline is far better than the originally proposed one.
The Wisconsin law prohibiting withdrawal in cases besides death stood out nationwide as unusually strict. The state used to allow nominees to drop off the ballot if they declined to run, but it changed the policy in 1977 to the one that was active until Evers signed the new law last week.
Many other states allow nominees to drop off the ballot between 60 and 85 days before an election. Some states require polling places to have notices clarifying candidates’ withdrawal if they drop out after ballots are already printed.
Kennedy’s attempt to get off the ballot last year shocked clerks, who had already printed their ballots when his case was moving through the courts.
His lawyers requested that clerks cover up his name on the ballot with stickers, a proposal that clerks said could lead to tabulator jams and disenfranchised voters. Kennedy still received 17,740 votes, or about 0.5% of the vote. Trump won the state by a little less than a percentage point.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Wisconsin candidates have path off the ballot besides death under new law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
As a 19-year-old election worker in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Lydia McComas discovered how meaningful it was to help voters navigate the process. Less than a decade later, she’s the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing one of the most scrutinized election offices in the state and working to rebuild trust after last year’s ballot mishandling scandal.
Between those two points, McComas followed an unusually direct path: a college internship supporting elections planning, then a full-time job in a county elections office along with a graduate program in election administration.
She’s part of an emerging generation of officials who set out early and very intentionally, through internships and university training, to make a career out of election work. Driving this movement toward professionalized election administration are veterans of the field who recognize the need to replace retiring clerks and have spent years creating a stronger, more sustainable pipeline.
Together they are transforming a profession once dominated by civic-minded volunteers and on-the-job learners.
“I’d love for more young people to get involved with election administration and explore it as a future career,” McComas told Votebeat in an interview.
For now, McComas is an outlier in Wisconsin: At 28, she’s among the youngest to hold a municipal clerk position — and one of the few who pursued the election profession, on purpose, from the outset. Nearly 80% of the state’s chief election officials are over 50, and fewer than half have a college degree or higher, according to the Elections & Voting Information Center.
Her rise comes amid historic turnover that highlights the urgency of developing the pipeline of election officials: Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 of Wisconsin’s municipal clerks left their posts, the highest churn in the nation.
The new generation is fully aware that the job has changed since many of those veteran clerks started, said EVIC research director Paul Manson, with their work under closer public examination and intense political pressure.
McComas’ new role is about more than elections — she’ll take meeting minutes, process licenses and handle business registrations, among other duties. But her expertise is connecting with voters, the media and community partners and explaining complex election procedures in layman’s terms.
That expertise will be tested immediately in Madison, where trust in the city’s election office is still mending after last year’s controversy over 193 missing ballots. The fallout — investigations, a civil lawsuit, and the suspension and resignation of longtime clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl — left voters demanding transparency.
“There’s pressure to make sure that everything works well, that the public trusts us,” McComas said. She knows the climb will be steep. Most of the staff who weathered that turbulent year remain, seasoned administrators now adapting to greater public scrutiny.
The glare of attention on Madison, she said, mirrors the national reality for election administrators everywhere — their jobs are increasingly under the spotlight of polarization and doubt.
“Last year was really tough, and next year is tough,” McComas said, noting the four statewide elections ahead in 2026.
People take different paths into election administration. Milwaukee’s chief election official, Paulina Gutiérrez, came from public safety and legislative work, while Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys was the mayor’s chief of staff. Others arrive from outside government — teachers, bankers or longtime poll workers who worked their way up.
McComas’ journey into this world started early. As a kid in Minneapolis, she tagged along with her parents to the polls, filling out mock ballots and proudly wearing an “I will vote” sticker. She also joined them knocking on doors for get-out-the-vote drives. Those formative experiences led her to study political science at the University of Minnesota, volunteer on campaigns and intern for U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
Her time on campaigns confirmed that the partisan side of politics wasn’t for her. “I was used to talking to people regardless of their party,” McComas said. “Working for candidates and not doing that just felt wrong.”
Her first job in elections was a college internship with Hennepin County in 2017, supporting the election department on planning, updating training manuals and legislative priorities. McComas was struck by the precision required in running elections and wanted to devote her career to it, she said.
After graduating, she joined Hennepin County Elections full time, first as a general election administrator and then specializing in voter engagement for a jurisdiction of 700,000 voters in and around Minneapolis. She helped voters get registered and answered questions about voting during a pandemic.
She also oversaw compliance with election laws and developed training for poll workers.
Meanwhile, she pursued a graduate certificate in election administration from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
She was hired in Madison in August.
Academic programs like the one McComas followed, focusing on elections as a career path, are more common today, but still rare at most universities, where public affairs education focuses more on city management, emergency planning and public health, said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the National Association of Election Officials and a longtime election administration educator.
The ones that exist are growing: The University of Minnesota’s election program had just over 50 enrollees in 2017. In 2025, there were over 200. In addition to the Humphrey School, Auburn University offers a graduate certificate in election administration, and Northern Arizona University now provides an undergraduate program.
Meanwhile, 43 states, including Wisconsin, have other types of programs to train local election officials, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis found. Wisconsin is also among the 22 states offering training specific to new election officials. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Arizona Fellows program places students in county election offices, boosting interest in election work and helping offices engage younger, more diverse voters.
Patrick, who has taught at the Humphrey School since 2016, sees an urgent need to formalize the field and promote it to youth because so many older clerks are retiring.
“It’s just not on anyone’s radar as an option,” Patrick said, “and I think that that’s part of the work we need to do as a profession, which is particularly challenging in this environment, because now people are aware of election administration for all the wrong reasons.”
Formalizing the pipeline might be even harder for Wisconsin, where most municipal clerks work part time, and most who work full time spend much of the year working on things besides elections.
McComas said that both Madison and Hennepin County try to do local outreach to universities and have interns to promote election administration as a career path.
Still, she finds herself explaining to many people that running elections is a full-time job, not just a poll-working gig for several days a year.
In Madison, McComas said her first goal is to rebuild trust.
She plans to draw on her voter engagement background to make that happen. Under interim clerk Mike Haas, the city overhauled many of the systems that failed in the 2024 election, but those improvements, she said, went largely unnoticed because there wasn’t a strong communications plan.
“Next year,” she said, “we will be able to show the public that we are transparent and that we are answering any questions.”
Although her career doesn’t go back decades, McComas said her experience has prepared her for this moment. Her graduate certificate program gave her a broader perspective, she said, and helped reaffirm her commitment to the role.
Beyond school, McComas said the work — and the people she met in Hennepin County — sparked a lasting passion for election administration. Surrounded by colleagues who shared her dedication and curiosity, she found a community she wanted to be part of for the long haul.
“I knew I wanted to devote my career to that work,” she said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
New Madison clerk typifies movement to professionalize election administration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) will challenge Senate Assistant Minority Leader Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) in 2026 for Senate District 31. James at press conference in April and Smith at a press conference in September. (Photos by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) will challenge Senate Assistant Minority Leader Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) in 2026 for Senate District 31, a key district that will help determine control of the Wisconsin Senate.
All of Wisconsin’s odd-numbered Senate seats — 17 out of 33 — will be in play in 2026, the first election in those districts since they were redrawn as part of new voting maps adopted in 2024. The maps already shook up the Senate in 2024, when Democrats gained five additional even-numbered seats, cutting the Republican majority from 22 seats to 18.
Next year, Republicans will be competing to hold onto their majority as Democrats have launched an effort to flip the entire body. The last time Democrats held a majority in the Legislature was during the 2009 legislative session.
Democrats will need to win at least two additional seats and hold all their current seats to win the majority. Most of the seats, including SD 5, SD 17 and SD 21, are currently held by Republicans.
SD 31, which represents the entirety of Eau Claire County and parts of Dunn, Trempealeau and Chippewa counties, is the one district that Democrats have tagged as a seat to protect.
Smith, the second top Democrat in the Senate, is the incumbent of SD 31 and he announced his intention to seek reelection earlier this year. He was first elected to the Senate in 2018. He told the Wisconsin Examiner that the prospect of flipping the Senate is one of the reasons he is running again.
“I see the opportunity is right in front of me where I think we’re going to reach a point where we’re in the majority, and I’m going to have to be able to carry that voice into our state Legislature,” Smith told the Examiner.
Smith said he has introduced over 130 bills in his time in office and only one of those has gotten a public hearing.
“The public should have the ability to hear all sides and all ideas,” Smith said, adding that he believes that would happen under Democratic control.
Among the priorities he listed in the next session are boosting state funding for Wisconsin public schools, ensuring that private schools that receive public funding are held accountable and increasing access to health care.
“It shouldn’t matter whether you’re working or not working, everyone should be able to access the same level of care in any hospital, in any clinic, in not only our state, but in our country,” Smith said.
Smith’s Republican challenger, Jesse James, announced his plans to seek reelection earlier this month.
When James was elected to the Senate in 2022, he lived in Altoona, which sits outside Eau Claire and was part of Senate District 23. Under the new maps, however, Altoona was drawn into SD 31, so James said he decided to “uproot” his life to Thorp to finish out the rest of his four-year term.
In his campaign announcement for 2026, James said he is “ready to come home.”
“Being 40 minutes away sucks,” James told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. The Republican senator said he is still helping take care of things at his family and home in Altoona as well as helping take care of his father who is sick.
James, who comes from a law enforcement background and has continued working as a part-time police officer while in office, said he loves what he does in the Legislature and wants to continue the work. Prior to the Senate, James served in the Assembly for two terms. Mental health services, substance use prevention and public safety are among his top priorities.
At the start of his current term, he proposed the Senate form a committee focused on mental health, substance abuse prevention, children and families, which he now chairs. He said he had 27 bills signed in his first two years and has spent the majority of his time seeking to advance legislation in those three areas, including for expanding postpartum Medicaid access — a bill that is currently held up by members of his own party — as well as an effort to establish psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Wisconsin.
“I’m coming home. I’m in a prime seat where I chair the committee that I do, everything that I fought for up to this point motivates me, and I’m going to continue that work record,” James said. “I’m going to continue the performance level that I’m at and continue working for the people… It’s going to be an uphill battle. I’m OK with that. I’ve been through uphill battles my whole life, and I’m willing to take on challenges.”
There’s about a year before Wisconsin’s 2026 November general elections, leaving plenty of time for a campaign. Both candidates said they are prepared for a tough race, especially with the Senate majority at stake.
“I’m always for competition,” James said about challenging his Democratic colleague.
“This is going to be a huge seat. It’s going to be a battle, and everything we know right now it’s going to be interesting with midterms because… they don’t always bode well,” James added. “Come this midterm election, we’ll know where things are if I win, and we’ll know where things are if Jeff wins.”
According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the current 31st Senate district has a slight Democratic lean. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the area by 2.2 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election and Sen. Tammy Baldwin won it by 4.7 percentage points in the 2024 Senate race.
According to data compiled by the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and shared with the Examiner, the district’s Democratic lean goes back further than the recent elections. In 2014, the district voted for Mary Burke, who lost statewide to former Gov. Scott Walker, and in 2016, it chose Hilary Clinton by a 51-point margin as President Donald Trump won the state.
James said when he decided to run for reelection some people questioned why he was running in a district that is “kind of a lost cause,” though in his mind, he views the race as a 50-50 prospect.
“It’s going to be ugly, and I cannot wait to see what ads come out,” James said, adding that he doesn’t plan to “go negative” during his campaign. “I want to talk about me. I’m not going to talk about Jeff. Jeff can do his thing. I’m going to do mine.”
While James is a popular legislator who has generally sought to avoid polarizing partisanship, Smith sees his entry into the race as part of a larger partisan plan.
“The bottom line about Republicans somehow convincing Sen. James that he should run for this district is simply because they also understand one thing, and that is, whoever wins this district is going to be in the majority,” Smith said. He added that this “isn’t about Jesse James and it isn’t about Jeff Smith. It’s about the state of Wisconsin, and who actually is going to govern and lead Wisconsin to a better future, and I really believe that we as a Democratic Party are in the best position to be able to do that.”
Smith is accustomed to running in tough races, he added.
Smith won a second term to the Senate in 2022 to represent SD 31, defeating his Republican challenger by 697 votes. In 2018, Smith defeated his Republican opponent with 51% of the vote.
Smith also served in the Assembly for two terms from 2007 to 2011. He was ousted from his seat in 2010 by Republican Warren Petryk.
Smith said he will take the same approach to this race that he has always taken, knocking doors and talking to people where they are. In the past he has been known for setting up shop in his truck, putting up a sign encouraging people to stop and talk to him.
“I know how to do this. I’ve done it before, over and over, and it is nothing new to me to have to run a difficult race,” Smith said. “I’m a great believer… go to the people, don’t make them come to you.”
In a statement after James’ campaign announcement, Smith said the Republican senator would need to explain himself to voters.
“After years of toeing the line for Republican leadership, botching the hospital closure funding, dropping the ball on PFAS funding and failing to deliver results — voters in the 31st District know all too well how these failures have affected their lives,” Smith said.
Two hospitals, HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital, closed abruptly last year due to financial difficulties, leaving a big swath of the Chippewa Valley with diminished access to health care. Wisconsin policymakers sought to help provide funding to help the area, but lawmakers refused to release the funds after Gov. Tony Evers exercised a partial veto on a related bill.
Asked about Smith’s statement on his candidacy, James pushed back.
“I’m not going to talk about the hospital funding. It’s dead. It’s over. The $15 million went back into the GPR [General Purpose Revenue],” James said. He added that he’s helped secure other investments in the area since.
One bill, coauthored by James, to set up the legislative framework for Rogers Behavioral Health to establish a behavioral health hospital in Chippewa Falls passed the Assembly in September and the Senate in October. James also helped secure $1 million for Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, so it can re-open the former L.E. Phillips Libertas Treatment Center in Chippewa Falls.
James said securing the funds are his biggest wins for the Chippewa Valley, especially given the recent closures.
“It’s a start, and I still think that there’s more — I already have ideas for next session, that if I come back, or when I come back, I’ll be able to work on so that we’re already starting to look at the future and improving what we can for our rural areas, primarily, especially up north, with mental health and substance abuse prevention,” James said.
For his part, Smith said that he believes there needs to be more accountability for hospitals, noting that the ones in Chippewa Falls were being managed by an Illinois-based health care system and they closed “because they just weren’t bringing in enough money…That shouldn’t be the reason that people lose access to health care because someone can’t make enough money off them.”
“It’s been a real struggle up there, and has become at the forefront of what my office is dealing with these days,” Smith said.
When it comes to funding for cleaning up PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, in the water supply, James said he hasn’t been involved in drafting or negotiating on the bill to make use of $125 million set aside to combat them. “I will call Jeff out on this,” James said. “He’s the assistant minority leader, and he’s part of leadership to where he could be part of these discussions, so why not use that leadership position as far as having the discussions about PFAs and stuff?”
James also noted that he recently helped author a bipartisan bill that would require the state Department of Natural Resources to warn county and tribal health departments when an exceedance of state groundwater standards is discovered.
“We want clean, safe drinking water. That’s why I worked with Jill Billings [the Democratic Assembly representative from La Crosse]… The PFAS funding and stuff that’s all political. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t like to be political,” James said. “My work record shows I like to get things done. I’ve gotten things done to better people’s lives. I will continue to work on things bipartisan.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Republican Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney is running again for Wisconsin Attorney General.
The post Republican Eric Toney is running again for Wisconsin attorney general appeared first on WPR.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Friday appealed a Waukesha County judge’s order requiring election officials to verify the citizenship of all registered voters and people seeking to register.
Attorneys for the Wisconsin Department of Justice wrote that the Waukesha County Circuit Court decision was “impermissively vague” and would require election officials to disregard multiple voter registration laws.
The appeal follows a request for a stay, filed last week, in which the attorneys told the court it would be virtually impossible for the election commission to implement Judge Michael Maxwell’s decision by the February statewide election, and that it would illegally have to shut down online voter registration in the meantime.
In response, Maxwell stayed the part of his ruling that required citizenship verification for new registrants, but let stand the part requiring the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify the citizenship of all currently registered voters.
Maxwell’s ruling did not specify how the commission should go about verifying the citizenship of registered voters: whether it should check them against other databases, confirm that they properly attested under oath to their citizenship when they registered, or demand documentary proof from registered voters, as some other states now require.
The case has further escalated a political debate in Wisconsin over how to ensure that only citizens can vote. Last fall, Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to ban voting by noncitizens across the state, and other states enacted similar bans.
Across the country, Republicans have also been pushing for laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, on the grounds that they’re needed to prevent noncitizen voting.
But there’s no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens, and a Votebeat analysis and other studies have shown that such requirements can disenfranchise eligible U.S. citizens.
Wisconsin has lagged behind other states in seeking such measures through legislation, but the case in Maxwell’s Waukesha County court has sped up bill writing on the issue. Since his early October court ruling, Republicans have introduced a bill requiring an audit of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls, and directing election officials to compare those rolls against state and federal citizenship data, and they have raised the issue in political campaigns.
When Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who’s seeking reelection, filed a motion for a stay on Maxwell’s decision, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — now running for governor — accused Democrats on social media of wanting “illegal aliens voting.”
That talking point has dominated conservative talk radio, while Democrats have stayed mostly quiet outside court filings.
The lawsuit in Maxwell’s court, filed last year by a Pewaukee resident represented by conservative attorneys, seeks to require citizenship verification checks of all new registrants and to require the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to provide the Wisconsin Elections Commission with its data on citizenship so that it can compare them against the voter roll.
Maxwell ruled Oct. 3 that the election commission was failing to ensure only lawful voters remained on the rolls, citing statutes limiting voting to citizens. He ordered the agency to check for noncitizens by February, but didn’t specify how, other than suggesting a match with DOT data, as the plaintiffs demand.
The election commission has told the court that there’s no state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship.
Kaul, the attorney general, has argued in court that launching a citizenship verification program before next year’s elections would be unfeasible, and that relying on DOT data that may be inaccurate could wrongly disenfranchise newly naturalized citizens. In the appeal, Justice Department attorneys said Maxwell’s ruling could disenfranchise eligible voters unable to meet Maxwell’s “undefined verification criteria” and lead Wisconsin’s 1,850 clerks to apply inconsistent standards.
Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said Maxwell’s decision conflicts with Wisconsin election law, which calls for requiring proof of certain qualifications to vote, like residence, but not others, including citizenship, competence, or clean criminal record.
Existing laws already deter noncitizens from voting, Godar argued. “Noncitizens who register to vote face criminal liability under state law,” he said, “and if they vote, it also renders them permanently inadmissible under federal immigration law, which means deportation and other immigration consequences.”
There’s no standardized method used in states that require or retroactively check for proof of citizenship, but two methods have been recommended for Wisconsin for already registered voters.
The first is to check the voter rolls against citizenship records held by other state agencies, such as driver’s license information, as the plaintiffs in the Waukesha County case have suggested.
But the state Department of Transportation has told the court that its citizenship data can be inaccurate and outdated.The department records applicants’ citizenship status based on their proof of citizenship or legal residence at the time the license is issued. Those cards typically remain valid for eight years, and current state law doesn’t require applicants to update their citizenship status with the department if it changes during that time.
Because many people become U.S. citizens well before their licenses expire, the department’s data can quickly become outdated — a problem that grows as the number of naturalizations spikes ahead of major elections, a Wisconsin Department of Justice official said in a court hearing last October.
Another method that some states use — and that conservative legal groups such as the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty recommend — is to use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE program. SAVE is a search tool designed for states to check whether their residents qualify for certain public-benefit programs, but the Trump administration has encouraged states to use it for checking voter rolls as well.
But its data can also be incomplete and outdated, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, which found it should be “considered useful, but not definitive” for citizenship verification.
Jasleen Singh, counsel for the Brennan Center’s voting rights program, told Votebeat the SAVE database includes only immigrants known to the U.S. government. Undocumented immigrants who haven’t interacted with federal agencies wouldn’t appear, and citizens born before 1978 may also be missing, since the Social Security Administration didn’t collect citizenship data until then.
Louisiana ran its voter rolls through the SAVE program this year as part of an investigation into noncitizen voters. It found 390 potential noncitizens in records going back to the 1980s, including 79 people who voted at least once in that period. That’s a minuscule share of Louisiana’s registered voters.
Democrats say these figures show noncitizen voting is rare enough that it doesn’t need a blunt legislative solution that could disenfranchise anyone. But Republicans argue that even a single illegally cast ballot undermines election integrity.
In Arizona, those who haven’t shown proof of citizenship can vote only in federal elections. About 35,000 people as of last December, or just under 1% of the state’s voters, are on this “federal only” voter roll. A Votebeat analysis found these voters are concentrated on Native land, college campuses, and near the state’s main homeless campus; they tend to be younger, and vote at lower rates.
In Texas, about 1% of the voting-age population lacks proof of citizenship and another 6% would struggle to locate it, according to a University of Maryland study, which found Black, Latino, young, and Republican voters are particularly likely to face those challenges.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has proposed a multistep noncitizen audit — including matching voter rolls against DOT data as well as the SAVE database, checking for discrepancies, and then providing time for flagged voters to provide citizenship proof. Republican state Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican, introduced a proposal this month requiring a noncitizen audit that follows these steps.
Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fuchs already follows a similar process, using the DOT database to check registrants’ citizenship and sending flagged names to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contact. She said the agent found about a dozen voters incorrectly marked as noncitizens in the DOT database, but none of those identified by DHS disputed the finding.
Fuchs told Votebeat in early October that she was pleased to see the Waukesha County judge’s order, but said she and other clerks weren’t rushing to implement it since they knew it would be appealed.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
Wisconsin officials appeal judge’s order on checking voters’ citizenship is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The state Department of Justice has appealed a circuit court ruling that would create a new citizenship check for millions of Wisconsin voters.
The post Wisconsin DOJ appeals ruling that would create new citizenship check for voting appeared first on WPR.
Will Martin called himself a “common-sense conservative” in his launch ad, saying there is a “quiet crisis” of young people leaving the state. (Screenshot of campaign ad)
Businessman Will Martin launched his campaign for lieutenant governor Monday, joining a growing field for the second-highest executive office in Wisconsin.
Martin called himself a “common-sense conservative” in his launch ad, saying there is a “quiet crisis” of young people leaving the state. This is Martin’s second campaign for the office. He came in fifth in the 2022 primary when former U.S. Rep. Roger Roth was the Republican nominee.
“Wisconsin jobs are being lost. AI and automation are disrupting entire industries, and for far too many, homeownership has become a distant, if not impossible dream,” Martin said. “As lieutenant governor, I’ll work to cut the size and cost of state government and restore the promise of the American Dream together. Let’s ignite a new era of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity from Kenosha to Cornucopia.”
Martin worked in the administrations of former Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker. Under the Walker administration, he worked in the Wisconsin Housing & Economic Development Authority and the Department of Workforce Development.
Martin joins Former Lancaster Mayor David Varnam, who launched his campaign in September, in the race. Varnam also ran for lieutenant governor in 2022, coming seventh in the primary.
“I am concerned about my family’s future and the path Democrats are taking Wisconsin down,” Varnam said in his announcement. “We need to lower taxes to keep retirees, young people, and businesses in Wisconsin. Our schools need to focus on raising standards, test scores, and expectations for our students. As a father of two daughters, I will fight to keep men out of women’s sports and protect their locker rooms.”
Wisconsinites will cast their votes separately for governor and lieutenant governor during the partisan primary next year. The winners of the primaries will run on the same ticket in November and voters choose them as a pair.
The partisan primary is scheduled for Aug. 11, 2026.
Republican candidates for governor include U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington Co. Executive Josh Schoemann.
Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, a Democrat, launched her campaign for lieutenant governor in August.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Wausau Mayor Doug Diny caused an uproar last year when he donned a hard hat to cart away an absentee ballot drop box that had been placed outside City Hall.
The post Wausau board: Mayor violated ethics policy when he removed ballot drop box appeared first on WPR.
Ben Wikler, the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, will not run for governor in 2026.
The post Former state Democratic Party chair will not enter governor’s race appeared first on WPR.
Login