On Monday evening, dozens of Republican voters, clad in a mix of GOP red and Brewer navy blue, crowded into Whiskey Run Distillery in New Glarus to hear from U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor. 

At the event, part of the campaign’s 55 city “common sense” bus tour of the state in the last week of the election, Tiffany’s final argument to the electorate largely reiterated the case he’s made for himself over the past year — that, if elected, Democratic candidate David Crowley will raise taxes and fees, make Wisconsin less safe and let transgender youth play sports, while Tiffany in contrast will protect Wisconsinites’ values. 

“My commitment to all of you is that I’m going to make sure your children and your grandchildren are going to be able to achieve their dreams right here in Wisconsin,” Tiffany said. “It’s gonna be Wisconsin’s nightmare, though, if we get David Crowley, isn’t it? … He’s gonna raise your property taxes. He’s going to raise your sales taxes, and he’s going to bring us a new one. He is going to have tolling come to Wisconsin. You want toll booths in Wisconsin? Every paycheck, every purchase, every time you drive, he wants to take more money out of your pockets.”

Two years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris won the village of New Glarus with 67% of the vote and Green County with 50.1% of the vote. Now, Democrats across the country are optimistic that a blue wave generated by opposition to the historically unpopular President Donald Trump will help them win state and federal races even in red areas. At the event on Monday, Tiffany said his campaign was going to compete in blue areas such as New Glarus and nearby Dane County, a Democratic stronghold in which Republicans have often argued they need to pick off about 30% of the vote in order to compete statewide. 

“When we announced a year ago, I said we are going to compete in Dane County and all the counties surrounding, including right here in Green County,” Tiffany said. “We are competing. We’re going to win on Nov. 3.” 

Across the state and country, voters have cited concerns about the economy — largely due to rising prices caused by Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran — as their top issue in this year’s midterm elections. As he has throughout his campaign, including when he accepted the Republican nomination for governor at the GOP convention in May, Tiffany said his opposition to transgender rights would be a key part of his agenda. 

“This is the common sense tour, right? So we should probably do a little bit of that,” he said. “We’ll do a little bit of that. Girls and only girls are going to play girls’ sports. Yes, we’re going to make sure that that happens. If you hadn’t heard in the last budget, they wanted to call mothers ‘inseminated persons.’ I don’t know who in the world thought that up. We’re going to call mothers mothers in the state budget. And I don’t care what flags you fly above your business, your home, above your boat, my brother flies a Tiffany for governor flag above his combine. I don’t care what flags you fly above all those things, but above the state Capitol, we’re going to fly the two flags that tie this state and country together: the flag, the seal of the great state of Wisconsin and Old Glory are going to be the two flags that we fly.” 

Last year, Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country complained when Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal used the term “inseminated persons” in provisions related to in vitro fertilization, which he argued made clear that the law applied to same-sex couples. Evers has also flown an LGBTQ pride flag over the Capitol in each year of his administration, which Republicans have often criticized.

As early voting kicked off last week, Tiffany proposed instituting a bill of rights for parents and teachers, which includes requiring parental permission for students who want to change their names and pronouns at school and banning transgender students from bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

At the event Monday was New Glarus resident Dave Staats, who moved to Wisconsin from Nashville eight years ago and is hoping to live in the state for the first time under a Republican governor. Staats said he doesn’t trust the polls, which have shown Crowley in the lead, but believes it’s going to be a close election.

Staats said that he “would’ve voted for [Tiffany] no matter what” in this election. 

“I know who Tom Tiffany is,” he said. 

He added that his vote isn’t driven by any specific issues, but that he’s frustrated with the state of the country’s politics and the polarization that makes it difficult to talk with people on the other side. 

“There’s never any big issues, it’s all about the general principles,” he said. “It used to be easy to talk to someone on the other side, now you’re not going to the same place.” 

Robin Stroebel, another New Glarus resident, said she attended Monday’s event because she hadn’t seen Tiffany in person yet and likes to do that before an election. Stroebel said her main issues in the election are the repeal of Evers’ veto allowing schools to raise revenue limits by $325 per pupil per year for the next 400 years, continuing to support charter schools, public safety and election security. 

“I think [Tiffany] is logical, honest and calm,” she said. “He’s getting everywhere, talking to everyone he can.” 

Stroebel added that she believes Tiffany’s campaign is speaking to his grassroots supporters while being competitive where it needs to be. She said she was optimistic that appearing so close to Dane County is a sign he can win enough support there. 

“He’s run a fantastic campaign,” she said.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a brief return to Wisconsin Monday, campaigning in Milwaukee for David Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor.

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When casting their ballots for governor next week, voters in the city of Janesville will also decide whether residents should have more of a say over the future of the long vacant site of a General Motors plant.

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WPR invited both candidates for governor to sit down for interviews. Republican Tom Tiffany’s campaign declined.

The post Governor candidate David Crowley on data centers, budget surplus and elections appeared first on WPR.

Headed into the Nov. 3 election, Republicans hold an 18-15 edge in the Wisconsin Senate. If Democrats flip two seats, and defend their own, they would capture a majority in the chamber.

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Democratic candidate David Crowley often asks his supporters to volunteer the “Three T’s”: “time,” “talent” and “treasure” — or money. But with about a week until the election, he put a new spin on the phrase at a rally with former Vice President Kamala Harris Monday evening. 

“I usually say the last piece is treasure, but we’ll make an executive decision and turn that third T into turnout,” Crowley said. “We may not have billionaires, but we got something better. We’ve got you.”

Harris reinforced that message as she addressed attendees at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.  Harris said she came through Milwaukee to say “thank you” for the work people are doing to help elect Crowley, and she emphasized that the work needs to continue through Election Day. 

“People have been feeling like ‘I can’t do anything about this,’ and I know how much pain people are in,” Harris said, commenting on the “brutality” of the Trump administration and the feeling of powerlessness it engenders. But, she added, “That phase is over. We are now in a moment to turn anger into action.”

Crowley faces Republican candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in the state’s first open race for governor since 2010. 

Harris told attendees that their voices and votes matter.

“You don’t have to put up with this,” Harris said. “They’re putting a whole lot of money to try and convince people either that their vote doesn’t count or to lead them astray, but we have the power of the people on our side, so for the next eight days, let’s get out there and do everything we possibly can in a way that we show people who we are, what we want from leadership, and what we deserve.”

Harris is the latest surrogate to speak on Crowley’s behalf. Other Democrats who have visited the state or plan to include Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

During her speech, Harris spoke about rising costs, criticized Tiffany and told voters that they had the power to change the direction of the state and the country. 

Ahead of Harris’ visit, Tiffany criticized the Crowley campaign, saying that he wants to bring California policies to Wisconsin. 

“Wisconsin rejected Kamala Harris once, and now it’s time to reject David Crowley and his tax-hiking, spending spree and toll road agenda,” Tiffany said in a statement. 

President Donald Trump won against Harris in Wisconsin in the 2024 election by fewer than 30,000 votes. During his second term, Trump’s popularity in Wisconsin has fallen to record lows with 60% disapproval in the latest Marquette Law School poll. 

“Let’s talk about the fact that David’s opponent denied the election of 2020,” Harris said. Tiffany voted against certifying voters’ choice of Biden in two states in the 2020 election, and said he would have voted against certifying Wisconsin’s vote. 

“By the way, we won. We won that election,” Harris said. 

The rally was targeted at mobilizing women to vote and the economic pressure women are facing was a common theme among the speakers as well as one of the issues at the top of mind of women who attended. 

While waiting for Harris and Crowley, Sarah Bielejeski, a 38-year-old Milwaukee resident, told the Examiner that she was asked to attend by her friend. She said she wasn’t comfortable speaking in detail about the candidate’s positions, but she knew “enough to know that Tom Tiffany is not right.”

During the interview, Bielejeski reached for another attendee standing beside her to join in the conversation.

Megan Czarnyszka, a single mom from the Milwaukee suburbs, said she had decided to attend the rally so her daughter could witness the civic engagement and was looking forward to learning more. She said that while she supported a different candidate in the primary, she was now backing Crowley.

Both Bielejeski and Czarnyszka said they were glad to be in a room with like-minded people. 

Czarnyszka, a small business owner, said she wants Democrats to win control of the Legislature as well as the governor’s office because Affordable Care Act insurance has become too expensive for her and she also wants to see schools fully funded.

“It’s like tripled right now,” Czarnyszka said about her health insurance premiums. “The deductible will be another $1,500. We’re talking $5,000 before my insurance ever kicks in. We’re talking the difference between me thriving, having my medications, and going all the way back to like poverty levels.” 

Harris described cost of living as a women’s issue, as did, Crowley and his wife.

Ericka Crowley gave a speech emphasizing costs before her husband and Harris took the stage.

“I’m a mother of three, y’all. I got a child in college and I’m still trying to figure out how to pay this tuition. I was at the grocery store the other day and I was like, ‘Oh I’m so exhausted of these prices. I’m tired of it, and I know y’all are exhausted,” she said. “We deserve better.” 

Crowley highlighted the same issue when he took the stage. 

“We feel these prices, too, and so when I say I get it, I get it. You know who doesn’t get it though? Congressman Tom Tiffany. He went to Washington, DC, and sold Wisconsin out,” he said. 

Harris said she was used to reporters asking her to speak about women’s issues. “I’d look at them and say, ‘I’m so glad you wanna talk about the economy,’” Harris, the first female vice president and the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, said. Then she pivoted to making a plug for Crowley.

“David had everything to say about what is important to all people, including women. He stands for affordable childcare — only 7% of your income should go to childcare,” she said, referring to one of Crowley’s policy proposals. “He stands for affordable healthcare. We all know his opponent voted for that big bad bill that cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars to help millionaires and billionaires to cut their tax bills.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify Sarah Bielejeski’s comments.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany is proposing a bill of rights for parents and teachers, which includes requiring parental permission for students who want to change their names and pronouns at school and banning transgender students from bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

Tiffany released his proposal as in-person early voting kicked off last week and with a little over a week to go before Election Day. Tiffany has sought to leverage divisions over cultural policies in schools since he launched his campaign last year. 

Under his proposal, transgender girls would be prohibited from participating on girls’ sports teams and using girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms in schools, schools would be prohibited from placing tampons in boys’ bathrooms and “gender transition procedures” would be prohibited for those under 18.

“Every child deserves a safe classroom, every teacher deserves the authority to maintain order, and every parent deserves to know what is happening in their child’s school,” Tiffany said in a statement.

Last month, Tiffany appeared at a town hall hosted by Moms For Liberty, a right-wing organizing group for parents well known for supporting book bans and targeting schools over policies related to transgender children. Keeping transgender girls out of girls’ sports was one of the first priorities Tiffany mentioned at the Moms For Liberty town hall.

Tina Descovich, one of the founders of Moms for Liberty, who traveled to Wisconsin from Florida for the event, said that the organization is targeting women who don’t ordinarily vote in get out the vote efforts in Wisconsin. She said the election presents voters with a choice that could take the state in two very different directions.

“You can continue with someone who believes that boys should be playing with girls in sports. You can continue with someone that thinks mothers should be called inseminated persons,” Desovich said, using terminology that Tiffany’s opponent, David Crowley, has in fact not endorsed. (Gov. Tony Evers was criticized for the use of the term in budget language referring to artificial insemination.)

Noting Tiffany’s plane crash, Descovich said she thought God saved Tiffany for the state of Wisconsin. 

Tiffany’s proposal would also require that parents be able to review instructional materials, that schools notify parents and obtain consent before letting a student go by a different name or use different pronouns in school, require schools notify parents about violence, threats and crimes that occur on school grounds, implement school report cards, require schools to give parents information about their child’s academic proficiency and classroom behavior twice a year. 

His proposal would allow teachers to remove violent or disruptive students; require behavior intervention plans before a student could be returned to a classroom; prohibit retaliation against teachers for enforcing classroom rules, reporting unsafe conditions, requesting assistance or taking appropriate action to protect students; and establish school safety and parental notification requirements. 

In contrast, Democratic candidate and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has focused his education platform on increasing funding for public schools, including for special education, and providing universal early childhood education for Wisconsinites.

Tiffany’s campaign pointed to the New Richmond school district, which has been the target of an investigation by the Trump administration over its bathroom policies, and a report in the conservative Heartland Post, an online outlet run by talk radio host O’Donnell, about Winneconne High School, where a superintendent retired after controversy over the school district allowing an 18-year-old student to use a preferred name, instead of a legal name, used in the school’s graduation ceremony without the parents’ permission.

Wisconsin Republicans have repeatedly introduced bills that would implement a parents’ bill of rights and require permission before students could go by different names. In the past, lawmakers received help with drafting these measures from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. 

Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed those bills. In one veto message, he said the bill was “neither aimed at supporting our parents, our kids, and our schools, nor improving student outcomes, nor fostering collaboration and communication to do what is best for our kids,” but was rather “another attempt to divide our schools and communities and inject political ideology in the very last place it belongs — in our classrooms and our schools.”

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway made the announcement in a letter released Friday.

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As Election Day approaches, top Democrats on the intelligence committees in Congress are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump will allege foreign interference to discredit unfavorable results.

And they want leading U.S. intelligence officials to be immediately reachable if he does.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, outlined the scenario — one of among 50 they say they’ve considered — with reporters on Wednesday, less than two weeks before voting ends in the midterm elections.

“So when the president makes that announcement, you answer your cellphone to give us information about what’s happening,” Himes said the Democrats have told Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has ramped up efforts targeting noncitizen voters, with arrests across the country, and is attempting to block suspected noncitizen voters from having their ballots counted in California. Democrats and voting rights advocates have warned for months that Trump could try to interfere in voting in the midterms.

All of it comes as Trump stares down the possibility that voters will place Democrats in control of Congress — an outcome that could doom his legislative agenda and mire him in investigations.

“We’re making the assumption that the president is not going to accept the results of what looks to be a very challenging election for him and his party,” Himes said.

But amid the highly publicized campaign against noncitizen voting, Democrats have kept an eye on the possibility that Trump could instead invoke a foreign threat to justify an attempt to assert control over elections or undermine the results, even as the Trump administration has cut federal support for election security.

China ‘election meddling’?

When Trump delivered a primetime address on election security in July, he spent a significant portion of the speech describing what he called China’s “sinister election meddling.” He said China had acquired 220 million voter files and the White House released declassified intelligence reports on the vulnerability of voting machines to foreign hacking.

Trump floated the possibility that vote totals could be electronically manipulated or that voting machines could change results. He suggested that election websites, poll books and voter registration databases could be vulnerable to exploitation by foreign adversaries.

“This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference,” Trump said in the July speech.

The speech was met with sharp criticism from election security experts, who noted that the United States maintains a decentralized election system that makes any attempt at widespread interference extremely difficult. 

For instance, every state except Louisiana uses paper ballots or generates some form of paper record for each ballot cast, according to data compiled by Verified Voting.

“Can we pre-bunk the notion that he may come up with a fabricated or single piece of intelligence that could be used as a reason to take illegal action?” Warner said, describing the Democrats’ thinking.

As a hypothetical, Himes outlined a scenario in which Trump announces at noon on Election Day that Iran has kicked off an operation to interfere in the election. Himes said he would go on TV and say he has received no briefings and no information, giving him no reason to believe the president’s comments are accurate.

“Now, does that end the crisis? No, but that’s the first step,” Himes said.

Doubts about interference

Warner and Himes belong to the Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of high-ranking lawmakers who receive classified briefings on matters of intelligence and national security.

The pair drew a sharp distinction between foreign interference — which includes things like messing with voter rolls and attempting to alter results — and foreign efforts to influence elections, such as social media bots spreading certain messages. 

Himes said that, as of now, “we are not seeing either the capability or the intent to interfere.”

He also said lawmakers haven’t received pre-election reports about the election threat landscape required by law. 

In July, Himes, along with Democratic Reps. André Carson of Indiana, Joaquin Castro of Texas and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, wrote in a letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, that the intelligence community had missed a report on election security vulnerabilities and foreign intelligence threats to federal elections that was due on May 7.

The ODNI didn’t respond to questions from States Newsroom on Thursday.

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement that Trump had done more than other previous president to ensure free and fair elections. She said the president is making clear that anyone who votes illegally “will be held accountable.”

“While extreme Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud, the Trump Administration is taking decisive action to protect our elections including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion,” Bis said.

Reductions in workforce

The Democrats’ planning for a claim of foreign interference comes as the Trump administration has reduced cybersecurity resources for state and local election officials. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which typically plays a large role in election security efforts, has lost roughly a third of its workforce since Trump began his second term.

Trump has attacked CISA — a component of the Department of Homeland Security — under the leadership of previous director Chris Krebs, who worked to debunk misinformation after the 2020 election. Trump fired Krebs less than a month after the election. DHS has previously proposed eliminating CISA’s election security program, a $39 million initiative. 

Jennifer Morrell, CEO and co-founder of The Elections Group, a nonpartisan organization that provides trainings and other resources to election officials, said the Trump administration “essentially decimated” CISA. Morrell said she had been a contractor for the agency.

“We lost years of work building our cyber and physical security infrastructure,” Morrell said Thursday during a University of Pittsburgh panel discussion on election integrity.

In September, Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, and Rep. Joseph Morelle, a New York Democrat, wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and CISA Acting Director Nicholas Andersen that CISA hadn’t provided any funding to its Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, despite instructions from Congress to continue funding the program.

Padilla and Morelle noted that the center had for years provided security services to local election offices at no cost before funding was abruptly cut in early 2025. While the center continues to provide some services through a paid membership model, they wrote that it lacks its former reach.

Briefing urged

On Wednesday, Himes and Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, urged Mullin to brief lawmakers on election security efforts. In a letter, they wrote that state and local election officials “are under tremendous pressure this election cycle.”

Homeland Security didn’t answer questions from States Newsroom on Thursday.

In some of the country’s largest jurisdictions, the consequences of the federal pullback have been muted. Big counties, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of residents, often have their own sophisticated cybersecurity programs.

Monica Gordon, the clerk of Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, praised her information technology team. In a call with reporters, the Democratic official said her office was fortunate to have the latest innovations to protect voters’ information.

“We’ve been very fortunate but I am concerned about some of our smaller counties that have less resources,” Gordon said.

Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer at Election Center, an organization overseen by the National Association of Election Officials, said on the same call that states this year are leaning on their own resources because of the changes at CISA. Election officials have also relied more on help from nonprofit groups, she said.

State and local officials have done a great job of finding needed funding to replace some of those services and ensure sensitive systems are protected, said Morrell.

“But state officials and local officials cannot gather intelligence about threats from foreign nation states,” Morrell said, adding that “we’ve lost sort of the ability to be quickly alerted to that type of intelligence.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil of Janesville easily won his previous elections for Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District. But challenger Mitchell Berman is hoping a Democratic wave could change that.

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Over the course of a sometimes contentious, sometimes awkward hour, the two candidates for Wisconsin governor sparred over taxes, data centers and abortion in the only debate of their general election campaign Wednesday night.

The post Crowley, Tiffany spar over taxes, data centers and abortion in only debate of governor’s race appeared first on WPR.

The number of Wisconsinites casting in-person absentee ballots on the first day of early voting surged by 65 percent compared to figures ahead of the 2022 midterm election.

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Republican Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney is waging his second challenge against Wisconsin's Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul on Nov. 3.

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The candidates vying to represent constituents in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District sparred on some of the key issues during an hour long debate Tuesday.

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Groups funded by Elon Musk have spent around $4.6 million on behalf of Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden during the closing months of his reelection campaign.

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In Wisconsin Rapids and other communities, data center debates are a local political priority. But researchers say they’re not a top issue.

The post Wisconsin voters hate data centers, but they may not be an election priority appeared first on WPR.

In-person absentee voting for Wisconsin’s elections begins on Tuesday, with hours and locations varying by municipality. 

Elections officials have said ahead of the midterms that they expect early voting to be especially popular this year as concerns mount about the speed and reliability of sending absentee ballots through the U.S. postal system. 

Data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission shows that as of Monday morning, 364,888 absentee ballots have already been requested and 173,164 of those have been returned. Those numbers lag the 2022 election when 438,673 absentee ballots had been requested and 195,287 had been returned by the same point. 

WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said the early numbers suggest a surge in popularity for early voting. 

“Although voter behaviors are difficult to forecast, the data so far indicates that local clerks should prepare for higher turnout during in-person absentee voting,” Wolfe said in a Monday news release.

About 2.6 million people voted in Wisconsin in the 2022 midterm elections. Officials expect turnout to be similar to that total this year. 

State election officials have recommended that absentee voters should mail their ballots at least two weeks before the election to give a large enough buffer to ensure they are received by Election Day. With the clock ticking before polls open on Nov. 3, voters can also return their absentee ballots directly to local clerks’ offices or, in municipalities that use them, into ballot drop boxes. 

“If you’re planning to mail your ballot back, you should do so as soon as possible,” Wolfe said. “Your ballot must arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.”

The in-person absentee voting process involves a voter requesting an absentee ballot, completing the ballot and returning it to the clerk all in one stop. Voters will need to provide a voting-eligible photo ID to receive their ballots. 

In-person absentee voting runs through Nov. 1. Local hours and early voting sites can be found at MyVote.WI.gov.

Every vote counts, but residents of a handful of Wisconsin Assembly districts will have more say than most when it comes to deciding who controls state government next year.

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In front of a friendly crowd at a small-town community center last week, Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate Mitchell Berman launched into the pitch he’s made countless times in the last several months.

“Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I never saw running for Congress on my bingo card,” Berman told the room full of supporters in the Rock County community of Milton.

The son of a roofing contractor and a foundry worker, a first-generation college graduate and an emergency room nurse, he wove together stories from his daily work and his own family’s experience grappling with the healthcare system.

Berman ticked off a litany of priorities he’ll pursue in  the House of Representatives if he is elected and if Congress returns to a Democratic majority in November.  Those included restoring funds cut from federal healthcare programs, supporting union organizing, raising the minimum wage and taking steps to shore up Social Security in the face of threatened cuts in less than a decade.

“Well, we only have 21 days to go. We are in the final stages of this race,” Berman said. “We have always looked at this district as having an opportunity. But right now we’re one point up in the polls.”

A cheer and applause burst from the crowd.

“We are continuing to build momentum,” Berman said. “We are filling rooms like this across the district because people are sick and tired of the partisan politics. They are ready for people to go to Washington and actually get things done.”

Berman is the latest in a string of Democrats who have hoped to turn the 1st CD back to a Democratic seat after decades of Republican representation, including by U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) for the last eight years.

Steil is a former corporate lawyer and one-time aide to his popular predecessor, former House Speaker Paul Ryan. When Ryan gave up the seat in 2018 after two decades, Steil easily topped the Democratic challenger, union activist Randy Bryce, whose candidacy drew national attention.

While the margins have narrowed in the ensuing three reelection campaigns, Steil has continued to maintain a solid  advantage — leading the Cook Political Report to label the district “likely Republican” for most of the current term, until recently shifting it to the less-definitive “lean Republican.”

In 2026 Democrats are leaning harder into their campaign to wrest the district from its long-time GOP dominance.

Berman’s campaign sees in the polling trends and the Cook Political Report shift evidence that the seat is winnable thie year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Wisconsin’s 1st District to a list of races targeted for special attention — and some party spending — this fall.

U.S. Rep Mark Pocan, who has endorsed Berman and spoke at the Milton rally, says this year’s cycle has changed the dynamic of the district, and the race.

In his previous terms, Steil “did his very best to be as flavorless as possible,” Pocan says. “He wasn’t upsetting anyone and he’s a nice guy but he didn’t have positions.”

Steil joins Tiffany rally

Steil’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview despite repeated requests over the last week. The campaign also declined to respond to a list of questions about criticisms that have been lodged against him in the race.

Steil has continued to cultivate an upbeat presence in the district, documented on his office’s social media with visits to local fire departments, healthcare facilities and factories.

He also joined last week’s Waukesha County rally with Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany, sponsored by the GOP-aligned Hunter Nation organization, whose members are lobbying for passage of legislation that would create a controversial sandhill crane hunt.

Taking his turn at the podium, Steil excoriated “how radicalized the Democratic party has become, where they are going after all aspects of our culture” — zeroing in on controversies over whether trans girls should be allowed on girls’ sports teams.

“They want to come after our hunting rights,” Steil said, although not spelling out specifics. Steil also condemned “higher taxes on the Democratic side.” 

“This is not your grandfather’s Democratic party anymore,” Steil said. “This is a radicalized, activist socialist party that we are seeing on the left.”

Drilling home the Tiffany rally’s get-out-the vote message, Steil urged the crowd to “run on the assumption that the Democrats are going to vote in full strength in the liberal core cities in Wisconsin.” To counter that, he said, “We need to get that message out to our friends, our family, our neighbors, our coworkers, folks in church on how important this election is and how important it is that people like us get out and vote.”

Pocan interprets the shift in Steil’s profile during his latest term as an attempt to advance within the Republican party. “So instead of quietly rubber stamping Donald Trump, he’s now doing it more vocally,” Pocan says.

Drawing a contrast

While Steil has emphasized an image of Democratic radicalism, Berman’s campaign is drawing a contrast  between the Democrat’s working-class background and the Republican incumbent’s history as a corporate lawyer and his voting record in Congress.

“My dad owned a small roofing business that he built from the ground up,” Berman told the Milton crowd. “My mom, she worked long hours in the foundry. But they instilled in me the values of hard work, perseverance, and they taught me to always stick up for the little guy.”

He pointed to a resume that included working part-time at UPS — a union job — to help make ends meet in college, working off student debt after he graduated, and then making a career in healthcare, including 11 years as a Veterans Administration nurse — a job he had to quit because he couldn’t run for political office as a federal employee.

It was at the VA “where I started to recognize that a lot of these issues that we were having didn’t stem from me and my coworkers not having the capability to deliver the type of care that patients deserve,” Berman said. “But we were being handcuffed at the bedside by bad policies that were trickling down from Washington.”

Cuts to the VA health system early in President Donald Trump’s second term exacerbated those issues, he said. “That’s when I realized it was going to take somebody from the ground floor, from the bedside, standing up and fighting for change if we actually wanted to succeed.”

Berman said an insurance company denied his mother a colonoscopy in her late 40s despite a doctor’s recommendation because she wasn’t yet 50. At 49 she got the procedure in an emergency, he said, and was diagnosed with late stage colon cancer.

“So that same insurance company that denied that preventive procedure then began increasing our premiums,” Berman said. “At that point they could no longer afford insurance. Medicaid was the safety net that caught my mom.”

The massive tax and spending bill — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — that Trump and the Republican majority in Congress enacted in mid-2025, with its cuts amounting to nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years to Medicaid, along with other provisions, are a key talking point for Berman, who points out that Steil voted for the cuts.

The war in Iran that has driven up gasoline and diesel fuel prices and tariffs that have hobbled farmers also contribute to escalating difficulty for families in the 1st District, the state and across the country, Berman told voters in Milton.

He blames Steil for not voting to block the tariffs or end the war.

“You know, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for all representatives to be in Washington working for us, making Washington work for working people, because that’s what they should be doing,” Berman said. “So, while he’s making it more difficult for us, we’re here at home, struggling, trying to put food on the table, trying to make rent.”

Spotlight on  Steil’s record

With increasing tenure, Steil has advanced to new leadership roles, expanding his opportunity to advance his legislative priorities. His higher profile has also made him a bigger target for Democrats.

In January, as chair of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees federal election-related policies, Steil introduced the Make Elections Great Again Act.

Federal law generally delegates election administration to the states, minimizing the authority of the federal government. The Steil legislation would impose new national requirements on states, including mandating photo IDs in all states and setting new restrictions for what qualifies as a legal ID.

Among many other requirements, the bill would also compel states to check every 30 days on whether existing registered voters are still eligible. It would “improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” Steil said when he introduced the legislation.

The bill has not advanced. The Trump administration and Republican leaders instead focused on the SAVE America Act, which included similar requirements for voter citizenship verification and other limits. The SAVE America Act stalled in the U.S. Senate after passing the House.

Voting rights groups condemned the SAVE Act and also rejected Steil’s bill.

“Election officials — including in Wisconsin — have shown again and again that elections are secure,” said Samuel Liebert, Wisconsin state director for All Voting Is Local, when Steil introduced his measure. “Codifying suspicion into law doesn’t strengthen democracy; it undermines public confidence and puts election workers in harm’s way.”

Oversight, votes and campaign donations

Steil also chairs the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence — a panel that, among other things, oversees the crypto currency industry.

Earlier this month, the crypto PAC Fairshake launched a pro-Steil ad in the Milwaukee media market, reserving $735,914 in airtime for the ad, WisPolitics reported. According to Tech Influence Watch, an independent organization that tracks tech political spending, crypto interests have spent $1.3 million to support Steil in the 2026 election, a mix of campaign donations and independent spending.

In a post on X earlier this month, Steil wrote approvingly of a Commodities Futures Trading Commission announcement of advanced rulemaking on regulations for crypto transactions and crypto asset markets.

Steil “advocates for clear digital asset regulations, emphasizing consumer protection. His support may influence regulatory frameworks moving forward,” reported the outlet Coinfomania, which covers the crypto industry.

Steil’s campaign did not respond to a question about what his call for “clear regulations emphasizing consumer protection” would mean in concrete terms.

He is one of a bipartisan group of 21 lawmakers who cosponsored  legislation on regulating the crypto industry that the industry had sought. After passing the House, the bill foundered in the Senate, in part due to Democrats’ objections over President Donald Trump’s profiteering from crypto transactions, HuffPost reported.

At Berman’s Milton rally, however, Pocan suggested the outcome of the proposed legislation would be looser regulation for crypto businesses — “making sure they don’t have enough regulation so they can continue to operate in that dark realm.”

The Milwaukee Courier linked Steil’s votes to campaign donations from interested industries. The bills involved were not enacted. The donors included Blackstone, a corporate owner of rental housing nationwide, which made its contribution around the time Steil voted on bills cutting rental assistance and increasing mortgage fees; banking and credit businesses around the time of a vote to reduce regulations including on banking firms; and mortgage companies around the time of a vote that would have raised fees for borrowers.

Steil’s campaign did not respond to a question about the donations and bills identified in the Courier reports.

The Berman campaign has highlighted the findings. A TV ad also highlighted earlier reporting on Steil’s votes for federal tax breaks for data centers and donations totaling $300,000 to his campaigns from related industries.

Curbing Congressional stock trading

Besides the issue of the crypto industry’s pro-Steil ads, the Berman campaign has targeted the spot’s message, crediting Steil with writing a bill “banning members of Congress from trading stocks.”

A measure Steil authored, the Stop Insider Trading Act, prohibits members of Congress and their families from buying new stocks and hikes the penalties for violating an existing law against failure to disclose stock purchases and insider trading.

After passing the U.S. House, Steil’s bill stalled in the Senate when it failed to clear 60 votes to move forward to a vote in the chamber. In a Facebook post, Steil blamed Democrats for blocking the bill.

But Pocan says that when Steil’s bill was introduced, it effectively halted the momentum for a stronger, bipartisan measure banning members and their families from buying, selling or owning stock.

Their bill was on a trajectory to garner  enough support to force a House vote on the measure, Pocan says. That stalled after Steil introduced his bill, which would allow members to continue to own or sell stock and included a provision that allowed them to buy stock if they were reinvesting dividends.

“That is the opposite of a stock ban bill, but he’s taking credit for it,” Pocan told the crowd in Milton.

Even in the face of repeated Democratic disappointments in the district that go back decades, Pocan contends the 2026 race offers a new context. Voters’ disenchantment with Trump is part of that, but Democrats are also betting on a message that highlights the incumbent’s record in terms that resonate with people this year.

“I think those are all stances in a year that corruption is a big issue,” Pocan says. With his status as an outsider rather than a politician, “I just think Mitchell Berman in many ways is the right candidate right now.”

Lilly Goren, a political scientist at Carroll University in Waukesha, sees too many unknowns to offer a clear prediction. 

“I think the potential things that could make a difference — and I don’t know if they will — are that the map is slightly different, and whether the Blue Wave, if it comes to pass, will be sufficient to bring an upset to such a consistently Republican district,” Goren says.

There have been anecdotal reports that Trump supporters are ignoring survey calls, which could mean pollsters aren’t hearing from voters who could make a difference in the result. 

On the other hand, Trump’s record-low approval ratings “suggest that Republican support is not necessarily out there and enthusiastic,” Goren adds. “The question becomes, also, whether people come out and vote, or whether they stay home.”

Baylor Spears contributed to this report.

Saturday's event was focused on encouraging people to vote early for the upcoming midterm elections.

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