“In the history of our country, this is a defining moral moment,” U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) told a crowd outside Cargo Coffee in downtown Madison Friday, as he stood on stage with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor of Wisconsin. 

Warnock has been traveling across the country to support Democratic candidates as his party tries to flip control of the U.S. House of Representative and Senate. He made a detour to Wisconsin, he told the Examiner, because he believes Crowley is a “good man” and because the stakes are high in Wisconsin, like they are in Georgia, due to both states’ history of Republican gerrymandering. “The next governor will preside over the next reapportionment,” he said, “and I think it’s important to have somebody like David Crowley in office.”

“We are seeing gerrymandering supercharged in the South and all across our country with this latest Callais decision,” he said, referring to a Supreme Court ruling  legal experts have called a severe blow to the Voting Rights Act. 

“Politicians are turning elections on their head, so that rather than the people picking their representatives, the politicians are cherry-picking their voters. It’s clear to me that Tom Tiffany will represent that same kind of approach,” Warnock said. 

Warnock, in addition to serving in the U.S. Senate, is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia – the same pulpit once occupied by Martin Luther King, Jr. On the stage set up outside Cargo Coffee, he praised Crowley as a “man of faith” and a proven leader who has united voters across Milwaukee County. He recounted asking Crowley about his margin of victory in his last election as county executive. “And he answered, with a lot of humility, 85%” 

“Think about how divided our country really is,” Warnock said. “And this man won by 85% because he knows how to bring people together, how to get us to work together, because he understands that at the end of it all, the only way to rise is to rise together.”

He contrasted Crowley’s unifying vision with the divisiveness of the “people at the highest levels of our government.” 

After the event, Warnock told the Examiner he believes that when the midterms are over, after what he expects will be big midterm losses for Republicans, President Donald Trump “will feel the bruises and the humiliation of that,” making him dangerous.  “We need strong governors who will hold the line to protect their people.” 

If Tom Tiffany loses in November, it’s not irrational to think he might try to overturn the election results. On Nov. 4, the day after the election, Tiffany might repeat the same, old, tired argument he made when he tried to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania and said that, if he’d had the chance, he would have voted against certifying the results in Wisconsin. Tiffany might again accuse Dane County election officials as being “unscrupulous.” He might say that Milwaukee County allowed “hundreds of thousands of illegal votes to be cast and counted.” 

Tiffany only recently admitted that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and has said he supports an FBI probe into the 2020 election results in our state. 

Mayor Cavalier Johnson has offered Tiffany an open-ended invitation to observe Milwaukee’s elections procedures himself. “I invite you to see our election operation, to talk to officials who conduct our elections and scrutinize, first hand the extensive security and accuracy in place.”  Unsurprisingly, Tiffany has not accepted this offer. 

When Tiffany welcomed FBI agents this spring to investigate Milwaukee election officials, it wasn’t just to sow doubts in the 2020 election or to ensure election integrity. The real goal was to set the stage in case he loses in November. Then, he might  ask Donald Trump to help overturn Wisconsin’s election.

When facing this very real impending emergency to November’s election, what are Wisconsinites to do? Noted decent human being Mr. Fred Rogers has this advice.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

So who are our helpers? Let’s start with the people you already know. Once you begin to ask around, you will discover that you know several helpers who volunteer at the polls in every election.  Personally, I attend weekly church services at First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. A high percentage of our congregants volunteer at the polls. If you ask more than one of them, you hear a consistent story. 

Election volunteers care deeply about ensuring  free and fair elections and they do it year after year. They receive extensive training to carefully follow transparent procedures. They are given advice such as, “It is better to go slow, ask questions and get it right.” Additionally, there are so many people involved at the polls and so much transparency that, once you are a part of it, you have full faith in the integrity of Milwaukee elections. So ask around. Share these helpers’ stories before our city’s integrity is questioned this November. Want to join their ranks? They will gladly put you to work.

But what are we to do on Nov. 4? Luckily, you will always find people who are helping.  This winter, our city faced a real threat from federal ICE immigration agents. Before the victories of everyday helpers in Minneapolis, it was reasonable to believe that level of federal overreach would spread to our city. We know this because of the treatment of our neighbor Yessenia Ruano and the detainment of Elvira Benitez-Suarez and Salah Sarsour. Masked ICE agents detained at least 39 of our neighbors in July.  The ICE Out MKE coalition stood up on those dark days and those Milwaukee helpers are still here. I trust the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County, Souls to the Polls, Milwaukee Turners, and Voces de la Frontera. Wisconsin has plenty of non-partician, non-for-profit helpers and these are just a few.

Your relationship with the nonpartisan not-for-profits that are working to defend our democracy will need to be deeper than digital. Go to a meeting and find out now which local helpers will be your trusted voice. Empowered with this connection, on the day after the election, your plan should be to listen to follow the guidance from these groups and join the organized, active citizens who are standing up.  

Most importantly, don’t relax into believing that Tiffany and Trump are interested in anything but autocracy. The dance of democracy is not choreographed by a single caller. It is not a solo act. It depends on all of us moving together.

Former President Barack Obama endorsed Democratic candidate and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley in the race for Wisconsin governor in a video posted to social media Thursday.

Crowley faces Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in November in what is anticipated to be a close race in one of the most purple states in the country. If Crowley wins, he’ll be the first Black governor of Wisconsin and only the fourth Black governor elected in U.S. history.

Obama, who was elected the first Black president in 2008, said in the video that he hasn’t known many leaders like Crowley. 

“David’s life story is about overcoming adversity, and his life’s work is about bringing people together,” Obama said. Crowley, a father of three daughters, grew up in Milwaukee, the son of an electrician and a service industry worker. Both of his parents struggled with addiction and mental health issues. While growing up on Milwaukee’s North Side, Crowley and his mother were in unstable housing conditions and faced eviction three times. 

Crowley’s childhood has shaped his career in politics. He started out working as a community organizer and aide to former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold before running and winning a state Assembly seat. In 2020, he ran for Milwaukee County executive, becoming the first Black person to hold the position.

“Like me, David started out as a community organizer, and he happens to be a girl dad, too,” Obama said, noting that Crowley’s daughters have gone to public school. 

Obama added that Crowley has helped create jobs and balanced budgets as county executive.  

“As governor, David will fight to make Wisconsin more affordable, so that you’re paying less at the pump, at the doctor’s office and less at the end of the month. There is nobody better to lead Wisconsin forward, so vote David Crowley for governor,” Obama said.

Obama carried Wisconsin twice, when he was elected president in 2008 and again in 2012 when he was reelected, by margins considered large for the swing state. 

Crowley said he was “deeply honored” to have Obama’s endorsement and that the former president is “someone who defines what leadership is — fighting for everything possible to make life better for everyday Americans.” 

“Thanks to President Obama, millions of Americans were able to get healthcare, millions found jobs, and now he’s passed the baton to a new generation of leaders like myself who want to make Wisconsin and our country the best place to call home,” Crowley said. “I know with President Obama’s support, we can win this election and move Wisconsin forward.” 

President Donald Trump endorsed  Tiffany early during the Republican primary, helping to clear the primary field for the 7th CD congressman. 

In his January endorsement, Trump praised Tiffany for having “always been at my side.” 

Tiffany said then that he was honored to earn Trump’s endorsement. “Just one year into his second term, wages are rising, gas prices are down, our economy is growing and our border is secure,” he  said at the time. 

Since then, gas prices have risen due to Trump’s war in Iran, with diesel prices hitting a record high, averaging $6.22 a gallon in Wisconsin, according to AAA.

Trump’s popularity has also fallen, with 60% of registered voters disapproving of him in the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Trump highlighted his endorsement of Tiffany on Wednesday in an announcement that he’d be giving the state nearly $18 million in disaster aid. He said that he had recently spoken to TIffany and reiterated his “Complete and Total Endorsement” for the Republican candidate.

The flyers that arrived in mailboxes in Oneida County, Wisconsin, just days before the April 1, 2014, county board elections, were nothing if not alarming. “Some County Supervisors have a Dam Plan which is much more than Water Over the Dam,” they warned. “Their plan would ELIMINATE DAMS!*” 

Underneath this incendiary accusation, in tiny type, was this asterisked elaboration: “*During the amendment process to the county master plan, Supervisor Martini proposed the removal of dams in Oneida County. The proposal did not advance.” The flyers, otherwise identical, each bore the names and photos of one of the four county board candidates who would heroically “Stop Their Dam Plan!”

Dams are critical infrastructure in northern Wisconsin, essential for lakefront homes and resorts, boating, fishing and other outdoor recreation. To seek their wholesale eradication, as Oneida County Board Supervisor Bob Martini allegedly did, is akin to proposing the expulsion of the Green Bay Packers. A 2013 report counted 42 dams in Oneida County, about half described as large, and half as small, some privately owned and some owned by utility companies, towns, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the county itself. 

In the April 1 election, two targeted incumbents were defeated. Martini lost badly to challenger Robb Jensen, 213 to 128 votes, and Supervisor Candy Sorensen lost to challenger Lance Krolczyk by fewer than a dozen votes. A third incumbent, Bob Mott, beat a challenger by a narrow margin, while a fourth targeted candidate, Alan VanRaalte, won election to an open seat.

In February 2015, I wrote a two–part report on this matter for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, now Wisconsin Watch, where I worked as a writer and editor. I noted that both Martini and Sorensen blamed the flyers for their defeats, and all four targeted contenders said the representations in the flyers were false. 

Martini, a former rivers protection coordinator for the state DNR, told me he had “never made an amendment or proposal to remove dams in Oneida County” and does not support a policy of doing so. He noted that counties don’t even have this authority, adding “It’s just wrong to lie to try to get elected.” Sorensen said that, during her time as a county board member, “there has never been any discussion or plan on removing Oneida County dams.” Mott and VanRaalte likewise denied any knowledge of a dam-removal plan, with VanRaalte exclaiming, “I live on a lake that’s created by a dam!”

What makes this story significant 12 years after the fact is that the flyers were produced with input from a Republican state senator who went on to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and is now his party’s nominee in the race for Wisconsin governor. His name is Tom Tiffany.

Tiffany’s explanation

When I interviewed Tiffany in 2015, he admitted to me that he helped craft the wording of this flyer, as well as another flyer aimed at boosting the candidacies of the same four candidates by accusing the county board of wanting to sell a county building at a substantial loss. He told me he was acting not in his capacity as a state senator but as a resident of Oneida County: “I care about my county. It’s important to be engaged.”

Tiffany provided a convoluted explanation for why the mailing, disclaimed by all four targeted candidates, was somehow still true. He argued that besides playing an “instrumental” role in past DNR dam removal projects, Martini served on the board on the River Alliance of Wisconsin, which Tiffany said is “associated with” a national group called American Rivers, which has “a bias toward removing dams.” The folks at the River Alliance said the two groups had no formal ties.

Tiffany also claimed that, during discussions on a county land-use plan, Martini had offered “some wording that was favorable to dam removal when possible.” Jensen, the challenger who beat Martini, also latched onto this thin reed for alleging that some board members had a plan to eliminate the county’s dams, saying a draft land-use plan favored by Martini included this language: “Support dam/drainage way repair and removal where appropriate.” Martini said he had no role in crafting this language, which was removed when some towns objected.

In a recent email exchange, Martini elaborated on the allegation that precipitated his electoral defeat: “The flyer said there was a plan to remove all the dams in Oneida County. There was no such plan. Even if there was a plan I would have opposed it on several grounds.” He went on to list some examples of dam-removal efforts he opposed during his time at the DNR.

DOJ investigation

In August 2014, a group formed in response to the flyers, Citizens for Democracy in Oneida County, filed a complaint against Tiffany and others with the state Government Accountability Board, an entity which at that time oversaw state election laws. The complaint alleged more than 70 violations of state elections laws, most dealing with whether the mailings met requisite disclosure rules and reporting requirements. It also accused Sen. Tiffany of causing “the dissemination of improper campaign information.”

The GAB declined to investigate, saying it defers to county district attorneys to investigate and prosecute such matters. And so the group sent its complaint to then-Oneida County DA Michael Schiek, who forwarded it to the state Justice Department, then headed by Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel. “We have received the information and it is under review,” DOJ spokeswoman Anne Schwartz told me in January 2015.

Recently, in response to an open records request and some prodding, the DOJ released to me its 91-page file on the case and associated documents. These records show that Special Agent Loreen Glaman was assigned in April 2015 to investigate the allegations, She interviewed at least a half-dozen people, including all four of the candidates the flyers were meant to assist. Tiffany himself does not appear to have been interviewed, but his role was described by Jensen, who “explained that Tom Tiffany approached him and suggested a mailing” and “assisted in designing the flyer.”

On July 15, 2015, Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey M. Gabrysiak wrote a “closeout of investigation” memorandum to Assistant Attorney General Roy Korte. The memo says the investigation found that while “some of the conduct in question appeared to constitute technical violations of the state’s election laws,” none appeared to be deliberate. Specifically, Gabrysiak concluded the flyers’ almost microscopic and bizarrely misspelled disclosure — “Authoized and pad for by candidate” — fell short of what the law requires, which is to include the name of the candidate or committee in this wording.

But Gabrysiak said the more significant allegations reported by Citizens for Democracy in Oneida County “lacked merit,” calling the one exception regarding requisite disclosure “minor” and “likely attributable to a lack of knowledge regarding campaign law or simple inadvertence.” He shrugged off the complaint’s allegations of untruthfulness, saying “Whether false statements have been made in campaign fliers is a subject of debate.”

Nonetheless, Gabrysiak recommended and ultimately sent warning letters to the four candidates, saying they “failed to properly name the sponsoring candidate or committee as required by law.” The letters said that while this failure was likely not intentional, the candidates would not be given “the benefit of the doubt as you were in this situation” should they again run for office. “This letter is meant to put you on notice that you will be expected [to] make yourself familiar with, and comply with, all applicable campaign laws and that failure to do so will subject you to criminal prosecution.” 

Far from the truth

What is most remarkable about this episode is the vastness of the gulf between the truth and what was stated in the flyers that Tiffany instigated and helped craft. While it may not rival other concerns about Tiffany, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, Tiffany’s actions in connection with these flyers raise serious concerns about his honesty and integrity. 

The record shows that Tiffany set out, with some success, to kneecap candidates for local office with the blatantly untrue accusation that they had a “plan … to ELIMINATE DAMS” in Oneida County. And he stuck to this fabrication even after it was pointed out that none of the targeted candidates favored any such thing.

At the time I wrote about this episode, I remember being shocked by Tiffany’s apparent disregard for the truth, which I considered extraordinary. It was my impression, based on decades of reporting, that people in public office rarely say things that are flat-out and demonstrably untrue, as Tiffany did in this case. There is — or at least there was, back in the days before Donald Trump — too much danger that outright lies will be exposed and consequences will ensue. And indeed, the wounds opened by Tiffany’s conduct prompted some members of Oneida County to file a complaint that led to official investigation, however unsuccessful it proved to be.

In his current campaign for governor, Tiffany has also displayed a predilection for dishonesty. For instance, Tiffany has sought to distance himself from Trump’s wildly unpopular war in Iran, saying it’s time to wrap things up, when in fact Tiffany has voted five times against resolutions to end the war. 

Tiffany, to his discredit, has recently been airing an ads blaming Crowley for allowing a county jail inmate to download child pornography. It features Crowley’s face alongside text that proclaims “Used the tablet to access child pornography,” as though it were Crowley who was doing the accessing.

But even this ad is arguably more defensible than the flyers that Tiffany devised in 2014; the county jail does have a program to provide tablets to inmates, some of whom got busted for misusing the privilege. The fairness of blaming Crowley for this is debatable, but at least the criticism is based on something that actually happened, unlike the plan to eliminate dams.

I suspect the current ads were created with input from campaign professionals who are mindful of just how far they can push the boundaries of campaign speech, while the 2014 flyers reflected Tiffany’s own unchecked inclination to deceit. Maybe that’s why he is no longer interested in trying to defend them. Tiffany’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Correction: A previous version of this story mistakenly referred to the war in Iran as the war in Iraq. We regret the error.

The Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, has been a reliable ally of President Donald Trump in Congress. He objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, voted repeatedly against reining in Trump’s war in Iran, supported the massive healthcare cuts that are hitting rural Wisconsin particularly hard, and cast the deciding vote in the House for a measure that, had it not stalled in the Senate, would have banned all AI regulation by the states for the next 10 years.

But recently Tiffany has softened his tone, distancing himself from some of Trump’s most unpopular positions. Just this month he conceded that Biden won the 2020 presidential election and said it’s time to wind down the war in Iran. He also claims he wants to “preserve Medicaid for our most vulnerable” and is campaigning on preventing AI data centers from eating up Wisconsin’s farmland.

A recent text to voters from the Tiffany campaign strikes a friendly, moderate tone, declaring “it’s time to fix problems.”

“When I’m governor, we’ll raise academic standards. We’ll make health care more transparent, stop Wall Street from buying our homes, and lower property taxes. Kids who can read, prices you can see, and a home you can own. That’s a Wisconsin that works for everyone, and that’s the commonsense governor I’ll be.”

But this week, the mask slipped. 

On Thursday, Tiffany’s campaign blocked two reporters from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel from covering a campaign event. Taking a page from Trump, who yanked White House press credentials from CNN, POLITICO and MS NOW this week because he doesn’t like their reporting, Tiffany and his campaign staff called the Journal-Sentinel’s coverage “slanted” and said only journalists who produce what the campaign deems “balanced” coverage will be allowed to report on his candidacy. 

Tiffany’s effort to keep out journalists whose reporting he doesn’t like violates the same constitutional principle protecting the free press that a federal judge cited when he ordered the White House to restore press passes to the three news outlets Trump banned.

When he was asked about Trump’s White House press ban earlier this week, Tiffany claimed to be a believer in an “open, free press” and said he was not planning to restrict journalists’ access. But, as Henry Redman reports, his campaign not only blocked Journal-Sentinel  reporters Mary Spicuzza and David Clarey from covering Tiffany’s event Thursday, it followed up with a personal attack on Spicuzza from the campaign’s official  social media account, calling her a “liberal activist” and doubling down on the Trump-like threat to ban journalists whose stories Tiffany doesn’t consider “balanced.”

Those stories likely include Spicuzza’s report this week on campaign finance records showing that three billionaires are responsible for about two-thirds of the campaign cash Tiffany has raised so far. 

Spicuzza’s serious, factual journalism raises real questions about whose interests Tiffany would represent as governor — the millions of ordinary Wisconsinites whose problems he says he wants to solve, or his three ultra-rich donors, Diane Hendricks and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — two of whom live in Illinois —who have given him close to $10 million. Richard Uihlein’s Restoration of America PAC has separately spent another $11.3 million to boost Tiffany, Spicuzza and her colleague Eva Wen report. All that money has given Tiffany a massive financial advantage in the governor’s race, they point out.

By banning journalists and ducking multiple debates, Tiffany reinforces the impression that he prefers to remain in a bubble with like-minded Republicans and high-dollar donors, instead of making himself available to the public and the reporters whose job it is to shine a light on public officials and keep voters informed. That does not bode well for a potential Tiffany administration.

In addition to Tiffany’s Trump-like aversion to criticism and his attacks on a widely respected reporter, his coziness with the conspiracy-minded fringe elements of the Republican party are cause for concern. 

This week, Examiner reporters Redman and Baylor Spears published an investigative report on Tiffany supporter Leonard Boltz, the pilot who crashed while flying Tiffany in a private plane earlier this month. Boltz, the chair of the Langlade County Republican Party and a retired major in the U.S. Air Force, has spent a lot of time flying Tiffany around the state in his small, private plane during the current campaign season. He is also deeply involved in promulgating election-related conspiracy theories and, Spears and Redman report, has said that if Tiffany loses in November it will be because of “cheating” by Democrats. 

Unlike Tiffany, Boltz does not present as a friendly, folksy rural Wisconsinite. Nor has he backed away from the more paranoid edges of MAGA world. In a video of a speech he gave to the Langlade Republican Party in June, linked in Redman and Spears’ story,  he paces and rants, spewing dark warnings about cheating Democrats whom he says are engaged in rampant voter fraud. He gave that speech in front of a poster proclaiming the heroism of Harry Wait, the Racine County election conspiracy theorist who was convicted of breaking the law by impersonating Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason to request absentee ballots in their names. Boltz, like Wait, wanted to drive Vos out of office for not doing enough to overturn the 2020 election results. 

It’s sobering to contemplate the possibility of a governor of Wisconsin who is close to the most out-there conspiracy theorists in the state party and who has championed their preposterous claims. 

It’s even more concerning if that governor considers himself above scrutiny by the press. When Spears and Redman traveled to a Tiffany campaign event this week to try to get a comment from Tiffany for their story about Boltz, a campaign staffer intervened physically to block the question and adopted an aggressive posture that appeared to be designed to intimidate them. 

That’s not an atmosphere consistent with press freedom, democracy, or a healthy Wisconsin.