Kate Murrain, a realtor and mother of two Middleton-Cross Plains School District students, said she has a couple of questions before she makes her mind up whether to vote for the district’s $118.5 million referendum request. 

Murrain told the Wisconsin Examiner that she wants to see a side-by-side comparison of budgets, one of if the referendum passes and one if it fails. Her questions reflect the competing concerns that surfaced in a recent public discussion of rising property taxes and the school district’s troubles meeting rising costs. 

“At this point, without any information and being as educated as I need to be I would vote no,” Murrain said, adding she noticed that the meeting was attended by a relatively small group of neighbors who appeared to be pro-referendum. “I was surprised. I expected to walk into 100 people having questions to get better educated. I’m just shocked that this is the turnout.”

Murrain was one of about 20 who gathered in the performing arts center of Middleton High School on Sept. 17 to listen to district leaders explain the request and take questions. The district is holding at least four of these sessions open to the public leading up to the Nov. 3 election.

Middleton’s request is part of a wave of more than 70 school district referendum requests this fall seeking $1.6 billion in support from property taxpayers. Under Wisconsin’s school funding system, there is a cap on how much school districts can bring in through a combination of state aid and property taxes. To exceed the caps, Wisconsin school districts have to go to voters for approval. 

Among the requests 17 are for one-time building costs, eight are recurring, to provide permanent support for operating costs, and the remaining are non-recurring, slated to help with operating costs but for a set number of years.

By the end of the year, the total number of referendum requests appearing on spring and fall ballots will total more than 150. Eight of the school districts asking voters for more money in November are trying for the second time this year after a spring request failed. 

In April, 75 referendum requests went before voters. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, 46 of those passed — a 61.3% approval rate. The Policy Forum found that a similar result in November would represent “a substantial decrease from the 70.1% approval rate in 2024” and the “lowest approval rate of any even-numbered year since 2010, when voters approved 52.7% of referenda.”

The Middleton-Cross Plains School District request is the second largest referendum ask  on ballots in November behind Green Bay Area School District, which is seeking $158 million over four years and is currently a party in a lawsuit suing the state over the school funding formula.

Middleton is considered “property rich,” meaning it gets less state aid than other school districts and relies more heavily on property taxes for its budget. According to school leaders, about 80% of the district budget comes from property taxes. The other 20% comes from state aid. 

The request would be split to provide $24.9 million in year one of the referendum. That amount would continue the funding the district is currently receiving through a 2022 nonrecurring referendum. The next three years the funding would rise by about 3% each year to account for inflation, so $27.9 million in year two, $31.1 million in year three and $34.6 million in year four.

Bob Hesselbein, the school board president, told the Examiner that the district considered about six different referendum scenarios.

“Like a lot of districts within Wisconsin since 2010, we have been forced to find operational funding with our own community because the state each year is giving us in real dollars less in buying power,” Hesselbein said. “We recognize with the economics going on now in the country, we didn’t want to ask for more because everyone’s hurting.”

The district conducted surveys while working to develop the question. In one survey of about 1,800 community members, 66% said that they would probably or definitely vote for a 2026 referendum. Those who opposed the referendum cited property-tax fatigue, spending reductions and a preference for state level solutions. 

Hesselbein said the district hasn’t had a “No Vote” committee form. In other districts, “No Vote” and “Yes Vote” committees will form and can come into contention with one another as residents concerned about rising property taxes are pitted against those who want their schools to be able to meet costs.

One attendee at the recent meeting in Middleton asked for clarification on the actual cost to individual taxpayers of the referendum and said he was worried about how the additional taxes would affect seniors on a fixed income.

An explanatory page provided by the district shows that property taxpayers could expect to pay no additional money in the first year, $21 in the second, $40 in the third and $59 in the fourth. However, the numbers are pegged to $100,000 of property. The district said it provided the information in the form it did so individuals could do the math easily depending on the cost of the house. 

“Who has a $100,000 house in Middleton?” the attendee said. “I’d rather see the average house in there, so people can get a feel as to what you’re looking at.” 

The average cost of a house is $500,000 in Middleton, meaning in the second year of the budget an average homeowner could expect to pay an additional $105 in property taxes in the second year of the referendum.

“You’re going to be squeezing me,” the attendee said. “You want to keep everything status quo. There’s room to cut.” 

If the referendum fails the district will have to cut its budget by about 20%. 

Whether the referendum passes or not, the district plans to cut $5 million from its budget, though conversations are just beginning on where those cuts will come from. 

“We’re going to probably find ourselves cutting some of the enhancements to education, not the meat of what we do here,” Hesselbein told the Examiner, adding that it likely wouldn’t mean layoffs, but retirements may mean conversations about dividing work among current employees instead of a new hire. 

The same retiree who spoke up about the cost of the referendum asked why the district wasn’t turning to state lawmakers. 

“I called Sen. [Dianne] Hesselbein’s office last year, and asked, what have you done to get more money?” he said. “I got the typical political run around.”

Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers tried to pass a deal earlier this year that would have tapped the state surplus to give schools some additional funding and send rebate checks to property taxpayers. The bill failed in the Senate, where most Democrats opposed it, saying it didn’t do enough to help schools or spend money responsibly, along with a couple of Republicans, who opposed the spending. 

Since then, progress on school funding changes have been stalled as most politicians have turned their attention to the upcoming elections. 

Bob Hesselbein, who is married to the Democratic leader of the Senate, said he had some inside information for the disgruntled taxpayer at the Middleton meeting.

“I happen to know Sen. Hesselbein pretty well,” he said, drawing a few chuckles in the room. 

“You can yell and swear all you want,” he added. “In Dane County, we have very pro-education representation in both our Assembly and our Senate. Unfortunately, they’re a minority within the state of Wisconsin, and until the rest of the cities, Wisconsin, come to that realization that their public schools are being damaged, we can’t expect anything different from our local politicians, because that’s the constitutional laws of our state.”

Sen. Hesselbein has said that Democrats will pass legislation to fund public schools in January. 

“We are going to be fully there for our public schools, especially when it comes to special education reimbursement,” Sen. Dianne Hesselbein said at a press conference last week. “One thing that school administrators are telling us all across the state — principals as well — that they want to see something they can count on and they want to rely on it.” 

Sen. Hesselbein said that her caucus has started having conversations over the summer about what needs to happen, including putting more money into special education and general aid. She said Democrats are also looking at other states to understand how the school funding formula could be changed.

“We’re also looking at a long-term goal of seeing what other states are doing and how they are funding their public schools, but that’s going to take probably a multi-year task to try to figure that all out and talking to our friends in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois,” Hesselbein said. 

Meanwhile, school districts continue to rely on taxpayers to help them meet costs. 

Jim Coursey, treasurer of the Middleton school board, explained the stakes to Murrain. 

“If we were to lose that 20% of the budget, there will be no question that classrooms will be impacted, that’s too much,” Coursey said. “That’s going to lead to larger class sizes because it’s going to lead to a reduction in the number of staff that we’re going to be able to have supporting. It’s going to lead to elimination of programs.” 

Murrain, who said she values the education her children are receiving, remained unconvinced.

“I don’t know, it’s tough… I would need to see exactly where those funds are being allocated,” she said.

A Texas man hired to canvas neighborhoods for Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany has been charged with hitting a bicyclist with his car while intoxicated in a hit and run incident in Washington County, before fleeing police. 

Duane Maiden, 32, was hired by Echo Canyon Consulting, a Phoenix-based political campaign and public affairs firm. The firm confirmed Maiden’s employment, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

The firm had received $2.5 million from the Florida-based Restoration of America PAC to support canvassing operations for Tiffany, according to campaign finance records, according to the Journal Sentinel. The PAC is heavily funded by the billionaire Richard Uihlein, cofounder and CEO of the shipping company Uline, based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. 

On Sept. 3, a Washington County sheriff deputy responded to a crash involving a car and a bicycle in the town of Jackson. The victim sustained injuries including fractures to his leg, pelvis, and spine. Witnesses said they saw a car “flying eastbound on Western Avenue,” blowing through a stop sign before striking the bicyclist and continuing on without stopping. A coworker of Maiden’s called 911 to say that he was with the driver and identified Maiden.

Deputies went to the Town of Cedarburg where the coworker had been dropped off, the Journal Sentinel reported. The coworker said that he and Maiden had come to Wisconsin to canvas for political campaigns. They planned to be in Wisconsin for the next two months before traveling to New York and Florida. They were working the morning of the crash. The coworker said that Maiden bought and drank from a bottle of Vodka before stopping for pizza and gas. 

After the hit and run, the coworker said, he asked to be let out of the car and then called both 911 and his supervisor

Deputies spotted Maiden’s car while talking to the coworker and chased him into Ozaukee County where they arrested him and took him to jail. Maiden said he started drinking and driving  because he had to wait too long between assignments. Maiden denied knowing that he hit the bicyclist.  

Although Echo Canyon Consulting claimed Maiden was not working for the firm during the hit and run, court records contradict those claims, according to the Journal Sentinel. 

Tiffany’s campaign denied any connection to Maiden. 

Maiden was charged on Sept. 4 in Ozaukee County Circuit Court for felony fleeing an officer and misdemeanor resisting. Then on Sept. 11, he was charged in Washington County Circuit Court for felony hit and run  involving great bodily harm and felony intoxicated use of a vehicle. He faces more than 27 years in prison and up to $95,000 in fines.

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This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Over the past several years, gridlock between the Republican Legislature and Democratic governor’s office means election legislation in Wisconsin has hardly seen the light of day.

Though Republican lawmakers have pushed for stricter voting rules, Gov. Tony Evers has blocked those efforts at several turns during his eight years in office, leaving election policy changes in a stalemate of bills and vetoes. Instead, courts have increasingly become the primary venue for election rules to be challenged and changed.

That dynamic could change after November’s elections. Democrats hope to retain the governor’s office and win control of both legislative chambers. Republicans are vying to hold the Legislature and flip the governor’s office. Either outcome would give one party unified control of state government — a so-called trifecta — and a much clearer path to enacting its election priorities.

The results could shape election rules over the next several years, including how voters cast ballots and have them counted in the 2028 presidential election.

Still, unified control would not necessarily produce dramatic changes to Wisconsin election policy. Some major election policies are now written into the state Constitution, and Republicans have already achieved many of their goals.

“I don’t see big changes coming in state law, almost regardless of what partisan configuration the state ends up with after the election,” said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, who runs the school’s Elections Research Center. Republicans, he said, took advantage of a political trifecta from 2011 to 2018 to implement their biggest priorities.

Democrats would have difficulty undoing some of those policies, like voter ID and a ban on private funding for election administration, which are now enshrined in the state Constitution, making them harder to roll back.

Democrats would have limited room to change policy

If Democrats were to win a trifecta, Burden said, Republicans’ past success in putting major election policies into the state Constitution wouldn’t leave them much room to maneuver.

They could try to make the state’s voter ID law more accommodating, but eliminating it altogether would be difficult, he said. Democrats could turn toward other priorities, like enacting automatic voter registration and potentially allowing people with felonies to vote if they’re on parole.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer, a Democrat from Beloit, said that if Democrats win a trifecta they would immediately try to pass legislation allowing election officials to process ballots on the Monday before an election. That measure would give officials an extra day to process ballots, likely speeding up unofficial results at the end of the night.

Other priorities, he said, include codifying the legality of absentee ballot drop boxes, expanding absentee ballot tracking for voters, allowing voters to spoil an absentee ballot, creating standards for fixing mistakes on absentee ballots, and removing a requirement for officials to put numbers on certain absentee ballots that can risk the voters’ anonymity.

“These are very low-hanging fruit that either Republicans were interested in but didn’t have unanimity on, or, in a couple of these cases like drop boxes and curing, we have a different perspective than they do,” Spreitzer said.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, told Votebeat he would prioritize the Monday processing proposal.

“This common-sense change would help election workers process ballots more efficiently and reduce delays in reporting results, while maintaining the security and integrity of the election process in Wisconsin,” he said.

Crowley also said he would support better funding for local election officials, which has long been a concern for municipal and county clerks in Wisconsin. Spreitzer agreed.

Democrats could also revive some of the bills that have stalled under GOP leadership, including shortening the state’s residency requirement, banning firearms near polling places and establishing automatic voter registration.

Crowley himself was the lead author on an automatic voter registration bill during his brief tenure in the Legislature. Like most Democratic election bills under the GOP Legislature, his bill didn’t receive a public hearing or floor vote.

Republicans could prioritize noncitizen voting legislation

Republicans would also have limited room for broad policies if they won a trifecta, Burden said, largely because they enacted most of their policy priorities during their previous period of unified control. That includes one of the nation’s strictest voter ID laws and a requirement to reject absentee ballots missing a witness address.

One area where they could go further is citizenship verification. Republicans could pursue requirements that voters provide documentary proof of citizenship, Burden said, or revive efforts to audit the state’s voter rolls for potential noncitizens.

“That has just been a drumbeat coming out of the Trump administration: executive orders, lawsuits, DOJ actions, requests for data from the state, and other things,” he said. “So Republicans in the state will feel pressure, if nothing else, from the Trump administration to do something more about citizenship in such a key battleground state.”

Republican lawmakers have already pursued such measures. Earlier this year, Evers vetoed a bill that would have required a noncitizen voter audit. During legislative testimony in January, Rep. Dave Maxey, the GOP chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, said that he would prefer IDs used for voting to also clarify a person’s citizenship status. Maxey didn’t respond to Votebeat’s request for comment.

Republicans could also revive other election bills Evers vetoed, including legislation that would have banned those with felonies from voting until they paid certain court fees and a proposal to eliminate the voter ID exemption for people who are indefinitely confined because of age or a disability.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany, a U.S. representative from northern Wisconsin, has also supported several election policies that could become relevant under unified GOP control. In Congress, he voted for the federal SAVE Act, which would have required people registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentary proof of citizenship. In his time in the state Legislature, Tiffany co-authored the bill that led to the state’s voter ID requirement.

Tiffany told Votebeat that he would approve legislation to identify ineligible voters by comparing Department of Transportation records with the statewide registration database, along with other “election integrity reforms that Governor Evers vetoed that I believe deserve another look.”

Tiffany tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump lost. He told Wisconsin Watch recently that he thinks President Joe Biden won the race but welcomes investigations into the election.

He acknowledged the Monday ballot processing bill at a press conference in August, but didn’t signal whether he supported it. This specific policy priority may have more of a chance, Burden said, because it has broad support across the spectrum despite some GOP dissension.

Stalemate likely to continue under divided government

The stalemate that has been the status quo since 2018 would likely continue under any form of divided government, Burden said. Even if Republicans win a trifecta, Democrats have a backstop in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 liberal majority, Burden said. Republicans, meanwhile, could challenge Democratic priorities in federal court, where they may have the upper hand.

“With Evers and Republicans in power the last eight years, it’s been mostly stalemate: lots of vetoes and very little actual lawmaking around elections,” Burden said. “If things were to flip with Tiffany in office and Democrats were to win both chambers — I think that’s unlikely — I would expect more stalemate.”

Spreitzer, the Democratic senator, said some proposals, like the Monday processing bill and deleting poll list numbers from the back of absentee ballots, may still be viable under split control.

“Those are things we could very easily get done and demand in a split-government situation,” he said.

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.

How the upcoming midterms could change Wisconsin election policy 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.

Voting in Wisconsin’s midterm elections has officially begun. Local clerks across the state were required to send absentee ballots to voters with valid requests already on file by Thursday, Sept. 17. 

Data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission shows that 299,849 absentee ballots have already been requested and 4,309 have already been returned. 

The first absentee ballots were sent after months of wrangling by the administration of President Donald Trump to restrict ballots sent through the mail. While the court system thwarted that effort, concerns about the timely return of absentee ballots through the mail remain. 

Absentee ballots must be returned to a voter’s local election clerk by the time polls close on Election Day, Nov. 3. To give ballots enough time, election officials have recommended they be placed in the mail at least 10 days before Election Day. WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe recently changed  that recommended deadline to 14 days before Election Day, or Oct. 20. 

Voters can also return their absentee ballots directly to their municipal clerk’s office, take it to their polling place on Election Day or, in communities that use them, drop their ballots in an official municipal absentee ballot drop box. 

Early in-person absentee voting will open Oct. 20. Hours and locations for early voting and returning mailed absentee ballots can be found on municipal clerk websites. 

The biggest race on the ballot in Wisconsin this year is the open race for governor between Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany. Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats, 99 state Assembly seats and 16 state Senate seats are also up for election. Control of the Legislature is up for grabs for the first time in more than 15 years. 

Voters will also decide statewide races for attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state and will vote on three proposed constitutional amendments. The constitutional amendments would prohibit state and local governments from instituting diversity, equity and inclusion policies, prevent government edicts closing places of worship during emergencies and limit the governor’s line-item veto authority. 

Voters can see the candidates and referendum questions on their ballots at MyVote.WI.gov.

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Milwaukee County sales and property taxes have increased under County Executive David Crowley.

The Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election for governor takes credit for “the largest property tax cut” in the county’s history. 

That occurred after Act 12, a bipartisan state law, allowed local leaders to raise Milwaukee city and county sales taxes and provided local governments in Wisconsin more state aid. 

The law was largely aimed at helping the Milwaukee governments avert financial crises.

Crowley signed the near-doubling of the county sales tax, to 0.9% from 0.5%, after the Milwaukee County Board approved it.

Property tax levies have increased under Crowley, who took office in May 2020, though not as much as the state average (2.6% from 2020 to 2023):

2020: $304.8 million

2021: $310.3 million (1.8% increase)

2022: $313.8 million (1.1%)

2023: $292.3 million (-6.9%)

2024: $299.6 million (2.5%)

2025: $309.9 million (3.4%)

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• David Crowley campaign: Getting Things Done
• Milwaukee County: 2024 Adopted Operating Budget
• Fox 6 Milwaukee: 2024 Milwaukee County budget signed; property tax cut coming
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signs 0.4% sales tax increase
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: Wisconsin Revenue Deparment Milwaukee County property tax levies
• Wisconsin Watch: Does Milwaukee County have the highest sales tax in Wisconsin?
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signs 0.4% sales tax increase
• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: Property Tax Level in Wisconsin

Have major Milwaukee County taxes generally increased under David Crowley? 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.

Both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Wisconsin Senate have said of their efforts to win control of the chamber that their candidates are staying focused on issues close to home. However, this week the focus of the race for the 17th Senate District turned to a country 6,000 miles away: China.

The race in Wisconsin’s 17th Senate District, a key district that will help determine control of the body, pits Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), the incumbent in the race, against Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon), a two-term state representative. Marklein was first elected to the seat in 2014 after serving two terms in the Assembly and has served for the last two sessions as the co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which drafts the state budget.

The subject of China entered the race when the Jacobson campaign began running an ad last week that claimed Marklein had “invested thousands of dollars in Chinese corporations” while voting against a “measure that would have made Wisconsin buy more American made products.” The ad displays an image of Marklein’s face beside the Chinese flag. 

“While Marklein was making money off of his Chinese investments, he was stealing money from American workers like me,” a man dressed as a construction worker says in the ad. “Someone who sold us out like that should never be in the state Senate.” 

The ad led to Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), head of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, to call a press conference to defend Marklein Tuesday. Testin called the ad “deceptive” and a “sick smear campaign.”

Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center, told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email that it’s “quite unusual for China or another other foreign country to be much of an issue in a campaign for a state legislative seat.” 

Burden said the “focus on China in the 17th district is a kind of proxy for other issues,” including concerns about politicians “enriching themselves unethically because of investments” as well as worries about the construction of new data centers that some Wisconsinites see as drain on resources and harmful to the environment in addition to being related to U.S. AI developers’ competition with China. 

The ad, however, is seeking to tie some of Marklein’s prior reported investments to his lack of support for a Democratic bill in 2013 that would have required state and local contracts to give preference to materials manufactured in the United States.

Wisconsin public officials and candidates are required to file a Statement of Economic Interests under state law to disclose financial relationships and prevent conflicts of interest. 

According to his 2022 statement of economic interest, Marklein had over $50,000 in a WisdomTree Emerging Markets Fund as well as between $5,000 and $50,000 in investments in the JPMorgan Emerging Markets Fund. According to Sofi, investing in emerging market funds means owning shares in companies from India, Brazil, South Africa and China with the latter representing a large portion of many emerging market index funds.

Marklein’s most recent statement of economic interest included no emerging market funds.

In his press conference defending Marklein, Testin appeared to think the ad was related to investments made through the Wisconsin Retirement System, saying Jacobson, and every state employee, has similar investments. (The Wisconsin Retirement System is not prohibited from making investments in businesses in China, though Republicans have proposed barring the State of Wisconsin Investment Board from doing so in the past.)

Testin said Jacobson was “trying to be tough on foreign adversaries now that it might be politically beneficial for her.” 

“The truth is that Jacobson could have spent months standing up to our nation’s adversaries like China, but when she had the opportunity to support meaningful legislation that would protect Wisconsin from foreign influence, she voted no,” Testin said, referring to bills that would have restricted business with China. 

Testin proposed and Marklein co-authored a bill that would have barred Wisconsin agencies from contracting with certain foreign businesses, including China. Two other bills would have prohibited China from buying Wisconsin land and prohibited the University of Wisconsin system from providing study abroad and research there.

“Jacobson has no backbone, only a slick eye for political gain. She’s quick to point a finger at people like Sen. Marklein when it benefits her, but when she has the chance to help Wisconsin, she’s only interested when there could be gains for her,” Testin said. 

Jacobson voted against the two bills that passed the Assembly. Both were vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers. The issue has also come up in the race for governor, with Republican candidate Tom Tiffany saying he would have signed at least one of those bills as governor.

Burden said connecting politicians to China could “tarnish” their reputations. According to a Nov. 2025 Marquette Law School Poll, 65% of Americans held an unfavorable view of China and its leader, President Xi Jinping, while 19% said they had a favorable view of China. 

Burden said of Jacobson’s ad that “a connection to Marklein’s potential support for Chinese businesses and government is a way for her to point out to voters without a strong partisan preference why he should be defeated.”

Will Karcz, a spokesperson for the State Senate Democratic Committee, said in a statement to the Examiner that the ad was meant to provide voters in the 17th with “the truth of Howard Marklein’s personal foreign investment history.”

“Howard has repeatedly voted against protecting Wisconsin manufacturing while cashing in on tens of thousands of dollars he invested in Chinese-owned corporations,” Karcz said. “He got rich on the backs of Wisconsin workers. Jenna Jacobson is running to make Wisconsin stronger while Howard has spent the last 10 years putting his bottom line ahead of his constituents.” 

Whether the message resonates with voters is unclear. 

Todd Allbaugh, a former Republican who grew up in Richland Center and formerly worked for Sen. Dale Schulz, told the Examiner in an interview that he was confused when he saw the ad about a week ago. He lives in Madison, but still has family in the district. 

“I’ve seen this ad now probably somewhere around 20-ish times. It was baffling,” Allbaugh said. He said he didn’t understand what it was trying to get at until he looked it up using Claude, the AI assistant developed by Anthropic. “If you have to go to Claude to figure it out, it probably isn’t a really effective ad.”

Allbaugh acknowledged that Marklein has some advantages in the race given his status as an incumbent. Marklein won his 2022 race with 60% of the vote, though the district has changed considerably under the new maps. It now represents Iowa, Lafayette, Green, Crawford and Grant counties as well as parts of Dane County. 

“I know the 17th Senate District pretty much like the back of my hand because it’s home,” Allbaugh said. “With the newly drawn maps it’s certainly become more competitive for Democrats, probably the most competitive in a very long time.” 

Allbaugh said that he thinks Marklein is “scared for his political life,” as he is suddenly running in a competitive district and that can be seen in his campaign. One of Marklein’s recent ads positioned him as a bipartisan “bridge builder” and as “your man in the middle” and highlighted tax cuts that have been made while he’s been in office as well as some investments that have been made into local EMS and into the Lone Rock Bridge, which opened this year after two years of construction. 

In Allbaugh’s opinion, Jacobson’s campaign should focus on local issues that Marklein has had some say over. He noted the closure of the UW-Platteville Richland Center campus and the UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County campus that have happened while Marklein has chaired the Joint Finance Committee as well as the struggle that public schools in the district have had. 

“I think she’s a super strong candidate. She’s affable. She is enormously more likable and connects to people better than Howard Marklein, and I would if I were advising them, which I’m not, I would lean into that,” Allbaugh said. “Be authentic instead of listening to consultants with boilerplate things that they’re using in the other races. It doesn’t seem like a smart use of money when there are so many more easily understood issues that are particular to the 17th Senate District.”

Jacobson’s economic statement of interest from 2022 and 2024 does not list any emerging market funds.

Her 2024 statement lists an investment in the American Funds The New Economy Fund. According to the Capital Group website, it is mainly invested in the U.S. though it has a mix of investments abroad. About 15% of the fund is in Asia, including China.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, is skipping multiple debates with his Democratic rival, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. 

Asked why he decided to break the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s 36-year streak of hosting gubernatorial candidate debates, Tiffany said, “We agreed to do one debate. In my experience in Congress as well as the state Legislature, doing one debate is sufficient.”

That’s absurd. In this high-stakes election, as Wisconsinites confront skyrocketing costs, healthcare cuts, struggling public schools, questions about election integrity, the threats posed by artificial intelligence and data centers, among many other issues, a single one-hour forum hosted by WISN on Oct. 21 cannot possibly cover their concerns in depth.

Another planned debate, hosted by the Milwaukee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, featuring questions gathered from mayors and community leaders around the state, was also called off this week after Tiffany indicated he would not participate.

The jilted hosts expressed their dismay in a joint statement, saying they are “deeply disappointed” and hope that the next governor will take seriously the local government issues the candidates will not be discussing on the debate stage Oct. 8.

The loss of these debates means Wisconsinites won’t have the opportunity to get answers to real people’s questions. Instead, they’ll have to settle for scripted talking points and millions of dollars in depressing negative ads.

The moderator of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association debate, journalism professor Jill Geisler, has for years helped gather questions that are important to voters in different parts of the state. “We had someone who came from a community that had been using bottled water because of PFAS … we had someone asking about climate change’s effect on the wild rice harvest in Wisconsin,” she says, recalling some recent debate questions.

“I do think that we’re living in a more siloed era where people prefer to speak through the channels that they know are friendliest to them,” says Geisler, a professor at Loyola University Chicago. “I think what I worry about is that people think of truly well researched debates, you know, where people are asking researched questions, evidence-based questions, that that’s some kind of gotcha trap, and it’s not, you know, it is simply not that.”

The WBA team had already been hard at work planning the debate logistics and gathering issues important to local communities across the state when the debate was canceled. Before every debate, a point person does copious research on each topic, its history, legal background and the candidates’ positions and voting records. “Then we lock up for the last two days to workshop the questions,” Geisler says. After the debate, WBA publishes its questions online with links so people can read more about the issues. “We put all that out there because we think that we can’t cover it all in an hour,” Geisler says. “And people might want to do their own research, but they could see what we used.”

The broadcasters and the local government officials who were painstakingly putting together questions were planning to ask the candidates not just what they have to say about hot-button issues, but what specifically each would do as governor to address SNAP cuts, rural hospital closures, the childcare shortage and other urgent matters confronting Wisconsinites.

All of this serious, in-depth discussion has now been lost.

As President Donald Trump’s approval numbers crash and once-safe Republican congressional districts appear to be in play, Tiffany might want to avoid tough questions about his record of supporting Trump between 93% and 100% of the time while in Congress.

He seems to be leaning on an ad campaign to recast himself from MAGA warrior to folksy midwestern moderate, while relying on his supporters to attack his opponent. 

“In Wisconsin and other states, it is more often Republicans than Democrats who avoid debates,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. “There are sometimes exceptions, as when Mandela Barnes resisted doing more than one debate with Ron Johnson in the 2022 Senate race, but it tends to be GOP candidates who are distrustful of journalists or being they have something to lose by taking part.” 

“The irony is that candidates who lost probably could have helped themselves with additional debates,” Burden adds. “Barnes’ narrow loss to Johnson might have been turned into a victory had there been another debate or two. Tiffany is currently trailing in the polls and might also benefit from more face time and opportunities to question his opponent.”

While Crowley is slightly ahead in the latest polls, Tiffany is outspending his Democratic rival on advertising by a margin of  3-to-1, according to J.R. Ross of WisPolitics. Republicans and the outside groups that support them are outspending Democrats by more than $8 million. 

Even that huge financial advantage might not be enough to help Tiffany overcome his record of voting for and defending Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, his support for the U.S. military entanglement in Iran and all the other Trump policies dragging down Republican politicians across the U.S.  

It will be interesting, in the single candidate debate next month, if the candidates are pressed to talk about data centers and Flock cameras — two issues where Tiffany has, interestingly, moved to capture some of the energy that animated supporters of Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist candidate Crowley narrowly defeated at the end of the chaotic Democratic primary. Crowley has not taken as strong a stance as Hong opposing either AI data centers or Flock surveillance. Tiffany’s position sounds more assertive, but his record is complicated, since he voted for Trump’s ban on AI regulation in Congress and seems more concerned with blocking wind and solar development that might fuel data centers than the data centers themselves. On Flock, it would be interesting to hear him square his support for local law enforcement with his proposal that local government be forbidden from using state revenue for Flock contracts. 

None of those nuances are going to get much airtime. Instead we will have the barrage of political advertising by shady groups, featuring grainy images and ominous music, shedding more darkness than light. 

“To have something that isn’t about sloganeering … to try to have civil discourse … I think that’s what we’ll have less of,” says Geisler.

For most of us that’s a big loss.

With less than 50 days before the midterm elections, national figures and groups of both parties have increased their attention on Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, where incumbent Republican Rep. Bryan Steil is running against former VA hospital nurse Mitchell Berman. 

The focus on the 1st CD race comes as the national map of competitive congressional districts has expanded with Democrats increasingly challenging Republicans in areas where President Donald Trump won handily in 2024. A national Marquette Law School poll of likely voters released earlier this week found that Democrats are leading on a generic ballot by 13 points. 

Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., is spending heavily in a number of districts that Trump won by more than 5 points two years ago, The New Republic reported Thursday, signaling that Republicans are being forced to devote resources to defending previously safe seats. 

In Wisconsin, Trump’s PAC plans to spend $90,000 boosting Steil and just $21,000 boosting U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, the New York Times reported. The 3rd CD has previously been one of the most hotly contested seats in the country. 

On Tuesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that it was adding Berman to its “Red to Blue” program, signaling a coming influx of national financial and infrastructure support. 

“Wisconsinites in the First Congressional District are tired of Bryan Steil’s votes to make life more expensive for working people while also ensuring that he, his wealthy donors, and Donald Trump can enrich themselves,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Rachel La Due said in a statement. “Mitchell Berman joining the DCCC’s ‘Red to Blue’ program shows what Wisconsinites have seen for years: Bryan Steil has failed to stand up for working families, work to lower costs, or make healthcare more accessible.”

Since Trump’s return to office, Steil has regularly been involved in high profile political efforts, including as one of the lead authors of the bill, championed by Trump, to implement strict national voter ID requirements. 

Steil was first elected in 2018 following the retirement of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Republicans have won the district by large margins in every congressional election since 1998. 

In 2018, with the seat open for the first time in more than two decades, the DCCC supported Randy Bryce’s run against Steil. Steil still won that race by more than 12 points — in a year in which Democrats won back control of the House nationally. The 1st CD has not been represented by a Democrat since Peter Barca in 1995. 

Zach Bannon, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said in a statement that Berman’s campaign is “out of touch” with voters in the district. 

“Liberal activist Mitchell Berman is completely out of touch with southeast Wisconsin, pushing a radical far-left agenda that puts politics ahead of common sense,” Bannon said. “While Berman marches in lockstep with the extreme left, Congressman Bryan Steil continues delivering real results for hardworking Wisconsin families.”

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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the northern Wisconsin Republican running for governor in the Nov. 3 election, has rarely diverged from supporting President Donald Trump since Trump began his second term in January 2025.

UCLA/Voteview found Tiffany’s support for Trump at 93% in 2025 House of Representatives votes. 

Congressional Quarterly put it at 99%.

Two other ratings put Tiffany’s support at 100%.

The methodologies varied on the number of votes reviewed. 

In 2026, Tiffany’s votes supporting Trump included opposing a measure that would have blocked Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran. Tiffany also backed Trump in voting against a bill to provide aid to Ukraine and sanction Russia.

On statements, Tiffany diverged from Trump in August. Tiffany said he opposed moves to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” and import cheaper ground beef. 

In September, he supported Trump’s proposed $5,000 “dividend.”

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• UCLA/Voteview: Presidential Support Scores
• Congressional Quarterly: 2025 Presidential Support Scores — House
• Center for American Progress Action Fund: The Trump Scorecard: How Often Members of Congress Vote With the Trump Administration
• VoteHub: Is Your Member of Congress Aligned with Trump?
• Washington Post: How every House member voted on blocking Trump from striking Iran
• Legisletter: Tom Tiffany
• BBC: House Republicans break with Trump again to approve Ukraine aid
• Associated Press: As midterm elections approach, Republican candidates weigh how closely to align with Trump
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin's GOP U.S. lawmakers split on Trump's $5,000 midterm checks

Has Tom Tiffany supported Donald Trump’s positions the vast majority of the time? 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.

Another planned debate between Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has been canceled as Tiffany declines to participate in more than one debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election. 

The planned debate was jointly sponsored by the Milwaukee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, TMJ4 and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was to be held at the UW-Milwaukee campus. 

“We are deeply disappointed that scheduling did not work out to make this happen,” the organizations said in a statement. “We hope that Wisconsin’s next governor will make local government a significant focus of his administration.” 

TMJ4 reporter Charles Benson said in a post on X that Tiffany had indicated he would only do one debate and Crowley was not available for the original date proposed by the channel, though his team was interested in finding another date for the debate. 

This is the second debate to be canceled after Tiffany declined to participate. The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, which has hosted gubernatorial debates since 1990, canceled its proposed debate two weeks ago. Tiffany told conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell that he didn’t agree to the debate because he thought one debate was sufficient. 

“I had no time. There was lots of negotiations going on behind the scenes,” Tiffany said. “One debate is sufficient to be able to cover the issues that need to be covered.”

Crowley’s campaign manager Garren Randolph said in a statement that Crowley was looking forward to the debate. He criticized Tiffany, saying he is “refusing more debates because he doesn’t want to face voters and answer tough questions about his record of supporting an endless war that’s resulting in record high gas and diesel costs, as well as voting for every single one of Donald Trump’s tariffs that are crushing Wisconsin farmers and manufacturers, and driving up costs on everything from groceries to the new shoes parents are trying to buy for their kids as they go back to school.”

The Examiner has reached out to the Tiffany campaign for comment. 

Both candidates plan to participate in an Oct. 21 debate hosted by WISN-12. It will be moderated by WISN-12 reporters Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan and will cover topics including cost of living, taxes, immigration enforcement, data centers and election security.

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A plane carrying Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany was forced to make an emergency water landing in Wausau Saturday night.

Tiffany, who represents Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, said the small aircraft lost power during its final approach for landing at the Wausau Downtown Airport.

During a press conference at the Wausau Fire Department Sunday, Tiffany said he believes the pilot, Leonard Boltz, attempted to restart the plane, but was unsuccessful.

“At that point, he just said, ‘Hang on, Tom, and buckle up because we’re going to go down,’” Tiffany told reporters. “It was just real shortly after that, I would guess 10 seconds, we hit the water.”

Boltz landed the plane in the middle of Lake Wausau on the Wisconsin River, according to information shared by the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office.

Tiffany said he lost his phone in the crash, but Boltz was able to call 911. He estimates they stood on top of the sinking plane for roughly 10 minutes, before beginning to swim toward shore. He said they discovered a sandbar after 150 feet and were able to wait there for emergency responders.

The sheriff’s office reported dispatchers received the call at 8:49 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters from the Wausau Fire Department rescued the two men using an airboat around 9:05 p.m.

Tiffany credited Boltz for pulling up the landing gear before hitting the water, which he said likely kept the plane from cartwheeling and may have saved their lives. He estimates the plane was going around 70 miles per hour at the time of the crash. 

“It was quite a night, quite a day, and (I’m) just grateful for the Lord for sparing us to see another day,” said Tiffany, who became emotional when speaking to reporters Sunday.

Tiffany and the pilot were the only people aboard the aircraft. Both were transported to Aspirus Wausau Hospital with minor injuries.

Tiffany said he received 12 stitches to close a laceration in his eyebrow after his head hit the dashboard. The pilot also sustained minor injuries. Both men were released from the hospital Saturday night.

The congressman repeatedly thanked the Wausau Fire Department and other first responders for their quick rescue.

He said the incident would not keep him from continuing his campaign for governor, adding that he planned to be back on the campaign trail Monday.

“I signed up for this job. We’re going to finish the job,” Tiffany told reporters.

An investigation into the loss of power on the Beechcraft K35 airplane will be handled by the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.

The aircraft remained in Lake Wausau, according to a statement from the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office. Officials asked boaters to avoid the area and use caution until crews can remove the plane.

David Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor, wrote on X that he is grateful that no one was hurt in what he called a “horrifying incident.”

Airport manager praises pilot for ‘awesome flying’

John Chmiel, Wausau Downtown Airport manager, was among those to survey the waterlogged plane on Sunday morning.

Chmiel noted aircraft incidents like this are incredibly uncommon.

“You think about it, in your community there’s probably multiple car accidents a day,” he said. “In the United States of America, there are less than a half dozen (aircraft incidents) a day in the entire USA, so that kind of puts things in perspective.”

Chmiel said the pilot – in his opinion – had done everything right in identifying the area for the plane to land and guiding it into the water, especially after the sun had gone down.

“Which was a very difficult maneuver to execute safely,” Chmiel said. “And he was able to actually retract the landing gear, so he would have a better result of landing on the water.”

He’s also a pilot and owns Wausau Flying Service.

“Regardless of what happened leading up to the accident, once he knew he was committed to a water landing, he did every single thing right. It was awesome flying,” Chmiel said.

When asked by WPR if this is a normal procedure for an emergency, to look for a water landing, Chmiel said he’s always taught pilots to look for alternative landing areas.

“The beautiful thing about water is there typically isn’t obstructions or people or vessels in there that you have to worry about hitting,” he said. 

That said, actually pulling it off safely is its own art, he added.

“We spend our whole careers trying to prevent that from happening, and sometimes things slip through the Swiss cheese, as we call it,” he said.

When an aircraft accident happens at an airport, the process is different, Chmiel said. In this case, where the plane hit water off airport property – it wasn’t necessary for him to be involved, but he said he was Saturday night.

“It’s not a common occurrence, but we’re always prepared for it, if it does,” he said.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Tom Tiffany swims to safety after plane makes emergency lake landing 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.

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Wisconsin voters on Nov. 3 will decide whether to approve three Republican-led state constitutional amendments that GOP lawmakers say would limit government overreach and Democrats describe as unnecessary. 

The general election referendums would limit the governor’s use of the partial veto to raise taxes and fees, prevent the government from stopping religious gatherings during future emergencies and ban discrimination by state and local governments and public education institutions. 

To amend the state constitution, lawmakers must sign off on identical language during two consecutive two-year legislative sessions before putting the question to voters. Under Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Republicans have often turned to constitutional amendments as a way to advance their priorities without confronting the governor’s veto pen. 

State Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Hortonville, who led the ballot question on prohibiting government discrimination, said he sees a distinction between the types of issues addressed through legislation, which could reach the governor’s desk, and “fundamental” questions brought in a constitutional amendment. Murphy, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2012, is not running for reelection this year. 

“There are lots of things that I would do that Tony Evers would have vetoed. There are very few things that I would bring as a constitutional amendment to try to get around that,” Murphy said. “I’m glad that I can take this to the people for a signing rather than to Gov. Evers because I think the people will support this, but I think he maybe would have vetoed it.” 

Including the three this year, GOP lawmakers have put 12 constitutional amendments to voters during Evers’ nearly eight years as governor. Voters have approved seven of them. Nearly 63% of voters approved the most recent referendum in April 2025 on requiring photo identification to vote. 

Evers is encouraging voters to reject the Republican-led referendums. 

“I think they’re all frankly off base, and I’m encouraging people to say no,” Evers told Wisconsin Watch. “I mean, if we want our legislators to look like that and do stupid things like that, then vote yes. But I think most people are fine with what it is.” 

Milwaukee County executive and Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley is also splashing cold water on the amendments. He said he would “absolutely not” vote for the governor’s veto amendment. He said the DEI amendment threatens government efforts to help older adults, veterans, people with disabilities and “individuals of all races, genders and religions.” On the amendment to allow religious gatherings during emergencies, he said “under extreme circumstances, leaders must make difficult decisions for the greater good of our state.”

“But let’s be clear: This is a bad faith argument from far-right extremists to distract from the fact they caused an affordability crisis for Wisconsin families,” Crowley said.

Republican nominee and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said he plans to support all three questions. 

“No governor, Republican or Democrat, should have unchecked power to raise taxes or fees with the stroke of a pen, especially for the next 400 years. While David Crowley wants to preserve that power, I support ending it regardless of who holds the governor’s office,” Tiffany said. “I also support constitutional protections for places of worship. Our constitutional rights should never be conditional, and our government should never be allowed to discriminate.” 

Here is what you need to know about the three constitutional amendments. 

The governor’s partial veto

Text on the ballot: “Shall section 10 (1) (c) of article V of the constitution be amended to prohibit the governor, in exercising his or her partial veto authority, from creating or increasing or authorizing the creation or increase of any tax or fee?”

The background: Republicans advanced this question as a constitutional amendment after Evers used his veto pen during the 2023-25 budget to raise school revenue limits by $325 a year for the next 400 years. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority in 2025 sided with Evers in a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the 400-year veto. 

Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, who led the ballot question through the legislative process, said voter approval will reset the separation of powers between the Legislature, the executive branch and the courts. 

“It’s always about separation of powers,” Kapenga said in an interview. “This is a mechanism put in place specifically for this reason, so that if we feel that those other two branches breached their authority in that separation, we say we’re going to go directly to the people and let them make that decision.”

Republicans running for office this year have claimed incorrectly that the veto raises property taxes for the next 400 years. The veto actually raises annual revenue limits, not a specific tax or fee.

The revenue limit caps how much school districts can receive in revenue from a combination of general state aid and property taxes. Local school boards decide how much property taxes to raise and are not required to levy the maximum allowed amount, though historically most have. Under the revenue limit, the Legislature and governor can reduce local property taxes by significantly increasing general state aid to schools, but that rarely happens.

What groups support it?: Groups including the Wisconsin Property Taxpayers, Americans for Prosperity, the Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce all registered in support of the resolution during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions. 

Who is opposed?: State lobbying records show the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, and the League of Women Voters registered in opposition to the question. 

Crowley told reporters in August he would be willing to use the partial veto if elected. 

“They want to eliminate the power of the governor, and so what they’re trying to do is just rig the system,” Crowley said. “This is not about rigging the system. This is about listening directly to constituents and figuring out how we can deliver on their behalf.” 

Gathering in places of worship during emergencies 

Text on the ballot: “Shall section 18 of article I of the constitution, which deals with religious liberty, be amended to prohibit the state or a political subdivision of the state from ordering the closure of, or forbidding gatherings in, places of worship in response to a state of emergency, including a public health emergency?”

The background: When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Wisconsin, the Evers administration’s “Safer at Home” order limited what businesses and activities could remain open in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. 

The order limited religious gatherings to fewer than 10 people. It categorized liquor stores as essential businesses allowed to remain open, which state Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, said sent a bad message to Wisconsinites.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, under a conservative majority at the time, struck down Evers’ “Safer at Home” order. But Tusler, who led the question during the 2025 session, said a constitutional amendment would prevent the government from controlling people’s access to places of faith in the future.

“Many of us, you know, dedicate our entire lives toward our faith, and in a situation like COVID, there’s a lot of fear, and there’s a lot of uncomfort, and there’s a lot of strangeness, things we’re not used to,” Tusler told Wisconsin Watch. “When we’re in a situation like that, people of faith need their faith at that moment more than ever, and to deprive people of it is a particularly heinous sin that our government shouldn’t commit.” 

What groups support it? Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Family Action, Inc. registered in support of the ballot language during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions. 

Who is opposed?: The League of Women Voters opposed the constitutional amendment, according to state lobbying records.

“Closing places of worship does not prevent any person from worshipping God, as such worship can and is practiced on an individual basis in one’s own home during an emergency,” the organization wrote. 

Prohibiting DEI in government

Text on the ballot: “Shall section 27 of article I of the constitution be created to prohibit governmental entities in the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting, or public administration?”

The background: Murphy, the Republican state representative from Hortonville, said the idea for the ballot question stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, which found considering race in admissions to higher education institutions is unconstitutional. Murphy said he saw an opportunity for a broader question that covered discrimination and giving preferential treatment to certain populations across all levels of government and education. 

“I’m just very much of a supporter of the idea that when people put government in charge of something, they want it to be the best it can be,” Murphy said. “One of the ways to do that is not to put a bunch of things that get in the way of picking based on merit.” 

Responding to criticism that the referendum could end programs that help disadvantaged groups in Wisconsin, Murphy said governments and schools can continue those efforts as long as everyone is able to participate.

“People that are disadvantaged are disadvantaged,” Murphy said. “If programs help disadvantaged people, then they will still be helped. It can’t exclude anybody.”

What groups support it? The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty won a case before the state Supreme Court, which found an undergraduate financial aid program for minority students was unconstitutional.

The case was decided unanimously by the liberal-controlled court, though liberal justices broke from conservatives to point out that the country’s history of racial discrimination continues to be entrenched in societal outcomes. The case advanced to the court as lawmakers were considering putting the constitutional amendment before voters.

The conservative law firm registered in support for the constitutional amendment during the legislative process. WILL Managing Vice President and Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said the referendum will “end discriminatory DEI programs throughout Wisconsin and ensure our government serves all citizens equally.” 

Who is opposed?: Opponents have claimed the amendment would limit opportunities for disadvantaged groups. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters opposed the constitutional amendment during the legislative process, according to lobbying records. 

The League said the amendment intends “to weaken the individual rights and liberties of Americans who have been guaranteed protection by the Civil Rights laws of our country.”

Learn more about the three Wisconsin constitutional amendments on the Nov. 3 ballot 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.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley vowed Monday to pass a slate of measures to cut down on corruption in government with proposals he said would prevent elected and public officials from profiting from their positions. 

Crowley, who is running against Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, said he would include the policy items in the upcoming state budget if elected governor. Election Day is Nov. 3.

“State elected officials… are there to serve the public to do a public service, not to just sit in public office. They are there to use their offices to help people. That could be anything from helping get a pothole filled to securing legislation for a new healthcare facility,” Crowley said during a press conference outside the state Capitol. “It should not be a vehicle to get rich by gaming the system. We see that running rampant in Washington right now, while Wisconsinites are facing higher costs on everything from gas to groceries to their health care.”

Crowley said the proposals would demand transparency and accountability from elected officials in the face of Congress not taking similar steps.

Two of the proposals would seek to bar politicians from being able to make money from knowledge they acquire through their public work. Crowley wants to ban politicians from trading individual stocks and require public officials who already own stocks to place then in a mutual or index fund or blind trust so they don’t have specific knowledge of the individual stocks they own. Another proposal would prohibit elected officials from participating in prediction markets and prohibit public employees from using insider government knowledge to personally profit.

“Prediction markets should be used for things like sports — not profiting off of our politics,” Crowley said. “Our political system is already overrun with dark money from billionaires. We don’t need to give them or others any reason to make more money off of their money by trying to further influence our elections.”

Crowley also said he would seek to prohibit members of the Public Service Commission from working for utility or energy companies for two years after leaving office. PSC commissioners are responsible for regulating public utilities including electricity, natural gas, water and telecommunications. 

Wisconsin law currently only bars former commissioners from testifying before the PSC for a year after leaving office. 

Crowley said he wasn’t worried the restriction would discourage prospective commissioners. The governor is responsible for choosing appointees to the Public Service Commission and appointees are subject to confirmation by the state Senate. 

Crowley did not point to any specific examples, but said the proposal is meant to prevent conflicts of interest. 

The final policy would prohibit the deletion of documents and correspondence by state legislators. 

Lawmakers in Wisconsin have had an exemption since 1961 from a law that requires a broad array of public officials to keep their records of communication and other official documents related to their work. The exemption allows legislators to delete emails and destroy records as long as they have not yet been requested under the public records law. 

Crowley said changing this will ensure that “journalists, the courts and most importantly you, the public, can see how their elected officials are or are not serving them.” 

Outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic lawmakers have previously sought to close the loophole, though the proposals have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“We have seen lawmakers try to hide how they spend taxpayer dollars on things that absolutely in no shape or form serve the public,” Crowley said.

Crowley said the proposals would help restore trust in the government. 

“We need these laws on the books because the system as it is today does not work for working Wisconsin families,” Crowley said. “They see politicians across the state and in Washington doing better than them. They’re doing fine, and in many cases, they’re thriving, and how can that be when diesel right here in the state of Wisconsin is nearly $6 a gallon?… It’s because of legalized corruption.”

Tiffany said in a statement that he has not traded any stocks while serving in Congress. He said he agreed there should be strong policies implemented to “to root out fraud and corruption at every level of government” but said he would go further than Crowley. 

“We should modernize OpenBook Wisconsin so taxpayers can easily search how their money is being spent, set clear response-time standards for open records requests, create agency dashboards that disclose contractors and violations, and strengthen ethics rules to prevent legislators from subcontracting for lobbying entities. As governor, I’ll also audit all of state government to uncover waste, fraud and corruption and make sure taxpayers are getting the results they deserve,” Tiffany said.

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

It took mere minutes for conspiracy theorists to seize on a Milwaukee election error after the August primary, when officials initially forgot to extract election results from five of the city’s nine absentee ballot tabulators. They lobbed baseless accusations that election officials had switched votes or otherwise tampered with the results.

But audit logs from those five tabulators show no evidence of tampering between the time officials initially left the facility and returned again to correctly extract results, experts told Votebeat.

“I don’t see a ‘there’ there,” said Duncan Buell, a chair emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina who has been analyzing election data and voting systems since 2010.

Ryan Macias, an election consultant who previously worked for the arm of the Election Assistance Commission that certifies voting machines, agreed there were “no signs or evidence that anything was done outside the norm” between the initial error and the successful extraction of the results.

More than three weeks after the primary election, city officials released audit logs from all nine tabulators to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the public on Sept. 4. The files detail every action on the nine Milwaukee tabulators used to count absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 election.

On each of the five affected tabulators, the logs tell the same story: Officials mistakenly selected “export audit log” instead of “export files” during the initial extraction, which happened between 10:15 p.m. and about 10:40 p.m. Then, officials locked the machines.

Officials began turning the machines back on at around 11:30 p.m., after they realized they had made a mistake. They extracted the correct files shortly after midnight. The audit logs show no ballots being scanned, votes being deleted, or that the data contained on the tabulators was manipulated in any way.

The error didn’t change the vote count at all. It just delayed election results by a couple hours.

When Macias first learned of the issue, he assumed that the problem was human error and would be resolved.

“Now, looking at the audit log, I can tell you with a 100% fact that what I assumed happened [is what] happened,” he said.

Other experts agreed.

Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, said she reviewed the audit logs with her team of experienced election experts.

“From what I see, those logs match the public account exactly,” she said.

“In the roughly two hours between those two exports, there’s no scanning or counting activity recorded in the logs on any of those five machines,” she said. “And just as importantly, the ballot counts on every machine match the officially reported.”

Conspiracy theories percolated well before Milwaukee released audit logs

Conspiracy theories about what may have transpired in Milwaukee on Election Day began circulating almost immediately after Milwaukee officials announced the mistake. Popular social media accounts questioned the credibility of election officials and others suggested that officials were directly involved in fraud.

Three days after the election, Votebeat requested the audit logs — the records that could show exactly what happened on the tabulators during the period conspiracy theorists were questioning. Milwaukee did not release them until Sept. 4, more than three weeks later, and after the Wisconsin Elections Commission also asked the city to make them public.

Experts said that delay was not unusual.

“Releasing audit logs — these machine logs — that’s not a typical part of the documentation that election offices normally produce,” Morrell said, adding that it’s likely that Milwaukee would have needed legal approval before releasing the logs. “The fact that they did make them public, I think that’s a responsible process — not a cover up.”

More important, she said, is that the officials retained the records in the first place.

“The fact that the log is there, the fact that these things are recorded should be seen as a positive even though it was slow for them,” she said. “I think the more concerning thing would be if the log just didn’t exist at all.”

Milwaukee plans better documentation for the future

In response to the error, Milwaukee election chief Paulina Gutiérrez outlined several changes meant to prevent similar problems.

Written instructions for extracting results will now include images showing election officials which options to select on screen, Gutiérrez said in a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Those instructions will also be made available to observers at the city’s absentee ballot facility.

Before the results are downloaded, she said, the extraction teams will be briefed on the process. As workers move through the steps, they will verbally identify each selection they make so other members of the team can confirm they have followed the correct procedure.

“In this instance, an error occurred during the results-download process,” she told the commission. “At the same time, the safeguards surrounding the election worked as intended: the discrepancy was identified, the underlying election results remained intact, the correct files were retrieved, and Milwaukee’s accurate election results were ultimately reported.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

It took mere minutes for conspiracy theorists to seize on a Milwaukee election error after the August primary, when officials initially forgot to extract election results from five of the city’s nine absentee ballot tabulators. They lobbed baseless accusations that election officials had switched votes or otherwise tampered with the results.

But audit logs from those five tabulators show no evidence of tampering between the time officials initially left the facility and returned again to correctly extract results, experts told Votebeat.

“I don’t see a ‘there’ there,” said Duncan Buell, a chair emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina who has been analyzing election data and voting systems since 2010.

Ryan Macias, an election consultant who previously worked for the arm of the Election Assistance Commission that certifies voting machines, agreed there were “no signs or evidence that anything was done outside the norm” between the initial error and the successful extraction of the results.

More than three weeks after the primary election, city officials released audit logs from all nine tabulators to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the public on Sept. 4. The files detail every action on the nine Milwaukee tabulators used to count absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 election.

On each of the five affected tabulators, the logs tell the same story: Officials mistakenly selected “export audit log” instead of “export files” during the initial extraction, which happened between 10:15 p.m. and about 10:40 p.m. Then, officials locked the machines.

Officials began turning the machines back on at around 11:30 p.m., after they realized they had made a mistake. They extracted the correct files shortly after midnight. The audit logs show no ballots being scanned, votes being deleted, or that the data contained on the tabulators was manipulated in any way.

The error didn’t change the vote count at all. It just delayed election results by a couple hours.

When Macias first learned of the issue, he assumed that the problem was human error and would be resolved.

“Now, looking at the audit log, I can tell you with a 100% fact that what I assumed happened (is what) happened,” he said.

Other experts agreed.

Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, said she reviewed the audit logs with her team of experienced election experts.

“From what I see, those logs match the public account exactly,” she said.

“In the roughly two hours between those two exports, there’s no scanning or counting activity recorded in the logs on any of those five machines,” she said. “And just as importantly, the ballot counts on every machine match the officially reported.”

Conspiracy theories percolated well before Milwaukee released audit logs

Conspiracy theories about what may have transpired in Milwaukee on Election Day began circulating almost immediately after Milwaukee officials announced the mistake. Popular social media accounts questioned the credibility of election officials, and others suggested that officials were directly involved in fraud.

Three days after the election, Votebeat requested the audit logs — the records that could show exactly what happened on the tabulators during the period conspiracy theorists were questioning. Milwaukee did not release them until Sept. 4, more than three weeks later, and after the Wisconsin Elections Commission also asked the city to make them public.

Experts said that delay was not unusual.

“Releasing audit logs — these machine logs — that’s not a typical part of the documentation that election offices normally produce,” Morrell said, adding that it’s likely that Milwaukee would have needed legal approval before releasing the logs. “The fact that they did make them public, I think that’s a responsible process — not a cover-up.”

More important, she said, is that the officials retained the records in the first place.

“The fact that the log is there, the fact that these things are recorded should be seen as a positive even though it was slow for them,” she said. “I think the more concerning thing would be if the log just didn’t exist at all.”

Milwaukee plans better documentation for the future

In response to the error, Milwaukee election chief Paulina Gutiérrez outlined several changes meant to prevent similar problems.

Written instructions for extracting results will now include images showing election officials which options to select on screen, Gutiérrez said in a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Those instructions will also be made available to observers at the city’s absentee ballot facility.

Before the results are downloaded, she said, the extraction teams will be briefed on the process. As workers move through the steps, they will verbally identify each selection they make so other members of the team can confirm they have followed the correct procedure.

“In this instance, an error occurred during the results-download process,” she told the commission. “At the same time, the safeguards surrounding the election worked as intended: The discrepancy was identified, the underlying election results remained intact, the correct files were retrieved, and Milwaukee’s accurate election results were ultimately reported.”

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.

Milwaukee audit logs show no evidence of election fraud, experts say 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.

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Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley gave final approval to a 2022 contract requested by the Sheriff’s Office and approved by the Board of Supervisors that provides communication tablets to county jail and House of Correction inmates.

Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor, also approved a three-year extension in 2025.

According to the Sheriff’s Office:

Generally all inmates can access tablets, which can be used for text messages. People who want to message with inmates must create an account. 

The tablets cannot access the internet. They can access the contractor’s  “intranet,” which includes entertainment and educational material.

The goal is to help inmates “stay connected to family, loved ones, and legal and support services,” the county executive’s office said.

The tablets became an issue in the gubernatorial campaign after a judge Aug. 28 raised questions about their use for witness intimidation, victim harassment and child pornography access. 

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Milwaukee County Legislative Information Center: File 21-1004
• Milwaukee County Legislative Information Center: File 250222
• Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office: Email
• Milwaukee County Executive's Office: Email
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tiffany said he would block violent inmates from electronic devices

Did David Crowley approve providing tablets to jail inmates? 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.

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It took until the early morning hours to call the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. When the counting ended at 3 a.m., Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley had beaten state Rep. Francesca Hong by fewer than 4,000 votes, closing a gap that public polling had put at double digits in Hong’s favor. Hong, a democratic socialist, made a moratorium on new AI data center construction a signature of her campaign. Crowley had a different data center answer: build, but make sure the data centers provide real benefits to surrounding communities.

The postmortems have treated the race as a proxy war between the party’s establishment and its left flank, which is certainly a theme. But it was also a statewide primary in which data centers became a defining issue, and it is worth asking why an issue that appears so popular at first glance was held by the candidate who underperformed at the polls. 

Dig beneath the surface, and the anti-data center position seems politically weaker. While national polling can’t explain the results of a statewide race, it suggests voters’ views on data centers may be more nuanced than a simple for-or-against debate. In the Rainey Center’s May national survey of 1,010 registered voters, data centers sat underwater, 29% favorable to 48% unfavorable, and the sharpest hostility was exactly where Hong was strong: 41% of very liberal voters held a very unfavorable view, the most intense opposition of any ideological group.

But when you look closer the picture changes. Black voters were the most favorable group in the electorate, 36% favorable to 30% unfavorable, with a third saying they were not sure. White voters ran 29% to 53%. None of this makes Black voters cheerleaders for AI, but it is a long way from the revolt a moratorium presumes, and the rest of the survey shows why. 

Hong’s dismissal of data centers excites populists, but most voters are interested in a more thorough understanding of the issue. It’s worth understanding what voters are actually worried about and how Crowley defused those concerns. In our polling, Black voters are most concerned that data centers will destroy jobs: 19% named AI destroying jobs as their top concern, and another 12% said the projects do not create enough permanent jobs. Jobs are justice, and Black voters want to see a data center policy that creates jobs in their communities. 

Unions, another key constituency that Democrats, particularly left-wing Democrats, claim to speak for, are standing on the opposite side of the activists on data centers. Unions understand that data centers are a source of blue-collar jobs that don’t require a college degree and can’t be outsourced.

And while data centers sound scary in the abstract, their impact can be enormously positive. Loudon County, home of more than 250 data centers, will see $1.3 billion in tax revenue next year from data centers, enough that property taxes have been slashed by 30% in the last decade. 

Data centers are still controversial, and advocates for America leading the world in technology will need arguments that persuade voters. The pro-data center coalition is unions, blue-collar workers, rural communities looking for economic development, and Black voters. Accountability can strengthen data center support with these voters and expand the coalition. 

Requiring data center operators to sign a community benefits agreement, committing to local hiring, infrastructure upgrades, and payments to the community before construction begins, drew 66% support overall and 60% to 14% among Black voters. And 61% want ratepayer protections, the industry pledge that data centers cover their own power costs, written into binding law.

Crowley has embraced the principles of Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge (though he would surely plead ignorance as to the policy’s provenance). He has said data center companies should cover the full cost of the grid upgrades they require, use union labor and sign community benefit agreements. His position aligns with Black voters, union voters and non-college voters who want jobs and accountability.

Rob Smith is a fellow at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a commentator on American public policy, culture, leadership, and national priorities. His work focuses on issues including energy independence, U.S. competitiveness and the policies shaping America’s future.

Devan Patel is the Visiting Fellow for Tech Ethics & Democracy at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a lawyer and political strategist focused on artificial intelligence, technology and public policy. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and has worked at the intersection of AI ethics, national security and democratic governance.

The Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, named for the first Black House member, is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank formed in 2018 to examine public policy issues. Its advocacy positions span the partisan divide.

Guest opinion: What Wisconsin’s Democratic primary reveals about data center politics 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.

Nearly 900 miles from the southwest corner of his district, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden appeared at President Donald Trump’s Dallas convention Wednesday afternoon to argue that the healthcare policies he and Trump have enacted are benefiting rural Wisconsinites. 

Van Orden represents Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District and his campaign against Democrat Rebecca Cooke is set to be one of the most hotly contested races in the country as Democrats seek to win back majority control of the House. 

During his two terms, Van Orden has been a staunch Trump ally, often taking a bombastic, confrontational tone and drawing criticism from opponents for his treatment of constituents. 

But onstage on Wednesday, as Republicans held a rare midterm convention while Trump’s approval rating plummets to record lows and Democrats express confidence they’ll win competitive races across the country, Van Orden and his fellow Republicans sought to sell a softer version of their record. 

“Whether you choose to live in a city or a village like my beautiful wife Sarah Jane and I do, you deserve high quality, readily available, and actually affordable healthcare,” Van Orden said. “You know who else knows this? Our great president Donald J. Trump. He is fighting to make quality healthcare a reality for everyday Americans.”

Last year, Van Orden voted for the Trump-signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In his speech, he said the bill, and the tax cuts it enacted, brought millions of dollars in funding for rural hospitals in Wisconsin. 

“This massive investment would not have been possible without President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cut Act,” Van Orden said. “And shamefully, shamefully, not one Democrat voted for it. So, from Washington to Wisconsin, Democrats spent months demonizing the tax cuts we delivered.” 

In fact, the bill made huge cuts to Medicaid, which for Wisconsin will result in losing $7 billion in federal healthcare funds over the next 10 years, an analysis by KFF found last year. In his speech, Van Orden also touted more than $200 million that will go to Wisconsin hospitals because of the law, but that is far less than those hospitals would have received without the Medicaid cuts. 

“I worked with President Trump and Republicans in Congress to level up our Medicaid assessments and bringing billions of dollars back to Wisconsin’s Badger Care program,” Van Orden said. “So these investments have made a real difference to real people all over rural America, including back home at Black River Falls Memorial Hospital. It’s where our awesome doctors can now spend less time worrying about the future of the hospital and more time taking care of their patients, who are their neighbors and that they love.”

An analysis conducted last year by the centrist think tank Third Way found that after the enactment of the Medicaid cuts, hospitals in Van Orden’s district are projected to lose more than $42 million in annual revenue. 

Van Orden has on several occasions gotten into arguments with constituents over the effect of the law and has falsely denied that Medicaid was cut. 

In a statement from her campaign, Cooke noted that Van Orden has never done a town hall in his district, but has time to join Trump in Texas.

“Derrick Van Orden still hasn’t done a single town hall with his constituents in West Central Wisconsin. And lies from Dallas can’t change his record: Derrick Van Orden watched rural hospitals in his district close,” Cooke said. “Then, he voted to cut $7 billion from Wisconsin’s health care so that those funds could go to tax breaks for data centers instead. Congressman Van Orden can continue to defend the Big Ugly Bill all he wants. Folks here in West Central Wisconsin see their health care costs going up and their doctors leaving town.”

Republican members of Congress who are attending the convention had to pay $25,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee to access a hotel room in the committee room block and tickets to the welcome reception. Paying up to $100,000 earned members additional perks, including breakfast with House leaders. Vulnerable members did not have to pay the five-figure fee, Axios reported. 

A spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin criticized Van Orden for attending a “lavish” Texas event rather than focusing on solving the problems of his constituents. 

“It should come as no surprise that D.C Derrick Van Orden decided to ditch his constituents to go bootlick an administration that is making life unbearably expensive for Wisconsinites,” the spokesperson, Haley King, said. “While Van Orden is out in another state trying to save his re-election campaign and promoting a delusional billionaire cosplaying as President, Wisconsin Democrats are meeting with voters and working to clean up the affordability crisis elected MAGA Republicans like Derrick Van Orden have created.”

A social media post from the Republican Party of Wisconsin showed that U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil and Glenn Grothman, and 7th Congressional District candidate Michael Alfonso, also traveled to Dallas for the convention. Only Van Orden, among Wisconsin Republicans, appeared on the program of speakers.

The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation has canceled its gubernatorial candidate debate planned for this month. 

The organization first announced that it planned to host an October debate between the Republican and Democratic nominees in April. It has hosted debates in the Wisconsin gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races since 1990.

Both Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic candidate, and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate, were invited to participate, but the debate has now been canceled since both candidates did not accept the invitation. Tiffany has said he was only agreeing to one debate because it is “sufficient” for the race.

“Based on legal precedent, for the foundation to air a debate, multiple candidates must participate. Two invitations were sent and both had to be accepted in order to have a debate,” WBA said in a statement. “That did not happen.”

Tiffany told conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell on Tuesday that he would likely only participate in one debate. 

“I had no time. There was lots of negotiations going on behind the scenes,” Tiffany said. “One debate is sufficient to be able to cover the issues that need to be covered.” 

According to WBAY, Crowley was planning to participate in the debate and said in a statement that he looked forward to “continuing the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s more than 30-year tradition of putting candidates directly before voters statewide.”

Both candidates have agreed to an Oct. 21 debate hosted by WISN-12. It will be moderated by WISN-12 reporters Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan and will cover topics including cost of living, taxes, immigration enforcement, data centers and election security.

Tiffany said that he watched how the reporters conducted the Democratic primary debate as well as others over his career in politics. 

“I think they are very fair and they set up for what appears to be a good [debate],” Tiffany said. “It’s only going to take one debate to get the information out there for the people of Wisconsin… I just always look for fairness in reporters.”

“We look forward to debating Congressman Tiffany on October 21 and speaking directly with Wisconsinites about why David Crowley is the right choice to deliver for working families and serve as a governor for all Wisconsinites,” the Crowley campaign said.

President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada is creating headaches for Republicans ahead of November’s midterms as high prices remain a top concern among voters.

Responding to Trump’s increased tariffs, Canadian officials have said they’re deliberately targeting goods from states where there are close elections. And GOP candidates in Kansas, Maine and Ohio among others have been forced to balance supporting Trump with defending local manufacturers.

Trump has repeatedly targeted Canada, traditionally a close American ally, since returning to the White House last year. But his August move to impose 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian imports has heightened tensions, pushing Canada to retaliate with its own tariffs on hundreds of American-made products that went into effect Tuesday.

Nearly $28 billion in U.S. exports to Canada now carry up to 50% tariffs, a dollar-for-dollar match on Trump’s taxes on Canadian goods imposed last month, according to Canadian officials. 

Trump has long argued that Canada is taking advantage of the United States because of a longstanding trade deficit — meaning more Canadian products are imported here than American products are exported to Canada.

“They don’t pay for anything, and they want to be treated like a state, but they’re not a state,” Trump said last month after trade talks fell apart.

The fallout could affect consumers and businesses across the country, but Canada targeted many of its tariffs to inflict political pain just ahead of the crucial U.S. midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. 

The trade standoff has put Republican candidates in a tough position with an electorate already fed up with high prices and underscores ongoing concerns about how federal trade policy will affect American business and state economies.

On Labor Day, Trump threatened to halt sales of the Canadian airplane manufacturer Bombardier, saying its planes weren’t good enough and the company was treating America as a “piggybank.”

That became immediate political fodder in Kansas, home to Bombardier’s U.S. headquarters and competitive races for governor and U.S. Senate this year. The company employs more than 1,000 people in Wichita, the state’s most populous city that calls itself the “Air Capital of the World” with a local economy dominated by aerospace and aviation manufacturing. 

Trump’s trade war with Canada escalates as new tariffs launch

The state’s senior Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran immediately defended Bombardier, as did Ty Masterson, the Republican nominee for governor and current state Senate president. But the issue has put pressure on the state’s junior Sen. Roger Marshall, a close Trump ally running for reelection in a competitive race. 

“We cannot allow this chaotic economic policy to continue to hurt Kansans; they deserve so much better. As your Senator, I will always stand up for Kansas workers,” the Democratic nominee in the race, Adam Hamilton, wrote on X Monday. 

On Tuesday, Marshall said he would fight to keep Bombardier’s jobs in Kansas, posting on social media, “I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office.” Marshall said he agreed with Trump’s aim of bringing more manufacturing jobs, particularly in Bombardier’s case because the company sells half its products in the United States.

Tariffs on Canadian and American goods are poised to especially hurt Northern and Midwestern states, according to an analysis from Oxford Economics. It identified North Dakota, Montana, Michigan, Illinois and Vermont as the states most likely to be affected because they trade the most with Canada. 

Minnesota State Auditor Julie Blaha, a Democrat, said the trade feud is just the latest federal move to push up costs for businesses, consumers and local governments. Her office oversees some $56 billion in local government spending through financial integrity audits and budget analyses. She said Minnesota cities and townships have had no choice but to raise property taxes as they encounter rising prices.

“It’s just one wave after another. And it’s piling up,” she said. “All these rising costs are just coming home to roost, and they’re hitting Main Street.”

Minnesota shares a 547-mile border with Canada. Blaha said the state’s crucial agricultural industry is especially threatened as businesses constantly send products back and forth for processing. She highlighted General Mills, the maker of well-known cereals, including Cheerios. The firm buys Canadian grain that is processed in Minneapolis before being distributed to domestic cereal plants and sold across the U.S. and Canada. 

Grain is not on Canada’s list of targeted products for retaliatory tariffs, but the country did enact new tariffs on agricultural equipment, dairy and other food products. 

“These tariffs have a bigger impact than just one just one hit on a price,” she said. 

Canada’s political pressure

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs were aimed at pressuring the White House by targeting certain states and industries.

“We’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure,” Canada’s Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said last week. 

Canadian data show countermeasures will hit Ohio harder than any other state, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Ohio is home to one of the most competitive Senate races this cycle as Republican Sen. Jon Husted defends his seat from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. 

Husted has largely defended Trump’s tariffs in the Senate. In an August interview with MS Now, he acknowledged the president’s decision-making was not in line with how he would negotiate, but declined to second guess Trump’s stance on Canada. 

Canadian tariffs to further raise prices, a top concern for voters

“It depends on how it ends,” the senator said. “If we get a good deal, both Canada and America can come out of this well, but it’s going to require both sides.”

Canada is Ohio’s biggest export market, sending $17.5 billion in goods across the border — roughly a third of the state’s total exports. More than half of the state’s exports to Canada come from the equipment and machinery and the transportation industries. Ohio is a leading producer of automobiles, an industry deeply affected by tariffs because of interconnected supply chains that span American, Canadian and Mexican factories. 

Trump’s tariff “decision is going to make it very difficult for folks in the automobile supply chain to be able to succeed in Ohio,” Rob Moore, principal at public policy firm Scioto Analysis, told the Ohio Capital Journal.

While Canada’s countermeasures were politically targeted, they will sweep across the country, affecting solidly conservative and liberal states. 

Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell, a Democrat, said the trade war will especially hurt New England states that trade more with Canada. He said the tariffs could raise prices of everything from electricity to consumer goods. 

Though tariffs will hit businesses and consumers first, Russell said they will eventually put more strain on local and state government budgets.

And the president’s on-and-off-again history with imposing and rescinding tariffs injects more uncertainty for both business and government, he said.

“Where things are right now, there isn’t any certainty or clarity around where this is ultimately going to land,” he said. “What is consistent through all of this is that consumers in Connecticut and all across the country are going to continue to pay for this tariff war.”

Concerns across New England states

The trade standoff could further hurt New England’s tourism industry that depends on steady Canadian traffic. 

In New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, tourism is big business year-round as travelers flock to beaches in the summer, leaf peeping in the autumn and skiing in the winter. Those businesses have suffered a drop in Canadian visitors amid Trump’s ongoing aggression with the country.

Steve Wright, general manager of Jay Peak Resort in Vermont’s Green Mountains, recently assured Canadians that they were welcome to the resort that sits just a few miles from the border and a roughly two-hour drive from Montreal.

“The border may feel different right now,” Wright wrote online. “We do not. You are our neighbors. You are our friends. You are part of this place.” 

Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott recently characterized the president’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America as “petty and disappointing.” Scott, who is favored in polls to win reelection in November, said the trade war harms communities on both sides of the border.

“Further escalating tensions does nothing to help American or Canadian families and businesses,” he added. 

In neighboring Maine, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has criticized the tariffs and urged the administration to resolve its dispute with Canada. A Republican in a competitive race for reelection, Collins grew up just 20 miles from the Canadian border. 

Troy Jackson, her Democratic opponent, has blamed Collins for not stopping Trump’s trade policies. 

Last week, Collins told reporters that the White House viewed tariffs in a macro sense without appreciating how damaging they are to border states such as Maine. Collins said Trump’s tariffs were already hurting local governments that rely on Canada for imported salt to treat roads in winter and could further hurt the state’s crucial lumber and blueberry industries.

While Maine’s important lobster industry was spared retaliatory tariffs, Canada did impose 50% tariffs on wood products and agricultural products. 

“Canada is not China. It is not an adversarial nation,” Collins said. “It is our closest ally, our neighbor, our friend. And our economy is so intertwined with Canada that I am very worried about what the impact will be.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.