From left, former Gov. Tommy Thompson and Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming speak to reporters after casting their Electoral College votes for President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday. (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin’s 10 Republican presidential electors — meeting officially Tuesday for the first time since 2016 — cast their votes shortly after 12 noon for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

Afterward, state GOP Chair Brian Schimming and former Gov. Tommy Thompson cheerfully asserted their party was on a roll and declared that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was in for a period of soul-searching after having been “completely captured by the left” and taken over by “elitists.”

“I don’t know if everybody realizes this as much as I do, but there’s been a complete transformation of the political parties — in the state of Wisconsin, across this country,” Thompson told a swarm of reporters who gathered in the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee meeting room on fourth floor of the state Capitol.

“The Republican Party is the party of the working man and woman,” Thompson said. “The Republican Party is the party of the downtrodden and the individuals that need help. The Democrat Party has become a party of elitists, and their policies show that. The Republican Party has been out there asking, what are the problems? What are the questions? Inflation, taxes, regulation. They’re also talking about how you can improve schools, education, and Republicans are there, front and center with ideas and answers, and the Democrats have been vacant. They’ve been vacuous in the last four years.”

The press gaggle followed a formal procedure in which each of the 10 electors signed six copies of the papers documenting Wisconsin’s Electoral College votes for Trump and Vance in 2024. The documents will be forwarded to Washington as part of the Congressional procedure in early January certifying the election results.  

In 2020, 10 Republicans also met in the Capitol and signed forms asserting that Trump, then the incumbent president, had  won Wisconsin’s electoral votes in that year’s presidential race. In fact, President Joe Biden had defeated Trump in Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes, and the state’s official electors were Democrats led by Gov. Tony Evers.

Legal ramifications of the Republicans’ 2020 false electors scheme are still playing out. In June, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony forgery charges against three people accused of developing the 2020 plan to have false slates of electors vote for Trump. The defendants had their first court appearance Dec. 12.

Asked his reaction to those latest charges, Thompson said Tuesday  prosecutors and the country should move on.

“Isn’t it about time to turn the page?” Thompson said. “I mean, we can fight over the election of 2020 for the next four years. What does it get us? Isn’t about time to say, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had a lot of differences. This is time to start trying to mend ways in solving America’s problems, Wisconsin’s problems.”

“No one is above the law — not lawyers for former presidents or elected officials themselves,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Sarah Abel in a statement responding to the GOP press conference. “We can’t move forward unless we learn from the mistakes of the past, and that includes holding accountable those who undermined our democracy and tried to overturn a free and fair election because they didn’t like the outcome.”

Schimming described the Republicans’ victories this year , in which they captured the White House, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, as evidence that the party connected with voters  outside as well as inside the GOP. And, he added, those voters remain enthusiastic supporters and volunteers who will power the party forward.

“As I travel across the state, the folks that we identified as Trump voters — not just Republicans, but a lot of people who were concerned about the direction of the country — are extremely motivated,” Schimming said.

“Donald Trump is the face of the Republican Party right now,” Thompson said. “We have control of the Congress and the presidency — we got to deliver to the American people,” he added. “It’s up to us now to show America that we’re going to be able to do it, and I’m confident we’re going to be able to do that without any doubt whatsoever.”

Abel pointed to the divided results in Wisconsin, in which Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin won reelection even as Trump was elected by a slim margin and Democrats picked up seats in the state Legislature, to reject the Republicans’ depiction of the outcome. 

“Let’s not pretend that the Republican Party has a monopoly over Wisconsin,” Abel said. “Neither party swept the state in 2024, and the GOP is grasping at straws as they see their grip on power here fading away. Wisconsin Democrats are built to last. We have a progressive identity that exists separately from the leader of our party — and Republicans can’t say the same.”

Thompson, who headed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, also stood by his previous endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to head the agency.

Kennedy has been widely criticized for anti-vaccine positions. On Dec. 9, dozens of Nobel laureates released a letter opposing Kennedy’s nomination because of his opposition to vaccines as well as to other public health measures.

Thompson said the suggestion that Kennedy harbored hostility toward vaccines is “misreading what he said,” adding, “I’m hoping what he said is not correct.” Kennedy’s past criticisms of vaccines included the “implied” question, “is that based upon science?” Thompson argued. “I think everything has got to be based on science.”

Thompson said he supported Kennedy because the nominee’s stated goals include improving Americans’ health, ensuring foods are healthier, “trying to make sure that all medicines are based upon science — who’s against that?” and that he favors speeding up the process of approving new drugs. “I’m in favor of all of those,” Thompson said, “and that’s why I support him.”

Asked about Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler’s campaign to head the national party, Thompson joked, “I’m going to contribute to it,” then later said Wikler “is a very good politician” whom he wished well.

Schimming called Wikler “obviously a talented guy,” but asserted that the party needed more dramatic change. “The Democratic Party has been completely captured by the left, and they can’t seem to figure out that that’s part of their problem,” he said. “And if they continue not figuring it out, that’s fine.”

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Update, Dec. 12, 2024: A federal judge dismissed the Republican Party of Wisconsin lawsuit on Thursday, saying there’s no controversy over the main issue in the case. Both the GOP and the defendants agree they should cast electoral votes for President-elect Donald Trump on Dec. 17, in compliance with a federal law, not the Dec. 16 date dictated under a state law.

Original story: The Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday to resolve a discrepancy between state and federal law directing when appointed presidential electors must meet to cast Electoral College votes.

State law requires presidential electors to meet on Dec. 16 this year, but a federal law passed two years ago calls for them to meet on Dec. 17. The state GOP is calling on a U.S. District Court of Western Wisconsin judge to enforce the federal requirement and strike the state one.

“The presidential electors cannot comply with both requirements,” the lawsuit states.

Resolving the current conflict is key to avoiding the state’s electoral votes getting challenged or contested in Congress, the state GOP states.

The lawsuit highlights the Legislature’s failure to pass a bill that would have brought Wisconsin in line with the new federal law. That inaction, the state GOP says, “led to the current conflict between the federal and state statutes.”

The lawsuit is filed against Gov. Tony Evers, Attorney General Josh Kaul and Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.

The GOP is asking for the federal court to declare the current state law requirement — for the electors to meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, as opposed to the federal law’s requirement to meet on the first Tuesday following the second Wednesday — unconstitutional and unenforceable. Given the tight timeline, it’s seeking a hearing “as soon as the Court’s calendar allows.”

Spokespeople for the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Evers declined to comment for this story. 

Generally, federal law supersedes state law if there’s a conflict between the two, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative. Under the current, conflicting laws, electors this year definitely have to meet on Dec. 17, but it’s less clear what they should do on Dec. 16, she told Votebeat in May.

The new designated day arose as a result of the new federal law, commonly called the Electoral Count Reform Act. Congress designed the law in 2022 to prevent the post-election chaos that then-President Donald Trump and his allies created after the 2020 election, which culminated in efforts to send fake electoral votes to Congress, block certification of legitimate electoral votes and then storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

The new federal law sets specific schedules for certifying election results and casting electoral votes. It cleared up ambiguities contained in the previous version of the law, which was enacted in 1887 but never updated until two years ago. 

As of mid-October, 15 states had updated their laws to comply with the Electoral Count Reform Act, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A Wisconsin proposal to bring the state in line with the new federal law passed the Senate nearly unanimously in February. But it never received a vote in the Assembly. 

“It would have been beneficial if Wisconsin had also done that,” Godar said.

Scott Thompson, a staff attorney at the liberal-leaning legal group Law Forward, said the Legislature knew about this problem for over a year but chose not to resolve it with a simple fix.

“This eleventh hour lawsuit merely confirms that our state Legislature needs to stop peddling election conspiracy theories and start taking the business of election administration seriously,” he said.

Wisconsin Republicans were among those who sent documents to Congress in December 2020 falsely claiming Trump won the state. Trump won the state in 2024. The Wisconsin fake electors were subject to a civil lawsuit, and there’s an ongoing criminal case against their attorneys.

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.

UPDATE: Parties agree on date Trump’s electors are supposed to cast their votes 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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For the past 14 years, Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District has voted reliably Republican. This year’s election could test whether it’s also reliably in the corner of former President Donald Trump.

There are three GOP candidates vying for the seat — state Sen. André Jacque, former state Sen. Roger Roth and businessman Tony Wied. Each has presented himself as a different brand of Republican than former U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who resigned earlier this year. But only Wied, a political newcomer, received Trump’s endorsement. 

Republican voters in the district took notice when the former president chimed in. For Green Bay resident Matthew Belekevich, it sealed the deal. He said he supports Wied because of Trump.

“I trust his judgment,” Belekevich said of Trump. “If he endorses somebody, then trust the judgment.”

Not everyone feels the same way. Lloyd Miller, a member of the Connected in Christ Green Bay area faith group, said Trump’s endorsement shouldn’t be a factor.

“That isn’t what I’m buying,” said Miller, who supports Roth in the primary. “I’m buying what they’re gonna do, not who supported them.”

The Cook Political Report rates the 8th Congressional District “solid Republican.” In fact, Gallagher never received less than 60 percent of the vote in any general election.

“It’s quite possible that the person who emerges from the Republican primary will be the person who represents the district,” said Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

But Trump endorsements across the country have largely been seen as a double-edged sword, said Weinschenk.

“Trump endorsements are helpful to Republicans in primaries,” he said. “But then Trump-backed Republicans do worse in general elections.”

Who are the candidates?

Wied was virtually unknown in Wisconsin politics before Trump announced his endorsement in April.

Since then, he’s framed himself as a political outsider standing up to “career politicians” and has leaned into his experience running Dino Stop convenience stores. He’s also promoted himself as the most closely aligned with Trump, putting the former president’s endorsement on his yard signs.

“We have career politicians who are self-interested in a go along and get along situation,” he said in a phone interview with WPR. “I have a history in business of going line by line in our budgets, and we need to have people that are committed to the fate of our country.”

Roth has promoted himself as the most well-rounded candidate, citing his time in the Wisconsin Air National Guard, his business experience as a homebuilder and his time in the state Legislature, including a stint as Senate president. Roth is the nephew of former 8th District U.S. Rep. Toby Roth, who held the seat from 1979 to 1997. Roth ran for the 8th District in 2010 but failed to advance past the primary.

“I’m the one candidate that has small business experience, military experience and legislative experience,” Roth told WPR at a recent campaign event. “I can go to Washington and will, on day one, lead on those important issues, but time is of the essence.”

Jacque describes himself as a proven “conservative fighter” who has taken on the establishment and has leaned into conservative social issues, saying he’s “proudly pro-life.”

“My opponents might be better looking or have bigger wallets,” he told WPR after a July 25 debate. “But ultimately, I’m the guy that’s gonna stand by what he says and is willing to take on the establishment, as well as the special interests.”

Previous 8th District Republicans criticized Trump

Jacque, Roth and Wied all wholeheartedly support Trump. That’s to be expected in most 2024 Republican primaries. But Republicans who previously held the 8th District over the last 14 years clashed with Trump at times, sometimes forcefully.

Former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, who held the seat from 2011 to 2017, has been an outspoken Trump critic since 2016 when he warned that Trump had done lasting damage to the Republican Party. Earlier this year, he lashed out at both Trump and his supporters, telling WPR they were “populists” and not true conservatives.

Gallagher, who retired this year after first being elected in 2016, voted in line with Trump almost 87 percent of the time when Trump was president. But he publicly criticized Trump during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. At the time, he called the riot “Banana Republic crap” and implored the former president to call it off.

Gallagher angered House Republicans earlier this year when he voted against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border.

The GOP backlash was swift. While he did not mention Gallagher by name, fellow Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden said he was “shocked and disgusted” by the votes of his colleagues, and the Brown County Republican Party said it was “deeply concerned” by Gallagher’s actions. Just three days later, Gallagher announced he would not seek reelection.

It was an abrupt change of political fortunes for Gallagher, who was once seen as a rising star in his party. But his recent breaks from Trump tarnished him in the eyes of some GOP voters in the district.

“I didn’t think he voted the way I wanted him to on a lot of subjects,” said village of Bellevue resident Edward Simpson, a volunteer for Roth’s campaign. “He didn’t vote the way I expected him to.”

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In 2024, GOP candidates take different approach

That split between Republican voters and Gallagher may have contributed to why all three GOP campaigns have been careful to avoid criticizing Trump. For example, they each released statements supportive of the former president when he was convicted of 34 felonies related to hush money payments he made to a porn star.

All three faced a Trump loyalty test of sorts during a July 19 debate, when the moderator asked all three to say whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen, a false claim repeated often by Trump.

Wied did not directly answer the question, and the moderator eventually cut his microphone. 

Roth said “no,” but said he did have issues with how the election was conducted.

Jacque responded with an emphatic “hell yes,” to the delight of the crowd.

A statewide canvas, partial recount, nonpartisan audit and multiple court decisions all showed that Trump lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden.

Beyond rehashing 2020, all three candidates have also referenced how they would work with Trump in office, particularly on immigration.

Wied has said he would help Trump’s mass immigrant deportation effort, advocated for bringing back the pandemic-era “Remain in Mexico” policy and described himself as Trump’s hand-picked candidate.

Roth said he visited the southern border with former Trump administration officials and said he would go to Congress to “reinstitute the policies of the Trump administration.”

And Jacque has called for Congress to impeach the homeland security secretary again following the assassination attempt on the former president. He also accused some in the media of what he called “Trump derangement syndrome.”

When it comes to the economy, all three candidates said they would work to reduce federal government spending in order to reduce inflation. 

Wied pledged to go through the federal budget “line by line” and also proposed “completely eliminating” some federal agencies, including the Department of Education.

“Our agencies are completely bloated,” he said. “I think we can cut each of them and cut spending in half.”

Roth said he would support working to rescind some of the unspent federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“These are monies that have been allocated that haven’t been spent yet,” he said. “Let’s pull those out.”

Jacque said he would advocate for “zero-based budgeting,” a method where all expenses must be justified and approved for a specific budget period. In response to a question about interest rates, he also said he supports ending the Federal Reserve.

“We need to starve the beast, and the beast is government,” he said.

‘Don’t count Democrats out completely’

Given the makeup of the 8th District, whoever emerges from the GOP primary will have a built-in advantage. Trump himself received about 57 percent of the vote in the district in 2020.

All of the candidates are running for both a general and special election for the seat. The special election will allow whoever wins in November to finish Gallagher’s term in Congress.

The winner of the primary will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, an OB-GYN and outspoken abortion rights advocate who is vying to be the first woman elected to the district. At a July town hall in Appleton, she told WPR she will continue to fight for abortion rights because she believes those decisions should be made between patients and doctors, not politicians.

Lyerly said the three Republican candidates are all “very different” and she’s excited to get through the primary to see who her opponent in November will be.

“Between now and then, we’re really focusing on what we can do and getting to places where Democrats haven’t been in the past,” Lyerly said.

Lyerly will offer a sharp contrast to the primary winner. All three GOP candidates describe themselves as “pro-life,” or anti-abortion. Wied and Roth both framed abortion as a state issue, while Jacque has indicated he’s open to cutting “federal subsidies” for abortions.

Weinschenk, at UW-Green Bay, said abortion is one issue where Democrats may have a leg up on Republicans, especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. 

“Don’t count Democrats out completely,” Weinschenk said. “I mean, it depends on the issues, and a lot can change.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

GOP primary in 8th Congressional District puts Trump endorsement to test 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.