Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for federally or state-funded health coverage in Wisconsin.
That includes Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and coverage purchased through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.
Unauthorized immigrants also are not eligible for Wisconsin Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus.
Fourteen states, including Illinois and Minnesota, use state Medicaid funds to cover unauthorized immigrants, but Wisconsin does not.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Dec. 5 vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have banned public money from going toward health care coverage for unauthorized immigrants.
Republicans said the bill was meant to be pre-emptive.
On Dec. 10, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor in 2026, incorrectly said Evers’ veto allowed unauthorized immigrants “to continue to get taxpayer-funded health care.”
When Evers vetoed the bill he criticized it for “trying to push polarizing political rhetoric.”
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Wisconsin politicians denounce the "billionaire loophole" that makes state elections so expensive, but they're still raising tons of cash. | Getty Images
Two high-profile candidates for governor of Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, have denounced the unlimited flow of cash into state political campaigns. Then, practically in the same breath, both men announced their plans to raise tens of millions of dollars, signalling to their less well funded primary opponents that they might as well get out of the way.
In an interview with PBS Wisconsin on Dec. 5, Tiffany criticized “that pass-through loophole, I call it the ‘billionaire loophole,’” in Wisconsin law, adding, “there’s just so much money that comes into Wisconsin.”
“You can cry about it or you can compete,” Tiffany continued. “We choose to compete … We’re hoping to raise $40 million.”
As Baylor Spears reports, Tiffany actually voted for the “billionaire loophole” he now criticizes back when he was serving in the state Senate in 2015.
Mandela Barnes, in a recent campaign stop in Madison, told Spears and other reporters that he has raised a “strong haul,” in the first week of his campaign, and that he intends to raise a staggering $50 million by the end of the race. He added that he doesn’t like the role of money in politics. “It’s not a good sign,” he said, and his future goal is “to get big money out of politics” and enact “campaign and ethics reform.”
Back in 2015, when Republicans were ramming through the “billionaire loophole,” Barnes opposed it, saying at the time that it would allow “shady special interest money and allow for more corruption to go undetected and unprosecuted.”
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, remembers that moment well. Under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Republican legislative majorities passed the law eviscerating campaign finance limits along with other measures getting rid of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board and eliminating the John Doe procedure that was used to criminally prosecute leaders of both political parties for campaign finance crimes in the infamous caucus scandal of the early 2000’s.
The 2015 law doubled the amount individuals could give to candidates. More importantly, it eliminated all limits on state party contributions to candidates and allowed coordination between candidates and outside groups that make issue ads supporting the campaigns. Donors were able to give as much as they wanted to political parties, which then funneled that money to candidates, creating the billionaire loophole to which Tiffany belatedly objects. The 2015 law cleared the way for outsiders like Elon Musk to pour limitless cash into state races to try to affect the outcome.
“The Republicans did that in 2015 because they were convinced that they would have a great financial advantage since they generally raised more money from donors and special interests,” says Heck. “Of course, what they didn’t anticipate was [former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair] Ben Wikler and the Democratic Party’s ability to take that big hole in the law and use it to raise massive amounts of money.”
Recently, Democrats in Wisconsin have been beating Republicans in the fundraising arms race. In 2025, in the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, Susan Crawford, the candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court supported by the Democratic Party, raised $28.3 million compared with Republican-supported Brad Schimel, who raised $15.1 million. Outside special interests accounted for most of the spending on the race, with Musk alone putting in nearly $20 million through his political action committees and millions more laundered through the state Republican Party for Schimel, while the Democratic Party of Wisconsin funneled $10 million to Crawford.
The lesson of the 2015 law, says Heck, is, “be careful what you wish for.”
That certainly applies to Republicans, who lost the two most expensive state Supreme Court races in history as well as the last two record-breaking gubernatorial races won by Gov. Tony Evers with $93 million in total spending in 2018 and $164 million in 2022.
But it also applies to Democrats, who cannot count on continually bringing in more money than Republicans.
More importantly, when it costs tens of millions of dollars to win state elections, regular voters’ voices are drowned out by billionaires, who are not investing in candidates just out of the goodness of their hearts.
Heck believes that change will only come when voters demand reform, most likely because a big scandal clearly illustrates that politicians are doing favors for their donors in exchange for campaign cash.
“It’s going to require a bipartisan coming-together to establish some limits,” Heck says.
Even as the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgate for campaign spending with the Citizens United decision, which in 2010 struck down a federal ban on political donations from corporations, and McCutcheon v. FEC, which in 2014 found that annual caps on total political donations from one person are unconstitutional, states have the ability to impose limits.
A report by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows Wisconsin is one of only 11 states that allow unlimited candidate contributions by state parties and among the top 10 for the highest limits on PAC contributions to candidates. Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and most other states limit how much political parties can accept, which reduces the Elon Musk effect. Plus, “We are one of few states that allows so-called coordination between political candidates and outside groups,” Heck says.
The problem is that candidates, while acknowledging that massive amounts of money fueling their campaigns is a bad look, don’t want to unilaterally disarm.
But now, as the Trump administration drags the country to new levels of overt corruption, it could be a good time for a campaign that ties together billionaires’ destructive influence on society and the fact that they are buying our democracy.
“There has to be public disgust with the amount of money being spent,” says Heck. “If a candidate put corruption front and center, it might get a lot of traction.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has said his campaign is aiming to raise $40 million for the 2026 gubernatorial race. Tiffany delivers a speech at his launch event in Wausau in September. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the current frontrunner in the GOP gubernatorial primary, criticized the “billionaire loophole” that has led to record spending in statewide races in Wisconsin, even though he voted for the legislation that helped expand spending in 2015.
Tiffany has said his campaign is aiming to raise $40 million for the 2026 gubernatorial race. “We’ll see if we get there,” Tiffany said in an interview with PBS Wisconsin last week. “But, you know, Wisconsin, because of that pass-through loophole, I call it the billionaire loophole, there’s just so much money that comes into Wisconsin. But, you know, you can cry about it or you can compete. We choose to compete… We’re hoping to raise $40 million.”
Spending on Wisconsin statewide elections has grown substantially over the last decade in part because of an overhaul of the state’s campaign finance laws adopted in 2015 under the leadership of former Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature.
Republican lawmakers at the time argued that the changes to the campaign finance laws were necessary to align state law with U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Citizens United v. FEC, which in 2010 struck down a nationwide ban on political donations from corporations, and McCutcheon v. FEC, which in 2014 found that annual caps on total political donations from one person are unconstitutional.
Under 2015 Wisconsin Act 117, Wisconsin lawmakers eliminated a state law that capped individual donations to all candidates and political committees in a single year at $10,000. Limits on contributions for each state and local office were increased and limits on contributions to party and legislative campaign committees were eliminated, creating a loophole that allowed unlimited money to flow through parties and committees into individual campaigns. The law eliminated restrictions on coordination between political parties and candidates and allowed for political parties and legislative campaign committees to make unlimited contributions to candidate committees.
The state law has become a topic of conversation again as the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case Tuesday challenging a federal law limiting the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with a candidate for office.
Tiffany has represented Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District since 2020, but prior to that he served in the state Senate. As a state senator, Tiffany voted for AB 387, which later became Act 117, along with the other Senate Republicans. Only one Republican, former state Sen. Rob Cowles, voted against the measure.
Tiffany’s campaign has not responded to a request for comment about the vote and whether he wants to see changes to state campaign finance law.
At the time, advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers warned the legislation would lead to obscene spending in Wisconsin elections. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign warned in written testimony that the legislation would mean “billionaires and multimillionaires will have an outsized influence over who gets elected” and that political contests would “be less between candidates and more between tycoons.”
Spending in governors’ races was already growing following the U.S. Supreme Court decision and before the state law was adopted. In 2010, $37.37 million was spent on the governor’s race; in 2014, spending increased to $81.78 million. The increase in spending ballooned dramatically after the passage of the 2015 law.
A record-breaking $164 million was spent in 2022 on Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the cost represented a 77% increase from the previous $93.06 million record that was set in the 2018 governor’s race.
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Mandela Barnes, who served in the Assembly in 2015, did not vote on the campaign spending bill, joining the rest of his Democratic Assembly colleagues who said it was a conflict of interest for lawmakers to rewrite the laws that govern their campaigns. He is the only Democratic candidate in the current crowded primary field who was in the Legislature at the time.
Barnes said in a press release in 2015 that he opposed the bill because Republicans rejected an amendment that would have delayed implementation until after the 2016 election cycle. He said Republicans “acted in blatant self-interest for their campaign committees by voting down my effort,” so he “recused myself from voting on ultimate passage of this outrageous proposal.”
Barnes also said then that with the legislation Republicans had “fully embraced the darkness of corruption by voting to rig the rules to line their own campaign pockets with shady special interest money and allow for more corruption to go undetected and unprosecuted.”
Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate candidate, recently said he is aiming to raise $50 million over the course of the race, but at the same time criticized the escalation in campaign spending.
“It’s not a good sign for things. I wish that were not the case,” Barnes told reporters Monday. “The goal is to get big money out of politics. The goal is for campaign and ethics reform… We should be taking more steps to reduce the impact of money in politics.”
Other Democratic candidates include Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Milwaukee Co. Exec. David Crowley, state Sen. Kelda Roys, state Rep. Francesca Hong, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann is the only other Republican candidate currently in the race.
Barnes and Tiffany have not had to file campaign finance reports yet as they entered after the last deadline. Candidates’ next campaign finance filing deadline is Jan. 15, 2026. Those reports will cover July 1, 2025 through Dec. 31, 2025.
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Mandela Barnes spoke with bike shop owner Mitch Pilon about rising costs under President Donald Trump and the effects of tariffs. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Even with a crowded Democratic primary field, gubernatorial hopeful Mandela Barnes told reporters Monday that he is focusing his efforts on the Republican candidate he might face in November 2026 and he has raised a “strong haul” in the first week of his campaign.
Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate candidate, visited Black Saddle Bike Shop (where he said he’s often had his bike serviced) on the North Side of Madison. The stop was part of Barnes’ “Wisconsin Way” tour, launched last week after he announced his campaign. He has joined a field of candidates in the Democratic primary that includes Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Missy Hughes, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey.
Barnes said his fundraising so far is “something that’ll make my mom proud,” though he wouldn’t expand on how much money he has raised. He said his goal will be to raise $50 million in the race overall, though he also criticized the need to raise so much.
Barnes noted that during Gov. Tony Evers’ successful second bid for the office, Evers spent around $42 million to defeat Republican businessman Tim Michels, who spent $28.48 million. A record-breaking $164 million was spent in 2022 on Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race.
“It’s not a good sign for things. I wish that were not the case. The goal is to get big money out of politics. The goal is for campaign and ethics reform,” Barnes said, adding that reform is needed at both the state and federal levels. “We should be taking more steps to reduce the impact of money in politics,” he said.
Barnes said the first week of the campaign has been exciting, and he has been trying to talk to as many people as possible. He spoke with bike shop owner Mitch Pilon about rising costs under President Donald Trump and the effects of tariffs.
“With an absence of support from the federal government, even if the state doesn’t have all the resources to make it better, at least staving off some of the worst from happening, I fully believe that’s a responsibility of state government,” he told Pilon, adding that he wants to help “tip the scales back into the favor of working people.”
Pilon, who opened the shop in February 2020, said making ends meet has been a challenge for him and his partner, who is a social worker.
“In Wisconsin, after 10 years, your student loans should be absolved, which they’re not going to be now, and she has a master’s degree… that’s $100,000 in debt at social worker’s compensation,” Pilon said. The Trump administration has sought to upend student loan forgiveness programs this year. “I own a small business. I work really hard… we can’t afford a house.”
“[Trump] promised to lower costs for people,” Barnes told reporters after the conversation. “He said he was going to bring back manufacturing to this country, specifically to this state. It hasn’t happened. As people continue to feel the pinch, tough decisions are being made.”
Barnes said he got into the race because of the urgency of those sorts of challenges.
“It’s a critical moment that calls for leadership. It calls for boldness, to not just take on the president, but to also offer real solutions for the problems that people are facing,” Barnes said. “So this is one of many small businesses that we’ll be showing up to… over the course of this campaign.”
Pilon also asked Barnes about one of the obstacles that his campaign will need to overcome — his failed challenge to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022. Barnes has faced pushback to his campaign due to that loss.
“We lost the Senate race…” Pilon said. “How do you get over that? How do you rise above that?”
Barnes responded that he didn’t get into the race for “personal reasons.”
“I got into it because there was work that needed to be done,” Barnes said. “I don’t feel like the job is being done and, alright, that’s a wakeup call to go out there and raise my hand and do the job.”
“How do you change people’s minds?” Pilon asked.
“A lot of it is personal stories and experience,” Barnes said.
It has been rare for candidates in Wisconsin to succeed in winning a statewide race after an earlier loss. Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll, found in an analysis of previous governor and U.S. Senate election results that the last time a candidate won one of those statewide campaigns after losing a previous one was in the 1970s. Examples of failed second chances include Tom Barrett, who lost bids for governor in 2010 and 2012, Tim Michels, who lost to Evers in 2022 after he lost a bid for the Senate in 2004, and Russ Feingold, who lost Senate races in 2010 and 2016.
Barnes is undeterred by the precedent.
“There’s a lot of history that would suggest I wouldn’t ever become lieutenant governor,” Barnes said in answer to a question about Franklin’s second-change analysis. “There’s also, you know, in terms of historical precedent, I don’t know that there is a precedent that suggests anybody on the Democratic or Republican side has a better chance of winning.”
Barnes ran for the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination in 2018 in a two-person race, going on to win on the same ticket as Gov. Tony Evers. He was elected and served as the state’s youngest and first Black lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023.
Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race next year is wide open for the first time since 2010.
During the 2022 Senate race, Barnes became the Democratic nominee after other high-profile candidates dropped out weeks before the primary.
Barnes denied he helped push the other Democrats out of the race then. He also said primaries are good for democracy when asked whether he wants other candidates to coalesce around him.
“I think it should be a battle of ideas, whether it’s a large primary or not, but would never that’s never been my style to try to get anybody out of any race,” Barnes said. “As you know, from the way I got in, I showed up by challenging someone in a primary election, so it’d be very hypocritical of me to suggest anybody get out.”
Barnes previously served in the Wisconsin State Assembly for two terms from 2013 to 2017. He gave up his seat in the state Assembly in 2016 to challenge former State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee). He lost the primary by more than 11,000 votes.
Barnes said his campaign will be focused not just on unifying Democrats but on a “unifying message to defeat extremists and extremism.”
“It does not matter what your favorite ideology might be, there’s a place for you in this campaign because it is about improving quality of life for everybody,” Barnes said.
With about 10 months until the primary, Barnes said he’ll be focused on the Republican candidates in the race. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is the presumed frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
“This is about pointing out flaws and failures, and Tom Tiffany as he stands as the front runner, his failures and leadership, his decisions to go lock-step with the president who has made things worse for Wisconsin,” Barnes said. “Tom Tiffany didn’t go to Washington to make things better for us, and we shouldn’t expect him to improve things for us as governor.”
The primary election is scheduled for Aug. 11, 2026.
Gov. Tony Evers joined teachers and students from across Wisconsin to light the Wisconsin Holiday Tree in the Capitol Thursday. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers joined teachers and students from across Wisconsin to light the Wisconsin Holiday Tree in the Capitol Thursday. Evers, who previously worked as a science teacher and principal and served as state schools superintendent before he was elected governor, said the tree this year is special because of students’ participation.
Evers, who previously worked as a science teacher and principal and served as state schools superintendent before he was elected governor, said the tree this year is special because of students’ participation. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The theme for this year is “the Learning Tree,” with ornaments made by students at public and private schools across the state.
“We encouraged them to think about what learning means to them, and we encouraged them to reflect on all the people who made learning possible and fun,” Evers said. “The librarian who helped them find a new favorite book. The school nurse who helped them when they weren’t feeling well. The school bus driver who gets them [to school] and gets them home safely. The teacher who helped them learn something they really didn’t think they could learn, and so many others who played a role in helping our kids bring the best and fullest selves to the classroom every day.”
The students’ handmade ornaments decorate a 30-foot balsam fir donated by Dave and Mary Vander Velden, the retired owners of Whispering Pines Tree Farm in Oconto County. It was harvested by Henry Schienebeck and members of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association.
Ellie Mason, an eighth-grader from John Muir Middle School in Wausau, spoke about what the Learning Tree means to her and helped Evers flip the switch to turn the tree lights on.
“I picture a tree with many branches reaching out in every direction, each one helping me climb a little higher. The tree is strong with many branches, each one supporting the others,” Mason said. “That’s what school feels like to me.”
Mason said her mom and other members of her family are teachers, and they have shown her that being a teacher “means caring about people so much that you believe in what they become.” She thanked Wisconsin teachers, custodians, principals, nurses, cafeteria workers and office staff for all their hard work.
“You are the branches of the Learning Tree, lifting us up into helping us reach our whole potential,” Mason said.
“You slay” states one of the student made ornaments on the “Learning Tree.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Other speakers at the lighting included Rodney Esser, also known as “Mr. Peanuts,” who is the head custodian at Park Elementary School and has spent 60 years with the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District, Green Bay West High School Teacher Ellie Hinz-Radue, and CEO and Executive Director of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority Elmer Moore Jr. The lighting also featured performances by the La Crosse Central High School band and four members of the Kids From Wisconsin, an audition show choir group made up of students from across the state.
Not everyone had a positive reaction to the “Learning Tree.” Republican gubernatorial hopefuls criticized Evers for not calling it a “Christmas tree.”
“They won’t even call it a “Christmas” tree. Time to replace woke nonsense with Wisconsin common sense in 2026,” U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said on social media. He tagged Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, one of the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls, in his post.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann wrote about the announcement of the tree theme on social media, saying “it’s a Christmas tree, Tony. I look forward to highlighting all our wonderful Wisconsin Christmas traditions as Governor, and having the best, biggest, most impressive CHRISTMAS TREE in the Capitol!”
Evers is not running for reelection next year.
The state under Evers’ leadership started referring to the tree in the Capitol as a holiday tree in 2019 to avoid perceptions that it was endorsing any religion. Each winter season since then has been marked by complaints from Republicans about ecumenical terminology for the time of year and traditions. In 2020, a pair of Republican lawmakers went so far as to set up their own tree in the Capitol rotunda in protest.
The state of Wisconsin generally cannot consider U.S. citizenship or national origin in hiring for state jobs.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany of northern Wisconsin, who is running for governor in 2026, said Nov. 17 he would ensure state jobs “go to Americans.”
His congressional and campaign offices did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that statescannot restrict public employment to citizens.
Both public and private employers are generally barred by federal law from treating people differently based on national origin or ethnicity.
Wisconsinlaws prohibit discrimination by public or private employers based on national origin or ancestry.
The state’s hiring handbook says the state can hire only people legally in the U.S., but “shall not refuse to hire aliens based on their foreign appearance, accent, language, name, national origin, citizenship, or intended U.S. citizenship.”
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The clock is ticking before Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will be delayed for approximately 42 million Americans in November due to the federal government shutdown.
That leaves just nine days until Wisconsin — a key battleground state with two competitive House races in the 2026 midterms — runs out of funding for its food assistance program, Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday. Already, November benefits will certainly be delayed, Evers said.
“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said in a statement.
The governor is one of several Wisconsin Democrats who added SNAP delays to the long list of shutdown impacts they blame on Republicans.
“I want the government to reopen and to lower health care costs and to undo some of the devastating things that were done in Trump’s signature legislation, the ‘Big, Ugly bill,’” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told NOTUS. “It’s in the Republicans’ hands to do that.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday to use unappropriated Treasury funds for payment of SNAP benefits during the shutdown. It is unclear if his bill will gain traction in the Senate.
“We need to start forcing Democrats to make some tough votes during this shutdown,” he said in an X post.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson declined to comment on SNAP’s funding lapsing.
Nearly 700,000 people rely on FoodShare, Wisconsin’s SNAP program for families and seniors that is entirely funded by federal dollars. Wisconsin’s program already took a hit from Trump’s budget law, which will raise the state’s portion of administrative costs for running FoodShare by at least $43.5 million annually.
Wisconsin is among a slew of states sounding the alarm on SNAP funding, with Texas officials setting Oct. 27 as the last day before benefits will be disrupted. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state’s food assistance program may be disrupted if the government does not reopen by Thursday, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Health Services announced that benefits will not be paid starting last week.
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, lamented risks to FoodShare in a statement to NOTUS.
“This funding risk could be resolved tomorrow if Republicans would return to Washington to vote with Democrats on a bill to fund the government and protect access to affordable health care for millions of Americans,” he said.
November benefits will be delayed in Wisconsin “even if the shutdown ends tomorrow,” according to the announcement from Evers’ office.
It is not yet certain that delays in benefits will occur, and any disruptions would be a deliberate “policy choice,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture could use a similar tactic as Trump did when he directed the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 15 to issue on-time paychecks to active duty members of the military using leftover appropriated funds, Plata-Nino told NOTUS.
The Trump administration transferred $300 million to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to prevent benefits disruptions earlier this month. The Department of Agriculture will release more than $3 billion in aid to farmers during the shutdown.
“It is in their hands to issue a letter to the states and say, ‘We have $6 billion in contingency funding. We’re going to go ahead and utilize that, and we’re looking for sources of funding like we did for WIC, but then also how we’ve done to farmers when there’s been issues,” Plata-Nino said.
Plata-Nino said states and Electronic Benefit Transfer processors — companies that process EBT transactions for stores — would need to know they are getting contingency funds by later this week or early next week for SNAP benefits to go out smoothly on Nov. 1.
“Even if on the 30th, the USDA acts late and then finally issues its contingency funds, benefits are still going to be late,” she added.
Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement Republicans should “come to the negotiating table” on the shutdown.
“After already cutting FoodShare in their One Beautiful Bill, Republicans’ inaction could again increase hunger and food insecurity,” she said.
When asked about FoodShare delays, Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican from northern Wisconsin who is running to replace Evers, pointed to Democrats’ 11 votes against Republicans’ continuing resolution bills.
“Maybe Governor Evers should ask Senator Baldwin why she is blocking the bipartisan budget bill and holding these programs hostage,” Tiffany said in a statement.
Republican Rep. Tony Wied, who represents the Green Bay area, pointed at Baldwin and other Democrats’ votes against the continuing resolution, accusing them of playing “political games.”
“House Republicans voted for a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open and ensure critical programs like FoodShare continue uninterrupted,” Wied said in a statement to NOTUS. “I am calling on Senator Baldwin and the rest of her Democratic colleagues to change course and vote to open the government immediately so Wisconsinites in need do not have to worry about going hungry.”
But Danielle Nierenberg, the president of the nonpartisan advocacy organization Food Tank, said Democrats and Republicans are “both in the wrong” for potential SNAP disruptions.
“Food should never have been politicized in this way. So whether you’re Democrat or a Republican you shouldn’t be punishing poor people for just being poor and denying them the benefits they deserve,” Nierenberg said.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican front-runner in the 2026 race for Wisconsin governor, has a mixed record on statements fact-checked by Wisconsin Watch.
The northern Wisconsin congressman has been on target on some claims, such as low Wisconsin business rankings, the link between marijuana and psychosis, and a drop in Wisconsin reading scores.
Other assertions, including claims about tariffs, aid for Ukraine and vetting evacuees from Afghanistan, have been off.
Peer-reviewed research has found links between marijuana use and psychosis — the loss of contact with reality, experienced as delusions or hallucinations.
The consensus is there is a clear association, but more research is needed to determine if there is causation.
In August, Tiffany called for more research on the link to inform legalization policy.
Canada has set tariffs exceeding 200% for U.S. dairy products.
But the tariffs are imposed only when the amount imported exceeds quotas, and the U.S. “has never gotten close to exceeding” quotas that would trigger Canada’s dairy tariffs, the International Dairy Foods Association said.
Tiffany claimed that Wisconsin had “fallen behind” Mississippi in reading.
In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress assessment, issued every two years, Mississippi’s fourth grade public school students scored higher than Wisconsin’s in reading proficiency, though the ratings “were not significantly different.”
In 2022, 33% of Wisconsin fourth graders rated “at or above proficient” in reading, vs. 31% in Mississippi. In 2024, Wisconsin dropped to 31%; Mississippi rose to 32%.
A $95 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which President Joe Biden signed into law in April 2024, prohibits funds from being allocated to pensions in Ukraine.
Tiffany claimed that the law included “millions” for pensions in Ukraine. His office, pointing to a U.S. State Department news release, told Wisconsin Watch that Tiffany meant to say that previous U.S. aid packages funded Ukrainian pensions.
Following the Afghanistan evacuation that began in summer 2021, more than 76,000 Afghans came to the U.S. after being vetted, The Wall Street Journal reported.
All evacuees were brought to a military base in Europe or the Middle East, where U.S. officials collected fingerprints and biographical details and ran them through criminal and terrorism-related databases, the Journal reported.
In reviews, the Defense and Homeland Security departments found that not all evacuees were fully vetted.
Tiffany made the claim about changes the Biden administration made in 2024 to Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funding.
The new rules protect students and employees from sex-based harassment and discrimination. The rules say future changes will address sex-separate athletic teams.
As of late October 2023, when Tiffany made his claim, more than 200 non-U.S. citizens on the federal terrorist watchlist had tried to enter the U.S. between legal ports of entry and were stopped by Border Patrol during the Biden administration.
The watchlist contains known or suspected terrorists and individuals “who represent a potential threat.”
In making that claim, Tiffany cited a Wall Street Journal report on closed-door congressional testimony given by Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, about Joe Biden participating with Hunter in about 20 phone calls when Biden was vice president.
The Journal quoted Republican Rep. James Comer as saying Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to help Hunter sell “the brand.” A transcript shows Archer testified that Joe and Hunter never discussed business on the calls.
Information cited by Tiffany when he made that claim in 2023 contained only unverified intelligence that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Biden $5 million.
Wisconsin was among the bottom 10 states in job and business creation in some 2025 rankings, but higher in others.
For starting a business, National Business Capital, a financier, ranked Wisconsin 42nd, citing high taxes and low available funding. Small-business publication Simplify LLC, whose analysis included new business and job creation rates, ranked Wisconsin 43rd. Wisconsin was ranked 35th by WalletHub and 34th by U.S. News & World Report.
More generally, CNBC ranked Wisconsin 21st for business. Wisconsin scored higher in infrastructure and cost of doing business, lower in quality of life and legal and regulatory burdens. Wisconsin also ranked 21st in a poll of CEOs and business owners on best states for business.
A fierce loyalist of President Donald Trump who represents a broad swath of Wisconsin’s rural north woods in Congress entered the governor’s race in the battleground state on Tuesday, shaking up the Republican primary.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany becomes the front-runner over the two other announced Republican candidates who have less name recognition and support from key conservative donors.
Tiffany announced his bid for governor on “The Dan O’Donnell Show,” describing the decision as a “great challenge but also a great opportunity.”
“I have the experience both in the private sector and the public sector to be able to work from day one,” he said, when asked what differentiates him from the two other Republicans in the race.
“I give us the best chance to win in 2026,” he said.
The governor’s race is open for the first time in 16 years after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided against seeking a third term. Numerous Democrats are running, but there is no clear front-runner, and Evers hasn’t endorsed anyone.
Tiffany’s launch did not come with an immediate endorsement from Trump, which will be key in the GOP primary in August 2026.
But Tiffany has the inside track given his longtime support of the president. Another GOP candidate, businessman Bill Berrien, has faced fierce criticism on conservative talk radio after he backed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the 2024 primary and said in August 2020 that he hadn’t decided whether to support Trump.
The third Republican in the race, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, has also tried to court Trump voters. He represents a suburban Milwaukee county that Trump won with 67% of the vote in 2024.
Reacting to Tiffany’s announcement, Schoemann said he looked forward to a primary “focused on ideas and winning back the governor’s office.”
Even if he lands a Trump endorsement, Tiffany faces hurdles. In the past 36 years, gubernatorial candidates who were the same party as the president in a midterm election have lost every time, except for Evers in 2022.
Tiffany has cruised to victory in the vast 7th Congressional District — which covers nearly 19,000 square miles encompassing all or part of 20 counties. Tiffany won a special election in 2020 after the resignation of Sean Duffy, who is now Trump’s transportation secretary. Tiffany won that race by 14 points and has won reelection by more than 20 points in each of his three reelections.
But candidates from deep-red rural northern Wisconsin have struggled to win statewide elections, largely because of the huge number of Democratic voters in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison.
Prior to being elected to Congress, Tiffany served just over seven years in the state Legislature. During his tenure, he was a close ally of then-Gov. Scott Walker and voted to pass a law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.
Tiffany also voted in favor of legalizing concealed carry and angered environmentalists by trying to repeal a state mining moratorium to clear the way for an open-pit mine in northern Wisconsin.
In Congress, Tiffany has upset animal rights activists with his push to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list, which would open the door to wolf hunting seasons.
In 2020, Tiffany voted against accepting the electoral college votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania as part of an effort to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win. He was one of just 14 Republican House members in 2021 who voted against making Juneteenth a national holiday.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Devin Remiker called Tiffany a “bought and paid for stooge,” highlighting his support for Trump’s tariffs, his push to ban abortions around six weeks of pregnancy and his opposition to raising the minimum wage.
“We’re going to show Wisconsinites what a fraud he is and defeat him next November,” Remiker said.
Tiffany, 67, was born on a dairy farm and ran a tourist boat business for 20 years. He has played up his rural Wisconsin roots in past campaigns, which included ads featuring his elderly mother and one in which he slings cow manure to make a point about how he would work with Trump to clean up Washington.
The most prominent Democratic candidates for governor are Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez; Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley; state Sen. Kelda Roys and state Rep. Francesca Hong. Others considering getting in include Attorney General Josh Kaul, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state economic development director Missy Hughes.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Peer-reviewed research found links between marijuana use and psychosis – the loss of contact with reality, experienced as delusions or hallucinations.
The consensus is there is a clear association, but more research is needed to determine if there is causation.
That’s according to the Journal of Cannabis Research editor, researchers at the Institute of Cannabis Research and a review of 32 studies that reviewed research.
The institute’s Jeff Smith said most cannabis users don’t develop psychosis.
Research samples:
Lifetime use is associated with increased odds of psychosis, especially among daily or weekly users.
Psychotic disorders are 11times more likely among adolescent users than non-users.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, called for more research on the link to inform legalization policy.
Marijuana for recreational use is legal in 24 states. In May, Republicans nixed a Wisconsin legalization proposal.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Dr. David Gorelick, University of Maryland psychiatry professor and Journal of Cannabis Research editor-in-chief: Interview
Institute of Cannabis Research at Colorado State University Pueblo: director and chemistry professor Chad Kinney; and strategic partnership and outreach specialist and biology professor Jeff Smith: Interview
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