“Hinting at his plans to overhaul how elections are run, the Republican running for governor of Wisconsin this week said his party would permanently control the state if he wins,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Tim Michels (R): “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”
A new CNN poll in Wisconsin finds Gov. Tony Evers (D) has the support of 50% of likely voters, while challenger Tim Michels (R) has 48%, a finding that’s well within the survey’s margin of error.
The Senate race is also very close with Sen. Ron Johnson (R) edging challenger Mandela Barnes (D), 50% to 49%.
Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels (R) has called police to his home more than a dozen times over the past 20 years, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Tim Michels (R), who is locked in a tight race with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), suggested that he did not support enforcing the swing state’s near-total ban on abortions, saying “I will never arrest a doctor” before his campaign walked back his comment, the AP reports.
A new Marquette Law School Poll survey of Wisconsin finds a wider margin in the U.S. Senate race than a month ago.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R) now leads challenger Mandela Barnes (D), 52% to 46%.
In the governor’s race, Gov. Tony Evers (D) barely edges challenger Tim Michels (R), 47% to 46%.
The Economist: “On the one hand, it retains a large blue-collar workforce—19% of the state’s GDP comes from manufacturing—who have been drifting more towards Republicans in recent years, making the state look more like Indiana or Ohio, which are now both solidly Republican. On the other hand, it also has a vast and growing progressive vote, particularly around Madison, the home of the largest University of Wisconsin campus. About 7% of the state’s adult population consists of students, who are well organised, and who this year especially, have been fired up by the Supreme Court’s decision to undo abortion rights (it helps that Wisconsin now has, by virtue of a law passed in 1849, one of the strictest bans on abortion in the country.)”
“This helps to explain why the Badger State is so weird. Essentially, when Democrats can motivate their electorate (which also includes the large black population of Milwaukee, and a surprising rural redoubt in the north-west) they can win. The state’s junior senator, Tammy Baldwin, is a lesbian progressive who wants America to introduce universal health care. But when they fail, Republicans, with their more unified base, can also get in their own radicals. Ron Johnson thinks global warming is fake, covid-19 vaccines are dangerous, and that the Trumpist riot on January 6th 2021 was no big deal.”
A new AARP poll in Wisconsin finds Sen. Ron Johnson (R) leading challenger Mandela Barnes (D) by five points, 51% to 46%.
In the governor’s race, Tim Michels (R) leads Gov. Tony Evers (D) by three points, 50% to 47%.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin shows Sen. Ron Johnson (R) and challenger Mandela Barnes (D) in a dead heat, 47% to 47%.
In the race for governor, Tony Evers (D) edges Tim Michels (R), 48% to 46%.
Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels (R), who was endorsed by Donald Trump, is calling for people to take up “pitchforks and torches” in reaction to a story that detailed his giving to anti-abortion groups, the AP reports.
Trump-backed Tim Michels (R) is projected to win the Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial primary, setting the stage for a marquee fall race against Gov. Tony Evers (D), the Washington Post reports.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R), a Republican elected to four terms starting in the 1980s, announced that he will not run again in a bid to take on the Democratic incumbent in the battleground state, the AP reports.
Washington Post: “In just the last four weeks, a state legislator who believes the election can be decertified has jumped into the race for governor; former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch (R), who has led in polls of that primary, would not say if she would have certified the 2020 election; and a Vos-appointed special counsel told the legislature that it ‘ought to take a very hard look’ at decertifying President Biden’s 10 electoral votes in the state.”
Said Gov. Tony Evers (D): “They are leapfrogging over each other to get the far, far right. They may want to forget about that, when whoever wins the primary runs against me. But we won’t let them forget about that.”
Wisconsin state Rep. Timothy Ramthun (R), “who was disciplined by the Assembly leader over false election claims and who has repeatedly called on his colleagues to take the impossible action of overturning Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results, appears to be running for governor,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“A Ramthun entry into the race would scramble the Republican primary for governor. Ramthun has been praised publicly and privately by former President Donald Trump for his push to undo the 2020 election result, a legally impossible task.”
Republican mega donor Dick Uihlein is backing Kevin Nicholson (R) in the GOP race for Wisconsin governor, but Republican mega donor Liz Uihlein — his wife — is supporting former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R), the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Former President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was trying to persuade former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) to enter Wisconsin’s 2022 gubernatorial race, The Hill reports.
New York Times: “The prospect that Mr. Trump may run again in 2024 only compounds what Democrats fear: that Republicans could gain full control over the three key Northern states in 2022 and, two years later, interfere with or overturn the outcome of a narrow Democratic presidential victory in 2024.”
Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch (R) “said she would sign a Wisconsin bill banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, reducing the timeframe women could seek abortions from 20 weeks under current law to about six,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Bill McCoshen (R), who is preparing to run for Wisconsin governor, was cited for disorderly conduct in 2008 “for urinating publicly inside a local tavern and then going outside to finish relieving himself in a planter in front of the establishment.” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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