Wisconsin Gubernatorial Candidates a Nightmare
Just in time for Halloween
“We can never let what happened in the 2020 election happen again. We just can’t let that happen. I know Kash is working on it, everybody is working on it. And certainly Tulsi is working on it. We can’t let that happen again to our country.”
- President Donald Trump
Do you want to know what keeps me up at night?
Rightwing radio talk show host and conspiracy theorist Dan O’Donnell broke some news on his afternoon program on Tuesday. Former GOP candidate for Wisconsin governor Tim Michels was visiting the White House, presumably to seek the endorsement of President Donald Trump for another run. Michels, of the construction company Michels Corporation, lost to incumbent Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, 51.1% to 47.8% in 2022.
Evers has announced he will not be seeking re-election in 2026.
Michels was especially Trumpy during his last race, even suggesting that if elected he could attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. Trump lost that election by a little over 20,000 votes and a 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision. It was, as the Duke of Wellington once said, “the nearest run thing you ever saw.”
Michels promised during the 2022 campaign, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” which caused concern then among the voters about his commitment to fair elections and should certainly cause even more concern given the autocratic trend of Trump’s second term.
Michels even displayed a Trumpian temper towards the press. “I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal media has become,” he said after one newspaper looked at his family foundation’s charitable donations.
But it was Michels’ promise to consider overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election that was most disturbing. Declaring he was “really, really fired up” about the issue, Michels told a Republican audience, “When I’m sworn in in January — it’s eight months from now — I will look at all the evidence, and everything will be on the table,” according to WisPolitics.
While most legal experts would agree that a Wisconsin governor could not overturn the results of an election that took place two years prior, it raised serious questions whether Michels could be trusted not to interfere with the results of the 2024 presidential election if he was elected governor.
(Ironically, Michels did concede the race for governor in 2022 the night of the election, unlike Trump in 2020 or GOP Senate candidate Eric Hovde in 2024.)
Now Michels is threatening to return. While Michels may be trailing in the polls at the moment, he was in a similar position in 2022 behind former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. Michels was Trump’s preferred Republican candidate for governor in the 2022 GOP primary. He was also Trump’s first choice for the Secretary of Transportation after the Michels family donated over $500,000 to Republican campaign funds. Michels declined the cabinet position, which means he’s free to make another run for governor.
In 2020 and 2024, Evers fulfilled his presidential election responsibilities and certified the results, once for the Democrats and once for the Republicans. What would Michels do if he were governor and presented with a narrow presidential election? Would he fulfill his vow that no Republican will ever lose an election again in Wisconsin?
It’s probably wrong of me, but I’m hoping Michels was there to offer a wrecking ball for the East Wing of the White House from his construction company rather than offer to be a wrecking ball for the Constitution in 2028.
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The current Republican front-runner for the gubernatorial nomination is Rep. Tom Tiffany from Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional district.
Tiffany represents the northern part of Wisconsin, or “up north” as we like to say. It is the part of Wisconsin that has gone from God’s country to Trump country, and has been the source of Trump power in this state replacing the lost GOP suburban voters surrounding Milwaukee county.
Tiffany, too, has made the trip from standard GOP conservative to full-Trumpy, scaring his constituents with the possibility of Afghan refugees being resettled in his part of the state.
Tiffany signaled early on that there was no limit to his slavish devotion to Trump. He didn’t even wait for the events of January 6 to try to disenfranchise Wisconsin’s voters.
Shortly after the 2020 election, the congressman signed onto a lawsuit by Texas to throw out Wisconsin’s election results to have the election decided by the Republican-controlled state legislature. This outrageous assault on federalism didn’t prick the conscience of the one-time conservative because it was what Trump wanted, charting the path for Tiffany’s congressional career.
On January 6, Tiffany didn’t let the violence in the Capitol dissuade him from voting twice to throw out the election results in other states. Even Sen. Ron Johnson, who was informed of the fake electors scheme early in the plan’s formation, voted to certify the election after the insurrectionists were cleared from the Capitol, but not Tiffany.
Tiffany’s main fault is that he is not a proven fundraiser, whereas Michels can self-fund his campaign. Tiffany also lacks the personal wherewithal to match Michels’ donations to the Republican National Committee and Trump-related campaign funds. But otherwise, Tiffany has more than proved himself to be willing to put Trump ahead of any concerns about the Constitution being shredded.
If presented with an opportunity to steal the 2028 presidential election, or at least cause chaos to benefit the Republican presidential candidate, Tiffany or Michels would suit Trump’s purposes just fine.
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Of course, the Democrats will have something to say about this, right?
Unfortunately, the leading candidate to replace Evers is a candidate who has not yet entered the race, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. In 2022, as Evers defeated Michels, Barnes went down to defeat in a race against Johnson 50.4% to 49.4%.
I tried to warn the Democrats at the time. So did others. When the other Democratic candidates dropped out of the US Senate primary, Barnes’ only practical election experience was winning a state Assembly race and losing a state Senate race. He was Evers’ running mate in 2018 almost by default as no other serious Democrat challenged Barnes for the lieutenant governor nomination.
Barnes entered the 2022 Senate race with a lot of personal baggage, from unpaid parking tickets to unpaid property taxes to misleading the public about graduating from college to a weird controversy over a lingerie party.
But his political stances didn’t help him, either. Barnes supported eliminating cash bail in most cases, regardless of the severity of the crime. He also appeared in a t-shirt that called for the elimination of the Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and also said money could be taken from “bloated police budgets” at the height of the Defund the Police movement. He backed away from both positions unsuccessfully.
If that wasn’t enough, then Lt. Gov. Barnes accused Kenosha police of using excessive force against Jacob Blake before all of the facts were known.
“Last night, Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times in front of his children. This wasn’t an accident. The officer’s deadly actions attempted to take a person’s life in broad daylight. Like many of you, the video is burned into my mind like all the past videos just like it.”
That night, rioters burned down parts of the city of Kenosha as the Evers’ administration was slow to react to the violence. The police shooting was later ruled to be justified.
But Barnes can’t help himself. Even a simple comment by state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos about the greatness of President George Washington couldn’t go unanswered by Barnes, who said, “Yeah. I mean, if slave owning is your thing, have at it!”
It’s no wonder that some Democrats are feeling uneasy about the prospect of another statewide campaign by Barnes.
“He proved to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can’t run hard enough and give us a winning campaign on a statewide basis,” said Barbara Lawton, another former lieutenant governor, to the New York Times.
That concern even extends to the African American community where the Milwaukee Courier, a Black newspaper, recently editorialized against Barnes running for governor:
In politics, you earn your next opportunity by delivering on the last one. And in 2022, Mandela didn’t. That Senate seat was ours to win. He had the national support. He had the resources. He had the attention. And still—he came up short.
And what’s more telling: instead of spending the past two years organizing here at home, building bridges, and proving he learned from that loss, what we’ve seen is a campaign-in-waiting with no clear rationale other than a desire to try again.
That’s not enough.
The editorial concludes:
We need a candidate who can unite this state—and win. Mandela Barnes already showed us he can’t.
Respectfully, Mandela: Don’t Run.
Democratic consultant Joe Zepecki told the New York Times that this time the Democrats will not clear the way for Barnes. He’s going to have to actually win the Democratic Primary.
“Mandela would be the front-runner the moment he got into a campaign for the Democratic nomination, but I do not anticipate any scenario where you would see a repeat of 2022 where the other candidates bow out,” said Zepecki.
Unfortunately, a poll by Platform Communications shows Barnes leading a crowded field with double the support of his nearest rival:
In the Democratic primary, Barnes opens as a potential candidate with the highest marks among poll respondents, with 16 percent saying they would support him in a primary, while declared candidate Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is in second at 8 percent. Nearly 38 percent of Democrats remain undecided in the race. Also included in the poll were declared candidates Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, State Rep. Francesca Hong, State Sen. Kelda Roys, ex-WEDC CEO Missy Hughes, and prospective candidates Attorney General Josh Kaul, and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler.
Barnes is expected to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks.
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Why am I worried? Wisconsin was important enough in the last presidential cycle that the Republican National Convention was held in Milwaukee even though Trump called the city, “horrible.”
In 2016, Trump won the state by just over 22,000 votes. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by just a little over 20,000 votes. In 2024, Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris by just a little over 29,000 votes.
In 2020, Wisconsin was important enough as a swing state that it became the birthplace of the Trump campaign plot to use fake electors to throw the election into dispute at the January 6, 2021, certification of the Electoral College vote by Congress. The goal was to create enough chaos that the election would be decided by either throwing the election into the House of Representatives, letting Republican-controlled legislatures decide the winner, or creating a special committee of US Senators to decide the issue like the election of 1876.
A Republican governor who is willing to put his party above the national interest could cause a lot of trouble, during the election as well as after the results are known. What’s to stop a Governor Michels from requesting Trump to send in federal agents (such as ICE) to seize “questionable” ballot boxes for review by the Trump Justice Department because of a suspicion that illegal aliens cast enough ballots to sway the election? What about having masked and visibly armed federal agents demanding to see proof of citizenship at polling places? Will the National Guard of Texas be “invited” to shut down early voting in some neighborhoods of Milwaukee County?
Paranoia? Consider that in 2020 three Republican members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court were willing to consider Trump’s challenge to the election results. Two of the Republicans on the Court were willing to consider tossing random ballots as “a remedy” for people filling out absentee ballots following the procedures approved in a bipartisan vote of the state Election Commission months earlier because the Court was willing to accept the challenge by Trump to the procedures. Only the bravery of one Republican member of the Court, Justice Brian Hagedorn, prevented the presidential election from descending into chaos.
Control of the Supreme Court will (likely) be in Democratic hands at the time of the next presidential election, but that won’t stop the Republicans under Trump from using any means necessary to change the results if they don’t like the election outcome.
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By the way, I’m not forgetting about Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, the third Republican candidate for governor. I’m not sure he’s going to be any better than Tiffany or Michels, but it’s irrelevant. He’s not going to win the nomination.
Here are the possibilities:
Trump endorses Michels and he wins the nomination.
Trump endorses Tiffany and he wins the nomination.
Trump does not endorse a candidate until a clear winner emerges. Michels and Tiffany outspend Schoemann, and he comes in third anyway.
Tiffany represents a large congressional district in Trump country. Michels can outspend Schoemann in the Milwaukee media market, wiping out Schoemann’s advantage of being from one of the traditional Republican counties surrounding Milwaukee that were once critical to a Republican candidate. Schoemann doesn’t stand a chance.
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Finally, let’s all pray that Michels was not visiting the White House to offer architectural advice. This is the Michels building in Milwaukee:
Yikes.
James Wigderson is a writer living in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He is the former editor/owner of RightWisconsin and a former columnist for The Waukesha Freeman. Once described as “the spokesman for the state’s far right,” by the Capital Times, Wigderson is now a critic of the new Republican Party under President Donald Trump. He also puts ketchup on hot dogs.