Poll workers and voters participate during the Wisconsin State Primary Day on August 9 in the Village of Waukesha in Waukesha, Wisconsin. (Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump’s influence among Republican voters in a key swing state will be tested again Tuesday as fallout from an FBI search of his Florida resort mushrooms across the political landscape.
Wisconsin, where Republicans are selecting their nominee to face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a runoff election in November, provides the front-runner, but three other states — Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut — will also vote, with races up and down on the ballot, poised to provide a clearer picture of an increasingly high-stakes midterm election season.
Wisconsin is the third state where Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence have endorsed opposing GOP gubernatorial candidates. Pence endorsed former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Klifisch, who initially appeared to be the party’s frontrunner in the primary. But Klifisch, who served two terms as former Gov. Scott Walker’s deputy, is in a tight race with Tim Michels, a construction company owner who was endorsed by Trump and went further in buying his lies about the 2020 election. — most notably by indulging in efforts to discredit President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Kliefisch was more cautious, prompting attacks from Trump.
Trump and Pence have a mixed record: Trump’s pick in Arizona, Carrie Lake, a conservative commentator and election denier, narrowly won the nomination, while Pence’s pick in Georgia, incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, beat Trump-backed primary challenger David Perdue, a former Sen. , in a landslide.
The rubber match between the former vice presidents will decide the list of GOP gubernatorial nominations in the states that flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden four years later – Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. All five are expected to be hotly contested again in 2024, and GOP victories in those policy battles this fall could help ease Trump’s path back to the White House if he runs again.
Wisconsin is also home to a critical GOP primary in the state legislature, where longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Voss, an outspoken conservative who has largely agreed with Trump’s claims for the 2020 election, is being challenged by Adam Steen. who won Trump’s support because Vos, in the former president’s judgment, was not optimistic enough about the right’s efforts to get the state to ensure his defeat.
Meanwhile, Democrats are relishing the anticlimactic finish to a Senate primary that many expected to be hotly contested. After polls showed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes retreating from the field, all of his top challengers dropped out within days, effectively giving him the nomination and a November showdown with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the leading advocates of Trump in Washington and a key target for Democrats hoping to retain or potentially expand their Senate majority.
Also Tuesday in the Upper Midwest, Minnesota Republicans will choose their nominee to face Democratic Gov. Tim Waltz, who is running for a second term.
Scott Jensen, a physician and former state lawmaker, nearly won the nomination after winning the support of the state party. He faces Joyce Lynn Lacey and Bob “Again” Carney Jr., both heavy underdogs, in the primary. Jensen has been a longtime critic of Walz, most notably against the state’s lockdowns in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But he also suggested that hospitals inflated the number of sick people and questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines that Jensen said he did not receive.
The race between Walz and Jensen could also help determine the fate of abortion rights in Minnesota. Jensen told Minnesota Public Radio in March that he would “try to ban abortion” if elected — a remark that Walz and other Democrats have already seized on. Late last month, Jensen backed away from his more aggressive language in remarks, saying he supported exceptions to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk.
But Democrats, emboldened by Kansas’ vote last week to preserve abortion rights in a statewide referendum, are expected to make the issue a centerpiece of their fall campaign.
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