Do endorsements matter?
This week we look at a few examples,
including in heated primaries for
the seventh congressional district
and the governor's office.
Plus the latest Republican party
drama following the Supreme Court
blowout.
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson here with my
colleagues Anya Van Wagtendonck and
Rich Kramer in Eau Claire.
Hey gang.
So part of the reason we wanted to
talk about these races is that they
are interesting, okay?
If you haven't been following these
primaries yet, and you'll be
forgiven, it's April, but
the races for the seventh
congressional district, especially
on the Republican side and the
Democratic primary for governor are
pretty dramatic.
Let's start with the seventh though,
Rich, because another reason we
wanna follow these is that,
they involve endorsements that
seem like they could define the
race.
Tell us about what happened up in
the seventh, where you got kind of
the biggest endorsement of all.
Yeah, truly.
President Donald Trump, way back in
January, endorsed one of
the candidates running
for that seat, Michael
Alfonso. Of course Michael Alphonso
is the son-in-law of U.S.
Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy, who also had
that congressional seat before.
So it definitely created a stir
within the GOP primary and I'm
sure you'll be hearing a little bit
about that endorsement in the
general.
And the reason we
have an open race up there, Anya,
is because the current office
holder, Tom Tiffany, is running
for governor.
We're gonna get to that race in a
bit. But first of all, with Tom
Tiffany as he transitioned to the
governor's race, he also got that
Trump endorsement.
How has that played out in his race
there?
Yeah, I mean, if people go all
the way back in time to 2025,
there were briefly three Republican
candidates for governor alongside
Tom Tiffany.
One dropped out after some negative
reporting about some of the stuff
he'd been following on social media.
That was Bill Barion.
But then Josh Schoeman, Washington
County executive stayed in the race
until the morning after
Tom Tiffany got the Trump
endorsement and he dropped out.
And so it was a little bit of This
nod to the fact that in a Republican
primary, a nod from Trump.
Can really be a sort of king-making
move, at least in the primary,
but then it can also lead to
all kinds of stuff in the general.
It was really a
cause effect situation there, right?
Endorsement one day, he drops out
the next.
That has not been the case in the
seventh though, Rich.
I mean, I think that is the general
playbook is that Trump endorses
and people sort
of assume that in a Republican
primary, that seals it.
That is not what's happening there.
And you kind of saw it firsthand
last night at a candidate
forum in Mercer.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, so this forum was
hosted by the Iron County Republican
Party. It was in a, a
former gymnasium of a very old
school. And it happened on the
first 80 degree day that
Mercer saw this year.
So, um, it was a nice
event, but the theme
was, if I might summarize
the candidates and some of the
people I talked to in the audience,
we support president Trump,
but that doesn't mean we
have to vote for who he
tells us So...
A lot of people up there and
this was actually the first time
that I saw
candidates, Republican candidates,
Kevin Hermaning and Jesse Eben,
go negative against Alfonso.
They were criticizing Alfonzo, who
is 26 years
old, for not having very
much experience in
politics or local government, etc.,
and they were portraying themselves
as the choice.
They also, there was discussion
about, you know, does
Alfonso or Duffy feel like
this congressional seat
is something that he's entitled
to.
So it was really interesting.
People up there tiptoeing the line
of still supporting the president,
who did very well in this district,
which leans pretty Republican,
but they just don't,
there's this independent streak
where they don't like the idea of
being told what to do.
And I got to ask you about what they
did on the stage there, too,
because they had assigned seats for
all the candidates,
including Michael Alfonso.
Yeah. And in fact, the only
seat that had a
sign on it was Michael Alfonso.
So you had the three of the
Republican candidates were on the
stage. That's Nina Baum,
Jesse Eben, and Kevin Hermaning.
And then there was an empty chair
with Michael
Alphonso's name on a piece of paper
taped to it.
And even during the
debate, Kevin Hermining
stretches arm out and
kind of.
Put it on the chair, had a big
smile. His campaign person
took a picture that made it on
social media pretty quickly.
So there was that, but even before
the debate, one of the interesting
things that kind of got me
interested in going up there was
this Republican party,
their Facebook page was essentially
goading or kind of making
a little bit of fun of Alfonso's
campaign for not responding.
The GOP chair up there told me that
People he knows with the Michael
Alfonso campaign told him that the
Trump-endorsed candidate doesn't
need to debate.
And people in the audience say that
they told me that's just not the
case. Like this is
important. You've got to get out in
this district and meet people one
by one.
And that's, that's what it takes to
win.
So you have the candidates who are
in that race saying,
you can't tell us what to do.
We're still running up here, Anya,
although one of the candidates who
Rich has done some reporting on did
drop out this week.
Tell us about that Paul Waskran left
the race.
Yeah, so Paul Waskran is a
successful business person.
He had a largely self-funded
campaign.
And so him dropping out is kind of
the first big dropout
of the race.
And that's one of the things we kind
of look to going into a primary,
especially in these crowded fields,
is when will people start dropping
out? So this is kind the first one.
He had raised quite a bit of money
from himself, as I mentioned, but
very little in terms of independent
donors.
And then by contrast, you have
Alfonso, who has received quite a
bit of money from this kind of DC
connected past that he's on.
You know, one thing that
when Rich covered the empty
chair, Alfonso was posting at the
same time on Facebook photos of him
with Republican congresspeople
in DC.
So he has these big connections.
And so I think it was a little bit
of a signal that even people with
deep pockets are not
necessarily feeling up to the
challenge. He also said that he
didn't want to, Wasgren said that,
he didn't want to kind of contribute
to a bloody primary, that that could
only empower Democrats.
And so I think we're gonna see a
little bit of that, you know, bowing
out in order to maintain the good of
the party.
Yeah, if I could just chime in
on that.
So the other thing is that
there's this political action
committee that has been raising
money. It's based in Alabama.
It's brand new.
And it's been getting some of that
money, a million dollars, from Sean
Duffy's former congressional
campaign.
And so they've essentially been
doing a lot of ads, a lot
work for Alfonso.
Therefore, he hasn't had to spend as
much of the money that he's actually
raised. And with regard
to Wasgren...
What you notice, Sean, on
that last finance report that
we looked at when I was reporting on
it, there was some interesting
loan information.
You wanna talk about that?
Oh, yeah, I mean, well, I think the
thing that got his attention
for Paul Waskran when he jumped into
the race was, as you mentioned,
an ability to sell fun.
So he loaned himself a million bucks
there to start out.
He had repaid a lot of that in
the in the last report.
So I think it is a
situation where you put the money in
there to send a message, he decided
it was not well received and took
the money back and got on out of
there.
Rich, I guess one thing we gotta
ask here.
This is a very Republican district.
And so we are talking about this
Republican primary, but
is this a situation
where, because of this infighting
uneasiness among Republicans up
there, is this door open for
Democrats?
I've heard that it is and I've
heard that. It isn't.
So this is a district that
has 10 tended to be
more and more Republican since,
say, 2010.
We have to also remember that
former Democratic Congressman Dable,
we represented that
the seventh for many, many years.
But, of course, with the Tea Party
wave, Sharon Duffy
got in and it
stayed Republican since.
Of course, the map also changed.
But just what I've been told by
Joe Hendrick, who's kind of like the
maps and elections data
guru for the Republicans,
is that it is
Republican. It would be an uphill
battle for any Democrat,
but it's
not impossible.
And he said if the GOP picks the
wrong candidate in the primary and
it's a wave year, which he
said it seems to be looking like it
might be, It's possible
for this to flip back to...
Democratic hands.
Whether that happens or not,
Hendrick said it's unlikely, but
it's not off the table.
So let's turn to the Democratic
primary for governor here,
where we have seven candidates
running and it is at
this stage not getting a
ton of attention statewide.
I mean, we did just have a Supreme
Court race that ate up some of that.
There's a little national news right
now that has people's attention.
But Anya, in that race, it
feels like you could be talking
about endorsements every week in a
way about how that might affect
the race.
What's one that caught our eye this
week?
Yeah, I mean, so there have been all
of these kind of smaller or more
local endorsements that have been
coming through.
So local firefighters unions or this
kind of thing. But then this week
was the first at least that I've
noticed sort of national figure to
back a candidate.
So Ilhan Omar of Minnesota backed
Francesca Hong, who is a
Democratic representative from
Madison. She aligns the Democratic
socialist sort of platform.
And so she's one of the further left
candidates, obviously getting the
backing of a further left member of
Congress. And this really caught our
attention for sort of a double-edged
reason, right? That can really
signal where Hong stands here
in Wisconsin.
But of course, Ilhan Omar has
plenty of people who don't care for
her in the Republican
and sort of conservative side of
things. And so looking towards a
general election, I'm curious what
it'll mean to have some of these
more divisive endorsements.
But right now, it's also really
interesting for a big national
figure with a lot of media
attention, social media attention to
be throwing her weight behind.
A candidate in the Wisconsin
governor's election.
Yeah, to me, I think if you're
a voter out there who's barely
paying attention to these races at
this point and you have this,
you know,
overwhelming list of choices and for
any essentially, they're probably
looking for clues on if they
want to go for a very liberal
candidate. This is a way of sending
that message that representative
Hong is that candidate, you know,
you don't earn an endorsement like
that without being a
candidate like that.
So it is a way to send a little
cue kind of early going.
Right. There's not a lot of
differentiation on policy issues.
There's some differentiation on sort
of the specifics of things.
But basically every Democratic
candidate supports abortion rights,
supports, you know, expanding
Medicaid. Like there are all of
these kind of signals there.
And so an endorsement can offer a
more specific kind of endorsement.
I'm sorry, a signal
around values and also, again,
invite some of the media attention
that can come with that.
So it's one thing to say, oh, I
have the support of this local union
in my community. And what does that
say about my support for workers
rights? It's another thing if,
you know, Mom Donnie
comes in and backs you, right, a
sort of nationally famous figure
where people have already kind of
done the work to understand who that
person is and so then they can apply
it to the candidates here.
We can't hear you, Rich.
So Anya, I guess a
question that I have when it comes
to endorsements like this on
the Democratic side, is there
an equivalent to the Donald Trump
endorsement where if this person
comes in, you know,
it's kind of all over in a primary.
I mean, put simply, no, Trump
is really the standard bearer for
the Republican Party and has been
for a decade.
Democrats just don't have that
equivalent person, in part because,
you know, you do have some of this
division between more centrist
Democrats and more left wing
Democrats.
And so again, somebody like Ilhan
Omar is going to really appeal to
people who are kind of already in
the Francesca Hong camp, would
not necessarily appeal to more sort
moderate or business-minded
Democrat.
And then there are people,
Kamala Harris or somebody similar
who might appeal more to those kind
of centrist folks, but there's not
really a uniting figure in
the same way that Donald Trump is.
You could imagine if, let's say
former President Obama were to jump
in with an endorsement in that
primary, which seems unlikely, but
you never know.
That might turn some heads.
I think one difference is that
President Trump has sort of
gone after people who don't fall in
line in a way that I don't know that
President Obama would or could.
Trump brags about it, frankly.
I mean, he is not afraid to enforce
his endorsements.
And so I don't know that you have
something like that on the
Democratic side.
Well, and you also don't have Tony
Evers weighing in on who would be a
good sort of recipient
of the torch that he wants to pass.
In fact, I have asked him several
times if he's going to endorse and
he shoots that question down every
time. So it looks like he's really
not playing favorites.
And so that's, again, another lack
of a signal, right?
If if there's nobody to kind of
carry forward the specific Evers
legacy, then who is the person
who can do what he did, which is win
pretty narrowly against a
Republican?
Yeah, I want to just like reinforce
that that is a perfectly reasonable
question and you should keep asking
it. And I think in a different year
and different circumstances, he'd
have somebody.
But in this race, he doesn't
want to go there for whatever
reason.
So I guess it is an open
question that we can ask every
single campaign, but I don't care.
I want ask it again.
Do endorsements matter?
Do they matter for voters?
To me, I think the answer
is. Absolutely, yes, given the
given the circumstances.
One, I think that where you see it
definitely mattering is in our
upcoming court race.
I don't know if you've paid
attention to this one yet.
I mean, I know you have you've
written about it, but you
did not have candidates
endorse.
You did not have the liberal
justices endorse in that race
yet. So in the 2024 Supreme
Court race, you had the four sitting
liberal justices endorsed Susan
Crawford early on in 2025.
You had them endorse Chris Taylor.
You've had a candidate jump into the
race, this race already, Anya, that
you've written about,
Lindsay Burnett.
She did not immediately get that
endorsement.
And so now you have maybe Judge
Pedro Colon in Milwaukee
could be running.
So the lack of endorsement may be
spawning a little liberal primary
on that side.
Yeah, again, and especially with the
courts, right? There can be a little
bit of that, you know, kingmaking
approach again.
So I think it is when you have a
crowded field that the endorsements
really matter.
But we live in also such polarized
times that going into a general
election, there are going to be
very few surprising endorsements.
So the people that I've talked to
about the politics of
endorsements have said, you know
surprising endorsement really
matter. Less surprising ones matter
less because, you know, of course.
Democratic royalty is going to back
Democrats and Republican royalty is
going to be back Republicans in
general.
Before we wrap up here, I feel like
we got to talk about the
kind of aftermath of the 2026
Supreme Court race, though, in
just about a minute here.
There was some talk that the
state party chair, Brian Schimming,
could lose his job over that race.
Some people wanted him out.
What's the update on that?
He's still in the
the party web page still shows
him as chairman, they had an
executive committee.
So that's the group of people
that could have fired him
and they apparently did not.
But the twist is,
people I talked to that are on the
committee said we can't tell you
what happened there because we
signed non disclosure agreements.
Those agreements were put in effect
in December.
And just for context.
After the 2025 loss
that Republicans
had, that was the Schimel and Susan
Crawford race, there were
calls for Brian Schiming
to be fired or
resign. So kind of the same thing.
And shortly after that,
the executive committee passed some
new rules to
kind of clamp down on people
complaining publicly about GOP
party leadership.
This is shimming is still
in place and there's a new rule
where you have to sign an NDA.
So this powerful executive committee
for the party makes decisions
like this.
And you talk to one of the members
and he didn't really tell you about
what went on, but he said,
check the website.
Yeah, check the website.
That's right.
And there's Brian Schimming's name
as chair.
Well, we'll continue to follow that
one and all these endorsements
that'll do it for this week.
That's all the time we have.
Our colleague Zach Schultz will be
back next week.
Thanks for joining us.
This has been Inside Wisconsin
Politics. Be sure to follow us on
pbswisconsin.org,
wpr.org YouTube or
wherever you get your podcasts.
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