>> 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 Shawn Johnson here with my colleagues Anya van
Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hey, gang.
>> Hey, Shawn. 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 want to 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 Alfonso is the son in law of U.S.
Transportation Secretary Shawn 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
officeholder, Tom Tiffany, is running for governor.
We're going to 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, you know, 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 Barron. But then Josh
Schoemann, 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 kingmaking move, at least in the primary. But
then it can also lead to all kinds of stuff in the
general. 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 first
hand 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 former gymnasium of a very old school. And it
happened on the first 80 degree day that Mercer saw
this year. So 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 to. So a lot of people up there,
and this was actually the first time that I saw.
Candidates, Republican candidates, Kevin Hermening
and Jesse Ebben go negative against Alfonso. They were
criticizing Alfonso, who is 26 years old, 26 years old,
for not having very much experience in politics or
local government, etc. and they were portraying
themselves as the better choice. But they also there
was discussion about, you know, does El Alonzo Shawn
Duffy feel like this congressional seat is
something that he's entitled to? So it was
really interesting people up there tip toeing 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 was 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 Ebben and Kevin Hermening. And then there
was an empty chair with Michael Alfonso's name on a
piece of paper taped to it. And even during the the
debate, Kevin Hermening stretched his arm out and
kind of put it on. The chair had a big smile. His
campaign person took a picture that made it up,
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 which has
done some reporting on, did drop out this week. Tell us
about that. Paul Ryan left the race.
is a successful business person. He had a largely
self-funded campaign. And so him dropping out is kind
of the first big drop out 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 of 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, these kind of DC connected
Pence studies on, you know, one thing that when Rich
covered the the empty chair Alfonso was posting at the
same time on Facebook. Photos of him with
Republican Congress people 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 Oscar, and 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 going to see a little bit of that,
you know, bowing out in order to maintain the good
of the party. >> Rich.
>> Yeah. If I could just chime in on that. So the
other thing is that, you know, 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, $1 million from Shawn
Duffy's former congressional campaign. And
so they've essentially been doing a lot of ads, a lot
of work for Alfonso. Therefore, he hasn't had to
spend as much of the money that he's actually raised.
And with regard to Wasserman, what you noticed,
Shawn, on that last finance report that that we looked
at when I was reporting on it, there was some
interesting loan information. You want to
talk about that? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, well,
I think the thing that got his attention for Paul
Wasserman when he jumped into the race was, as you
mentioned, an ability to sell funds. 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's 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 got to 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,
you know, uneasiness among Republicans up there, is
this a 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 tended to
be more and more Republican since, say, 2010. We have
to also remember that former Democratic
Congressman Dave Obey represented that the
seventh for many, many years. But of course, with
the Tea Party wave, Shawn Duffy got in and 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 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
it. 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
Barron 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
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 with the Democratic
Socialists 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 that can really signal
where Huang 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 the 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 in front of you, 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 Q kind of early going, right.
>> There's not a lot of differentiation on policy
differentiation on sort of the specifics of things.
But basically every Democratic candidate
supports abortion rights, supports expanding Medicaid.
Like there are all of these kind of signals there. And
so 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,
Mamdani 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. 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 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 of moderate or business minded Democrats.
And then there are people, a 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. And 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 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, in
different circumstances, he'd have somebody. But in
this race, he doesn't want to go there for for
whatever reason. So I guess it is an open question that
we could ask every single campaign. But I don't care.
I want to ask it again. Do endorsements matter? Do
they matter for for voters? To me, I think the answer
is absolutely yes. Given 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
Lindsey Brunet, 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, king making 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 endorsements 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 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? >> Yeah, 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 Bryan
Schimming to be fired or resigned. 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. So this is Schimming is still in place,
and there's a new rule where you have to sign an
NDA. executive committee for the
party makes decisions like this. And, you know, 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.
Schimming 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 Zac 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.