A primary race for the state’s 8th Senate District marked by political intrigue and a Trump endorsement

Special elections for the Legislature often fly under the radar, but there’s no shortage of political intrigue for an open state Senate district in southeast Wisconsin.

The race has everything, from an endorsement by former President Donald Trump to Democratic involvement in the GOP primary. It could be the latest barometer on the changing politics of Wisconsin’s suburbs, and it will decide whether Republicans win a two-thirds majority in one house of the Legislature.

Three Republicans and one Democrat are vying for the open 8th Senate District held for decades by Alberta Darling, the longtime Republican Senator from River Hills who announced her retirement from the Legislature late last year.

The three Republicans — Menomonee Falls state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, Germantown state Rep. Dan Knodl and Thiensville village president Van Mobley — face off Tuesday in a GOP primary. The winner will take on Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin on April 4.

In the not-too-distant past, the district might have been viewed as a shoo-in for Republicans, who relied on the conservative Milwaukee suburbs as the base of their political power. But with all the unusual factors at play, in a special election with a highly-charged race for state Supreme Court also on the ballot, the outcome of the race is harder to predict.

“Because it’s a special election, alongside a nonpartisan state election, I genuinely don’t know who’s going to show up,” said John Johnson, a research fellow at the Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education at Marquette University Law School. “If we get 30 percent of registered voters turning out, that’s really good. And it’s hard to predict who that 30 percent will be.”

Much of the drama on the Republican side of the race is connected to Trump, whose influence over the Republican Party is much more of an open question now than it was in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Trump was highly involved in Wisconsin’s elections last year, endorsing Tim Michels in a competitive GOP primary for governor and endorsing the primary opponent of Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

This month, Trump endorsed Brandtjen, a vocal Vos adversary who spent the past two years amplifying the former president’s false assertions that he won the 2020 presidential election.

“Janel Brandtjen of Wisconsin is a true Patriot and fighter for America First principles and MAGA,” Trump said in posts on the social platform Truth Social. “Janel is a true Patriot who will Make Wisconsin Great Again! Her RINO opponents don’t care about the State.”

While Trump’s support for Brandtjen was hardly new — he endorsed her in her uncompetitive state Assembly race last year — his attacks on her opponents carried a hint of irony. Mobley was the first elected Wisconsin Republican to endorse Trump in 2016, a year when the rest of the state’s GOP was trying to stop Trump from winning the Republican nomination for president.

In an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, Mobley took issue with Trump calling him a “RINO,” the acronym for “Republican In Name Only.”

“Mr. Trump is, on this case, all wet,” Mobley said. “He knows better. And I’ve been a Republican for longer than him. And he owes me. And that is very disloyal. And so I’m very disappointed in him.”

Trump isn’t the only one calling attention to Brandtjen’s campaign. Democrats have also gotten involved in the primary, mirroring a strategy the party used nationally last year to try to pick their opponents in the general election.

The state Democratic Party has paid for political mail highlighting Brandtjen’s anti-abortion record and her endorsement from Trump. Habush Sinykin has also run ads attacking Brandtjen as “too conservative,” which could boost her chances in a primary where the candidates are courting conservative voters.

Should Brandtjen prevail in the primary, it could put some Republicans in an awkward spot. Her GOP colleagues in the state Assembly voted last year to kick her out of the Assembly Republican caucus, citing a lack of trust. The vote came months after Brandtjen had joined Trump to campaign against Vos.

Republicans will maintain big majorities in the state Legislature regardless of the outcome of the race, but the stakes could still be high. A two-thirds majority in the state Senate would give Republicans the margins they need to impeach and remove “civil officers” from state government.