Wisconsin Republicans discuss unity, abortion at state convention

Following multiple elections where conservative candidates emerged from bruising primaries and struggled to counter Democratic attacks on the issue of abortion, Wisconsin Republicans used their state party convention Saturday to call for unity and new ways to present their views to the public.

The annual gathering of Republicans, held this year in La Crosse, came roughly two months after the state’s supreme court race captured national attention and one year before Wisconsin is expected to be the center of the political universe. Republicans will hold their national convention in Milwaukee in 2024, ahead of a presidential election where Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes could be critical in the race for the White House.

Last year’s GOP primary for governor and this year’s Supreme Court primary both turned negative for conservatives, and early signs suggest the GOP primary for president, and a primary for U.S. Senate, could again divide Republicans. The abortion issue that defined the last two campaigns could also prove just as pivotal next year.

On Saturday, Republicans sought to temper those divisions, urging the party’s faithful to focus on defeating Democrats, not each other.

“Let’s send a message to the Democrats in the state that this party is unified, that we’re principled,” said Brian Schimming, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. “And that in this cycle 2024, we’re going to do what it takes, you and I, to fire Joe Biden as President of the United States.”

Wisconsin lived up to its swing state status the past two presidential elections, when Republican former President Donald Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2016 and Democratic President Joe Biden won by a similar margin in 2020. Close calls have been a way of life off and on for more than two decades in Wisconsin, where the 2000 and 2004 presidential election results were even tighter.

But recent elections have presented challenges for Republicans as the voting patterns that helped them thrive as a party have started to change. Suburban voters, once the bedrock of GOP politics, have been voting in greater numbers for Democrats, leading some in the GOP to call for a clean break from Trump, who has polarized suburban voters nationally.

At the same time, the Trump era has led to gains for Republicans in places where Democrats long held power, including in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District in Western Wisconsin. There, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, won an open seat held for more than two decades by former U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from La Crosse.

“This is not your pop’s Republican Party,” Van Orden told GOP activists at the convention, which was broadcast by WisconsinEye. “We’ve got tattoos, piercings. Some of us who have hair decided to color it purple. We’re the working men and women of this nation.”

Republicans also celebrated the 2022 victory by Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, who narrowly won election to a third term. Johnson, during his remarks, told Republicans that their anti-abortion view was the most compassionate, saying the party needed to engage the public on the issue.

“As Republicans, we have to ask ourselves, how did we get maneuvered in the court of public opinion as being the extremists on this issue,” Johnson said.

Nationally, polls show the majority of Americans support legal abortion. A March Marquette University Law School national poll found 67 percent of respondents opposed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

Johnson again voiced support for a statewide referendum gauging at what stage of pregnancy abortion should be illegal. He said he’d want to present voters with 10 options as to when, and if, abortion should be allowed.

“You may not necessarily agree with what decision that woman may make, but that woman has a right,” Johnson said. “But at some point in time, the unborn child within her also has a right.”

Abortion was a key issue in the 2022 campaign for governor, when Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Republican challenger Tim Michels. It also loomed large in the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race when Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz, who was backed by Democrats, defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who was backed by Republicans.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, a vocal abortion opponent, told Republicans they had to find a way to deal with the issue.

“Because clearly the way the Democrats are dealing with it, they feel it helps them,” Grothman said. “And anybody who was doing doors at the time knows that as well.”

Republicans argued the public was on their side when it came to other issues, including in calls for tougher enforcement of immigration laws.

At the state level, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, celebrated a recent deal on local government funding that included a major increase in private voucher school funding among other Republican policy goals.

“The speaker is a ruthless negotiator,” LeMahieu said of Vos. “I sometimes just sit back and smile and watch him go against the governor, and I’m sort of the good cop. Sometimes he’s the bad cop. And it worked out really well this time.”

Vos and LeMahieu promised Republicans would pass a major income tax cut as part of the budget they send Evers, possibly by the end of this month. Vos also renewed his call for cutting the University of Wisconsin System’s budget because of the UW’s embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, often referred to as DEI.

“It stands for division, exclusion and indoctrination,” Vos said of the DEI acronym. “For the past 10 years, the left has used every bit of their resources to indoctrinate and to burrow like a tick inside the university system.”

In addition to the race for the presidency, Republicans will also choose a candidate next year to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, though as of now, the GOP has yet to rally around a single candidate. GOP leaders recruited U.S. Rep. Gallagher, R-Green Bay, but Gallagher, who did not attend convention Saturday, decided not to run.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minoqua, who plans to decide in August whether he’ll run for U.S. Senate, spent much of his time during a panel discussion talking about the need to secure the border, to combat fentanyl deaths and to reduce crime in America’s cities.

“It matters that crime gets under control in cities across America,” Tiffany said. “Because it’s coming to the rest of America.”

Other candidates said to be weighing the U.S. Senate race include Franklin businessman Scott Mayer, Madison businessman Eric Hovde and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. A recent poll showed Clarke to be the heavy favorite, which Democrats said told people all they needed to know about “extremism” in the state GOP.

“The biggest story from the Republican convention this weekend will be the thing that didn’t happen: the Wisconsin GOP, dominated by MAGA extremism and divided against itself, still has yet to dredge up a single candidate willing to take on Senator Tammy Baldwin,” read a written statement from Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler. “Months after Dan Kelly’s campaign went down in flames, it’s clear Wisconsin Republicans still have no answers for addressing the anti-abortion extremism that has rendered them toxic with voters.”

While no 2024 presidential hopefuls spoke at convention, Wisconsin Republicans watched video messages from five candidates: former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and Trump. Of all the messages, Trump’s was the most Wisconsin-centric, featuring shout-outs to Schimming and Johnson, praise for the state’s dairy industry, an insult of DeSantis and a pledge to visit Milwaukee next year to accept the GOP nomination.

“It could all come down to Wisconsin,” Trump said. “And probably will.”