Jessi Ebben is running as a Republican in the 7th congressional district’s Aug. 11 GOP primary. However, she ADMITS SIGNING the petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker.
Look at how Ebben, 36, and the media misleadingly pitched her position on the Walker recall and Act 10 when she ran, unsuccessfully, against Republican Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd congressional district primary six years ago. The 7th district seat is Tom Tiffany’s current congressional district.
Worth repeating. Actually, Jessi Ebben SIGNED the Walker recall petition. She acknowledged this in an interview.
For years, whether someone signed the Scott Walker recall petition was kind of the litmus test on conservatism – or not. Did a person sign the petition to recall Walker over Act 10, his signature collective bargaining reform measure? The website that tracked recall petition signers is down. However, whether Ebben signed it or not is not an open question. She admits that she did.
The other GOP candidates in the race did NOT sign the Walker recall petition. Marine veteran Kevin Hermening and dog musher Niina Baum did not sign it, and Mike Alfonso was too young. Ebben is an Ashley Furniture official who was born in Stevens Point and raised in Westfield and who recently moved into the 7th congressional district. She lost in a contentious Republican primary in the 3rd congressional district to former Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden.
In 2020, newspaper stories listed Ebben as living in Eau Claire, in the 3rd congressional district and said she worked for Prevea Health doing PR. An article that year by WISC News stated that Ebben was a “lifelong” resident of the 3rd congressional district; but that wasn’t quite true. She also lived in Minnesota for a time, where she worked in local government. She moved to Stanley in 2025.
That article said Ebben was the daughter of two left-leaning teachers. It also says she became a conservative in college. Actually, though, she signed the Walker recall petition in college. She was about age 22 at the time of the 2012 Walker recall petition. Today she is 36.
We asked Ebben about this, and here is what she said.
“My parents were teachers, and I was getting the union lies. The union lied to my parents and fear mongered them to make them think they would lose their jobs and they didn’t. That was a big deal figuring things out. They lied to my parents. They lied to thousands of teachers. Walker was a great governor.” She said she “sifted through” everything, and she is now a conservative Republican. She called herself a “a conservative millennial young mom.”
