This is an analysis piece.
The 2020 election-obsessed media are framing the Aug. 13 primary results as being a repudiation of “election denial,” Donald Trump, and the idea that Milwaukee crime is a real concern in Waukesha County. Liberals are screaming that voters proved they just love Tony Evers’ wild spending habits.
Those are just some of the dumbest takes on the Aug. 13 primary election results in Wisconsin.
Actually, President Trump had a good night in Wisconsin on primary night. His top guy won a hotly contested congressional primary in the Valley, largely on the back of a personal appeal Trump himself made to voters. Tony Wied, previously a little-known gas station owner, didn’t just run a TV ad touting Trump’s endorsement. It featured Trump himself. Arguably, the Trumpiest guy on the ballot on Aug. 13 won. He now faces a leftist woman, Kristin Lyerly, who, according to a Democratic lawsuit, “performed abortions in Sheboygan County and elsewhere in Wisconsin, up until late June 2022.” Reminder: It’s a Republican-leaning congressional district.
#WI08 I need your support today!
Go VOTE and bring your family and friends to the polls.
Stand with @realDonaldTrump and send an outsider to Washington!!!
No more CAREER politicians.
— Tony Wied (@TonyWied) August 13, 2024
The Internet was awash with bad, biased, and just plain dumb analysis after the primary, including on the meaning of the two state referendums failing. No, they weren’t some sign that Democrats are gaining power in the WOW counties or that voters love Tony Evers blowing federal money on Planned Parenthood. There was only one moral to that story: Spending more than $3 million to mislead voters works. Where are the “misinformation” journalists when you need them? They’ve pulled up their circus tents. Insanely, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a gazillion-word article on the referendums’ defeat that never detailed the massive spending differential; the AP’s story didn’t detail it either.
Wispolitics.com – to its credit – did. Turns out liberal-aligned groups spent almost $3 million to defeat the referendums with propaganda; conservative interests spent $260,000. Do the math. In addition, the heated Democratic primary in La Crosse drove up the “no” tally.
Hysterically, Tony Evers’ consigliere Britt Cudaback gushed on X, “Much will be said about these results, but one thing is clear: Helping people matters. @GovEvers was a leader in a time of calamity.” Maggie Gau probably approved of that message, but here are two better takes:
“Yeah, you out-spent us on advertising so low-info voters fell for it,” a woman responded to a Democrat crowing about the referendums going down on X. “My sister was one of them. Once I explained she was sorry for her vote.”
The triumphalism over the constitutional amendments is amusing. Sure you win when you outspend the other side by 12 to 1. Good on you and the gravy train will keep rolling. But if it turns out to be President Trump and Governor – IDK – Tiffany, you may not like its direction.
— Rick Esenberg (@RickEsenberg) August 14, 2024
The media and some pundits also tried to make it into some pattern or canary in the mine that two, as they called them, “election deniers” lost, Tim Ramthun and Janel Brandtjen!
Wisconsin is another reminder that I don't think MAGA appreciates how tired the rest of us are having to deal with their continued mythologizing of 2020 as a stolen election. Voters are reacting pretty savagely.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 14, 2024
But many other factors went into those defeats – including the fact that both of them trashed fellow Republicans, including their own Republican leaders, in vicious terms, and were running against well-known and very conservative incumbents who outspent them (albeit in new districts).
For example, Dan Feyen raised more than $142,000 this year; Ramthun, $6,568. I mean, c’mon. We highly doubt that many voters had the 2020 election on their minds when they voted against Ramthun or Brandtjen; in fact, voters seem to care a lot about election integrity in those areas (albeit they’re more worried about the border and their grocery bills). It is simply far more complicated than the simplistic narrative. The notion that victors Feyen and Dan Knodl are supposedly less conservative Republicans than others is silly; I mean Feyen touts being 100 percent pro-life on his website, and Knodl supports Trump. They’re just not crazy.
Of course, the Brandtjen-esque Lindee Brill, who made election integrity a top plank, won her Assembly race. She was endorsed by Ramthun, so….it’s interesting the media pretty much ignored that.
Meanwhile, Democrats, who pundits claimed had a great night, rallied behind the anti-police fire-breathing socialist (Ryan Clancy) – although in fairness he also appears to have knocked on a lot of doors.
Impressive showing from Clancy. https://t.co/dhia5HgxaK
— Dan Shafer (@DanRShafer) August 14, 2024
Democrats also pushed through the gravitas-challenged former political fundraising consultant Rebecca Cooke, who was just accused in the New York Post of “self-interested double-dealing.” This is good news for Derrick Van Orden.
Interesting primary in Wisconsin tomorrow where both candidates are trying to claim a working-class mantle, although one (Rebecca Cooke) had a side gig for years as a political fundraising consultant. From Janie Ekere:https://t.co/3iHuVW9fKF
— David Dayen (@ddayen) August 12, 2024
She will face the better-financed, seasoned former Navy SEAL chief with five combat deployments in a general election.
This is me deployed, not being @Tim_Walz, squinting so hard to see Tim’s coward ass hiding under his couch in Minnesota as he sent his Soldiers to combat.
Tim earned his callsign: BLUE FALCON. pic.twitter.com/pUqleC9vK7
— Derrick Van Orden (@derrickvanorden) August 8, 2024
In 2022, Cooke couldn’t even beat Brad Pfaff, defeated by DVO. In 2024, she was trashed by leftist Mark Pocan, who accused her of hurting Democrats. She defeated the establishment and labor union-backed candidate. Cooke couldn’t even get her own campaign finance report in on time (at least this time, she didn’t blame her broken car.)
Congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke didn’t file her financial disclosure till the day before the primary. Her campaign said it was an “oversight.” Here it is: pic.twitter.com/gjJafKrrnR
— Daniel Bice (@DanielBice) August 13, 2024
As one observer keenly noted on X, “So the question is, which side is better off? The GOP marginalized their gonzo wing, but the gonzo/Clancy wing of the Democrat party won their primaries.”
That take has some merit. In a slew of legislative races, the more electable yet also Trump-supporting and very conservative general election candidates won. They aren’t more moderate. They’re less goofy. Frankly, that helps Trump in Wisconsin this November by making it harder for the liberal media to unfairly paint all conservatives as crazy “election deniers.” Which they will try to do.
Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel miraculously managed to pen a 1,318-word opus about the Waukesha County DA’s race without mentioning the words “John Chisholm.” Instead, the entire premise of the article seemed to be scolding the victor and her opponent for thinking crime coming out of Milwaukee is a problem (hello, Darrell Brooks.) They also failed to mention the words “Dick Uihlein.” Read on.
To back up its absurd contention that it was somehow faulty for Lesli Boese and Michael Thurston to be concerned about Milwaukee crime, the Journal Sentinel crowed that its crack analysis showed that ONLY 34% of all Waukesha County criminal cases charged in the past five years involve offenders with Milwaukee County addresses. Read that again. My God! One-third of Waukesha County criminal cases charged come from Milwaukee County! Sounds like a problem to me. Dare them to:
1, Analyze what percentage of Milwaukee County cases are linked to Waukesha County offenders as a point of comparison;
2, Ask the WOW county sheriffs for the percentage of their jails filled with Milwaukee County residents;
3, Put a cost/pricetag to Waukesha County residents on all of those Milwaukee County offenders getting charged with crimes out here;
4, Calculate the percentage of Waukesha County crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
Won’t hold my breath.
Now let’s dig a little bit deeper into the dumbest takes.
President Trump
Trump got his handpicked candidate Wied over the finish line against two well-known Republicans in the Fox Valley, including an arch-conservative with a clever boxing ad (Andre Jacque) and a well-financed Republican former state senator and military veteran (Roger Roth) whose uncle used to be a congressman in the area.
Trump’s direct appeal to voters on behalf of Wied wasn’t very fair (Roth is not a “RINO”), but it worked, demonstrating the former president’s power in a Republican primary in the key Fox Valley, which he needs to win Wisconsin.
Trump also endorsed Eric Hovde, who sailed to victory in the primary (not a shocker, of course.)
Yes, it’s true that Trump endorsed Brandtjen, who lost to state Sen. Knodl. But that endorsement barely registered in the race, as, unlike Wied, Brandtjen simply lacked the capital to capitalize on it, and Trump never cut a TV ad for her. In her Aug. 5 campaign finance report, Brandtjen reported only raising just over $16,000 for the entire year. How many voters even remembered that Trump endorsed a candidate in that race? We think few.
Waukesha County DA’s race
It’s actually amazing that the Journal Sentinel failed to mention Chisholm in the Waukesha County DA’s race. They also failed to mention conservative billionaire Uihlein, whose group came in big time with TV and online ads slamming Thurston, the candidate who lost.
Boese, who co-prosecuted the Christmas parade trial, won the race.
To conduct a better analysis of that race, we suggest the media read some of Wisconsin Right Now’s reporting on it or listen to Mark Belling – you know, figure out what conservatives actually care about. Thurston was the candidate with the momentum out of the gate because he was in the race a lot earlier. He had some really important law enforcement donations (like the respected conservative sheriff).
But he also had a donation history that he struggled to explain – having donated five times to Democratic DA John Chisholm, whose office’s bail recommendations became a huge focal point of controversy after the Christmas parade massacre. These donations – four of which Thurston at first tried to argue he forgot – likely wouldn’t sit well with Uihlein, who, years, ago, donated money to one of the candidates running against Chisholm in the wake of Chisholm’s crumbling and disastrous John Doe into Scott Walker’s campaign finance network (a Doe Thurston wouldn’t comment on and a candidate he said was worse than Chisholm). Thurston also had a lower prosecution percentage, which he blamed on differences in their units, had worked for Chisholm, and he had donated to Obama appointee Richard Cordray, a Democrat from Ohio, just three weeks after Obama endorsed the guy. On top of it, a key Christmas parade victim’s parents endorsed Boese.
That’s just a tough sell in conservative Waukesha County, and lots of conservatives out here don’t get their news from the Journal Sentinel anymore. Go into any cafe out there, talk to the gaggle of elderly guys chewing the fat over politics, and ask them which media they trust. In fact, it’s amazing that Thurston did so well with that baggage. He lost by only 2,500 votes. He can take some consolation in that. He was a more effective campaigner than Boese, frankly; he just had bad facts to work with at the end of the day. Maybe he should have taken on Kent Lovern instead.
We would note that the more conservative, and Republican-aligned candidate in the Washington County race – prosecutor Barry Braatz, won by a dramatic margin.
Turns out, people want the toughest-on-crime most Republican prosecutors they can get out here, not a guy, Thurston, who self-defined as a “moderate” Republican in writing. Why? Because they are legitimately concerned about crime, and, yes, that includes Milwaukee crime. It’s funny THAT is the claim the Journal Sentinel rushed to fact-check.
The referendums
The liberal reaction to the referendums was hilarious.
Democrat strategist Andy Suchorski wrote on X, “Tony’s superpower is that he’s not a politician,” referring to Evers. Liberal pundit Dan Schafer hilariously wrote, “The era of the WOW counties as a unified Republican stronghold is o-v-e-r.”
Um, no. In Waukesha County, 61% identified as Republican but only 57% voted yes. In Washington County, 72% said they were Republican but 65% voted yes. It’s true, though, that Ozaukee County has become pretty divided. Only 53% identified as Republican there; 50% voted yes, a majority.
In other words, the referendums passed in the WOW. But the misleading Democrat propaganda efforts confused just enough voters here and elsewhere to prevail.
For example, they gaslit voters into thinking that voting no preserved checks and balances when, actually, voting no gave a single partisan politician sole authority to blow billions of dollars of federal money without any check or balance.
Liberals also gaslit voters into thinking that voting yes would stall funding for emergencies, when the real issue was Democrat Evers blowing emergency funding on non-emergencies (and sitting on a bunch of it- why would he do that if it’s such an emergency?)
As for whether Republicans are negligent for not matching that spending, I heard big donors chose instead to prioritize helping Trump win Wisconsin and keeping legislative control in Republican hands. That means they kept their eye on the bigger ball. Meanwhile, Democrats chased Robin Vos’s shiny distraction ball into a corner and blew millions of dollars to preserve a status quo that could benefit a Republican governor someday (oh, will they cry foul about this unilateral power then).
Phyrric victory?
“Election deniers” fail
The media painted the primary losses of Brandtjen and Ramthun as the fall of the, in their words, “election deniers” (which seemed to be a subtle swipe at Trump). Frankly, it’s unfair for the media to jam that label into seemingly every headline about the pair, defining their lengthy careers by two words. “Wisconsin election deniers Janel Brandtjen and Tim Ramthun handed defeats in GOP primaries,” sniped the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
AP reporter Scott Bauer furthered this narrative, writing, “Two of Trump’s biggest backers in the Wisconsin Legislature who had wanted Wisconsin to decertify Biden’s win in 2020 lost to more moderate conservatives.”
It’s true that Trump should focus like a laser beam on the economy, the border, and Kamala Harris’s extreme left-wing record, and Brandtjen and Ramthun have said some outrageous things. But their opponents also highlighted legitimate election integrity concerns (yes, media, there are some), also support Trump, and are strong conservatives.
What Brandtjen and Ramthun share in common is the fact that they were facing deeply entrenched and well-financed incumbents (albeit drawn into new districts) who have been around for a long time. Brandtjen and Ramthun made a cottage industry out of attacking fellow Republicans in vicious and virulent terms. That dog just doesn’t hunt. The guys they were running against have good records.
I think a lot of voters still care about election integrity.
But there were probably more important factors at play in these races than the media admit.
For example: Knodl raised $71,000 for the year, outspending Brandtjen, which can really matter in a local race. He also benefitted from robocalls, direct mail, and online advertising from a conservative-linked group called Stronger Wisconsin Fund, which spent heavily in several Republican primaries, largely to defeat candidates – like Brandtjen and Ramthun – who have been rogue figures trashing leadership in the Assembly or just being obstructionists.
Brandtjen’s behavior scheming with Adam Steen to oust the Republican speaker did her no favors. For his part, Ramthun once said he wanted to punch the Republican leader, Robin Vos, in the nose for not allowing him into a closed-door meeting to discuss whether it was legal to decertify the presidential election (it wasn’t, so Vos, who also won a primary against an opponent who dropped out, didn’t do it.) Ramthun said it was hyperbole, but let’s just say that threatening to punch your party’s legislative leader in a YouTube video probably isn’t a great look.
Ramthun said some other bizarre and outrageous things on the campaign trail, sharing a post on Facebook about his opponent, Feyen, that said, “pictured in this post is one of the RINO’s I have in my bullseye.” That got media attention. Ramthun denied he was a violent person and said the post was taken down.
I have no idea who is behind the Stronger Wisconsin Fund for sure, other than it appears to be conservative-linked; candidates don’t get to tell third-party groups not to spend money helping them, nor are they even aware it is going to happen. In general, with some exceptions, the Fund also appears to have backed candidates with more general election appeal, which is important in a Legislature hanging by a thread because of Evers’ gerrymandered maps.
Some of the candidates it supported lost. Most didn’t. Republican incumbents (some drawn into new districts, so I guess you could debate whether they were incumbents, but in voters’ minds they probably retained that advantage) who won handily also included Joel Kitchens, David Steffen, Amy Binsfeld (uncontested), Calvin Callahan, Kevin Petersen, David Armstrong, Rob Summerfield, and Chanz Green. Incumbency mattered; probably more than a few mailers.
(As a matter of disclosure, the co-founder of this site, who also won a Republican primary Tuesday, benefitted from a single direct mail piece from this same group, but he had nothing to do with this article or with that expenditure. It’s doubtful that mailer played the largest role in that race either, due to his aggressive door-knocking efforts, his own direct mail, and his 78-year-old opponent’s last-minute vote on a local school board approving Biden’s Title IX agenda in a super conservative district.)
Knodl’s victory likely also stems from the fact he was a quasi-incumbent; he demolished Brandtjen in a hotly contested state Senate primary just last year with heavy spending that boosted his name ID even more. He opted to run for the new Assembly seat this August when Democrat Tony Evers sneakily redrew him into the same Senate seat as another popular Republican incumbent, Duey Stroebel.
On top of that, Knodl held an Assembly seat in the area before, and he is well-liked, deeply embedded, and well-known in the district, having run a tavern there for years.
How embedded? He was elected to the state Assembly SEVEN times since 2008. He also served as Majority Caucus Chair and Assistant Majority Leader. In other words, his victory may have far more to do with Knodl’s strengths than Brandtjen’s election positions. Or a couple negative direct mail pieces.
In fact, Knodl supports Trump, and guess what? He joined Brandtjen in signing a letter urging then-VP Mike Pence to hold off on certifying the 2020 presidential election. There goes the media narrative.
As with Knodl, Feyen is a pretty entrenched guy in the area as well with a lot of big endorsements. He was elected to the state Senate in 2016 and was Majority Leader in 2023, 2021, and 2019. Feyen also ran on a platform that included election integrity.
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