Donald Trump’s baseless claims of a rigged election are tearing Wisconsin Republicans apart.
MILWAUKEE — Timothy Ramthun’s entry into Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary last weekend was the car wreck no one could look away from.
His campaign is built around the preposterous idea the 2020 election could still be overturned — something even sympathetic Republicans here acknowledge is impossible. His campaign website went live, only to be deactivated. His three-hour campaign kickoff featured the appearance of Mike Lindell, the pillow salesperson and conspiracy theorist.
“It’s Tim time,” Ramthun, a state lawmaker, told supporters, while political professionals in Wisconsin cringed.
The problem for the Wisconsin Republican Party is that it isn’t just Ramthun. The entire party has been erupting on a near-daily basis here. In recent weeks, several county parties have called on the state’s longtime Republican Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, to resign, accusing one of Wisconsin’s most reliable conservatives of doing too little to pursue baseless claims the 2020 election was rigged. Other local party leaders are objecting to — or considering ignoring — the state party’s endorsement process in critical midterm elections, arguing it’s exclusionary. And in addition to Ramthun, there’s another gubernatorial candidate, Kevin Nicholson — who is openly warring with the state party, casting its chair as part of a “broken machine.”
It’s an unusual level of dysfunction for a state party that not so long ago was regarded as a model for conservatism nationally. And it may have disastrous implications for the party in the fall of what otherwise looks like a favorable year for Republicans across the electoral map, undercutting fundraising and turnout efforts in the GOP’s bid to reelect Sen. Ron Johnson and to unseat the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers.
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Donald Trump’s baseless claims of a rigged election are tearing Wisconsin Republicans apart https://t.co/vsceHqXnbx
— POLITICO (@politico) February 20, 2022
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