Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden and Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke have raised a record $12 million as they run neck and neck in the race for the 3rd Congressional District.

By Maggie Zale, THE BADGER PROJECT

With nearly $12 million combined, Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Democratic opponent Rebecca Cooke have raised not only the most of any U.S. House race in Wisconsin this election cycle, but also the most in the history of the 3rd Congressional District, according to an analysis by The Badger Project.

The highly contested 3rd in western Wisconsin includes La Crosse, Eau Claire, Stevens Point and Platteville.

The Republican incumbent has reported raising more than $6.6 million through Oct. 16, according to his final campaign report to the Federal Elections Commission before the election. Cooke reported raising $5.3 million in the same time frame. That sets a record for the most expensive race in the district’s history, breaking the previous record set in 2022.

Van Orden has about $1 million on hand for the final three weeks of the election, while Cooke has about $360,000 remaining, according to their reports. Candidates can continue fundraising through the election.

Van Orden has received $6,600, the maximum legal donation from an individual, from several people, including billionaire right-wing megadonor Richard Uihlein, the co-founder of the shipping supplies company ULINE.

He has also received $10,000, the maximum allowable donation from a political action committee, from the PACs of several big agricultural businesses including CHS and the American Crystal Sugar Company.

Cooke has received the maximum $6,600 donation from Laurie Murphy of De Pere, William Cary of Richland Center, Hillary Gabrieli of Boston, Agnes Gund of New York City, Kent Bennett of Newton Hihghlands, Massachusetts and Anna Sinaiko of Newton, Massachusetts.

Van Orden is a former Navy SEAL who was narrowly defeated for the seat in 2020 before winning in 2022.

From Eau Claire, Cooke describes herself as “a small business owner, non-profit leader and waitress.”

She also ran for the seat in 2022, earning more than 31% of the vote in a crowded Democratic primary, but lost to state Sen. Brad Pfaff, who won with nearly 39% of the vote.

Van Orden then defeated Pfaff in the general election by 2.7 points — 51.8% to 48.1% — in a race that surprised many for its closeness.

Van Orden ran behind Donald Trump, who won the 3rd Congressional District by 4.7 points in 2020 while losing Wisconsin.

In Van Orden’s 2022 race, the two candidates raised more than $8 million, which set the record at the time for the most expensive race in the 3rd Congressional District.

Most of that $8 million went to Van Orden, as national Democrats paid little attention to a race they thought was not competitive. Pfaff raised less than $2 million.

This time, with help from outside the state, the Democratic candidate has been well-funded, as Cooke has raised nearly as much as the Republican incumbent.

The race has attracted attention nationally as Democrats see the seat as one they can flip to help retake the majority, and Republicans spend heavily to defend it.

At times, the Republican incumbent has not helped his cause in this politically moderate district. Earlier this year, Van Orden compared the judge presiding over Trump’s hush-money fraud trial to an obscure Nazi judge, called him “Communist Scum,” posted a U.S. flag adorned with the Soviet hammer and sickle, and equated President Joe Biden to murderous dictators including Adolf Hitler.

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He was fined for bringing a handgun in his carry-on luggage when trying to board a plane at the Cedar Rapids airport, which he said was a mistake. The congressman also has reportedly had verbal outbursts against a teen library worker in Prairie du Chien over a gay pride display and against teen pages at the U.S. Capitol who were lying on the floor taking photos of the dome.

And Van Orden attended Trump’s election rally on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington D.C. that led to an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Van Orden said he left when protestors started fighting with police at the capitol before breaking inside.

Cooke has branded herself a “political outsider,” but she has worked as a fundraiser for several Democratic races in the past, and ran a political consulting firm, which took in nearly $200,000 for its work with several political committees and campaigns.

Polling in the district has been sporadic and partisan, but polls have shown leads for both candidates. The Cook Political Report rates the race “Lean Republican,” meaning it is considered competitive, though the GOP has an advantage.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

The post $12 mil & counting: The most expensive race in the history of western Wisconsin appeared first on The Badger Project.

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$12 mil & counting: The most expensive race in the history of western Wisconsin was first posted on October 28, 2024 at 5:27 pm.

By Shereen Siewert

A Wausau couple has filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission alleging that the city’s official drop box does not meet state standards, according to documents obtained by Wausau Pilot & Review.

Steven and Marie Schmidt filed the complaint Oct. 10 with the WEC, which has since acknowledged receipt of the document. In their official statement, the couple said they also submitted their concerns on Oct. 2 in a PDF document that was not included in the Oct. 8 Wausau City Council meeting packet. That omission is prompting the Republican Party of Marathon County to call for the dismissal of City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde, Chair Kevin Hermening wrote.

The WEC on Oct. 23 acknowledged receipt of the complaint. Bernarde has until Nov. 11 to respond. If a response is received, the Schmidts will have an additional 13 days to submit a final reply.

Wausau Mayor Doug Diny in September removed the locked drop box from outside City Hall, action that made headlines nationwide and prompted a federal criminal investigation. The box, which Bernarde had plans to formally install one day later, has since been returned and is now operational.

The Schmidts’ complaint accuses Bernarde of not following appropriate rules and procedures when installing the drop box, which also accepts tax payments and other forms of communication for the city. After a July state Supreme Court ruling allowing the drop boxes, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance to the state’s roughly 1,800 municipal clerks recommending more than a dozen security practices related to the boxes.

The instructions, which are not hard rules, include that they be “affixed to the ground or the side of the building,” “sturdy enough to withstand the elements,” “located in a well-lit area,” “equipped with unique locks or seals” and “emptied often.”

The commission recommended that clerks keep a record of the times and dates of retrieval, number of ballots retrieved and the names of the people doing the retrieving.

The group also referred clerks to federal guidelines.

The complainants point out that Wausau’s box has an opening that is larger than recommended, accepts more than just absentee ballots, is not clearly marked as a ballot box and does not include a posted time of final ballot retrieval. They also point out that the box is not in a well-lit area, and complain that Diny’s request for $3,000 to fund lighting and a new camera for the box was dismissed by the council earlier this month, a decision he could have made unilaterally.

Diny also pointed out that the box had not yet been firmly secured to the concrete at the time he removed it from outside City Hall, citing that as a basis for its removal. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision did not provide guidance on what it means for a drop box to be secure, according to information from Joel DeSpain, of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“The Commission recommends that clerks keep the following non-exhaustive security considerations in mind when planning to utilize drop boxes, which are consistent with guidance from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),” the WEC guidance states. “These considerations are merely a starting point—the Commission recommends that clerks thoroughly complete a security assessment for each intended drop box location prior to deployment.”

Some council members say Diny’s funding request was yet another way to politicize the argument surrounding the drop box. Diny can make such purchases without council approval but did not do so in the weeks and months leading into the controversy. City Council President Lisa Rasmussen said last month that council members were unwilling to be placed in a position to operate beyond their authority.

“The finance director advised the mayor he did not need council approval, there was funding and no modification to any budget was needed,” Rasmussen told WSAU. “We should not be asked to decide issues that do not require our approval just to give him political cover.”

Legal and election experts say the guidance for clerks regarding drop box placement, signage and usage is just that – guidance – not hard, set rules. That means the “violations” pointed out by the Schmidts in their complaint violate guidance only, not state election law, raising questions about what – if any – action can be taken by the WEC.

Bernarde did not respond to requests for comment. Information provided by DeSpain in response to an email from Wausau Pilot pointed again to guidance, not state law.

On Friday, Diny told Wausau Pilot he was unaware of the complaint and had been in Madison for a League of Municipalities Annual Conference, where he found “overwhelming support from leaders statewide.”

Diny is facing potential federal charges amid a Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation that launched last month. An Oct. 16 search warrant, obtained by Wausau Pilot & Review, authorized agents to seize Diny’s computer and cell phone as well as his wife’s phone. Agents are searching for evidence dating back to April 1, prior to his swearing-in as mayor “because evidence in this case suggests the drop box discussion initiated” before he took office, documents state.

The DOJ does not comment on pending investigations and there is no set timeline as to when a charging decision will be made.

Diny, in an email Friday, said he has not had any communication with the DOJ since Oct. 16.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice is spearheading the Diny investigation. The DOJ typically handles federal law violations, while local district attorneys focus on state law violations.

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• Republicans and Democrats are looking to college as a key part of their strategy for electing their presidential and Senate candidates with the candidates making several appearances on college campuses in Wisconsin.

• College students voting in their first presidential election are slightly more conservative than their older counterparts, but there’s also a growing gender gap with women more likely to support Democrats.

• A new College Democrats chapter at Madison College seeks to mobilize more students on a campus that often gets overlooked.

With Election Day squarely in view, both Democrats and Republicans have shifted their focus to turning out every possible voter — including first-time presidential election voters on college campuses.

Every vote matters in Wisconsin. The last two presidential races in this critical battleground state have each been decided by about 21,000 votes, or 1%. And next week’s contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could be even closer, with polls in Wisconsin and other battleground states suggesting there’s little daylight separating the rivals.

Those margins of victory happen to be less than half the number of students currently enrolled at just UW-Madison. It’s also just a fraction of the more than 160,000 four-year students at UW System campuses and Marquette University as of the start of the 2024-25 academic year — and that doesn’t include the thousands of other students who attend smaller private institutions spread across Wisconsin. 

Many of those students come from out of state, establish residency on or near campus and are eligible to vote — establishing a bulky pool of potential voters for campaigns to target. On UW System campuses in 2023, for example, some 51,000 students were from states other than Wisconsin. As of the start of this school year, 57% of Marquette’s 11,300 non-international students were from out of state.

College students could be the margin maker in the presidential race. With eight days to go, both sides are responding accordingly.

Democrats invest in college campuses

Trudging through a hilly Madison neighborhood, Joey Wendtland and Ty Schanhofer, a pair of UW-Madison students, were on a mission: Win votes for Democrats.

Earnestly, the two, along with a small group of other student volunteers, knocked on doors up and down the streets immediately west of the university’s towering football stadium in a neighborhood home to a mixture of students and non-students.

Each encounter with a resident followed the same formula: Do you have plans to vote? Who are you voting for? What issues do you care about most? Here’s where Kamala Harris stands on them.

“Three votes per ward was the difference in 2020,” Wendtland told one voter as he implored her to get three friends to vote — a nod to President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state four years ago.

Democrats are investing heavily this year in turning out students on college campuses. The Wisconsin Democratic coordinated campaign, a collaboration between the Harris campaign and the state Democratic Party, has seven full-time organizers dedicated to college campuses across Wisconsin in addition to a youth organizing director, a Harris campaign official told Wisconsin Watch. Many of those organizers have been on campuses since the fall of 2023, looking to build relationships with local College Democrats chapters, student volunteers and allied student organizations.

Over the past year, the coordinated campaign has also been experimenting with a “relational organizing program,” the official said. Using a smartphone app, students are able to import their existing contacts and communicate with their friends, sharing material from a content library of premade, Wisconsin-specific infographics, videos and even memes about Harris and the presidential race.

Peer-to-peer organizing is the most effective way to motivate college voters, several student activists told Wisconsin Watch.

“The most effective way to get young people on your side — and what we’ve seen in the past election cycles — is just young people talking to young people,” said Matthew Lehner, chair of College Democrats of Wisconsin and a senior at UW-Eau Claire.

College students are better able to engage with other college students because they care about the same issues, he added, pointing to climate change, gun control, increasing the minimum wage and abortion rights as issues that many young people have shared views on.

Wendtland, a senior and chair of College Democrats of UW-Madison, said it was critical to “meet students where they’re at” and “talk to them about the issues they care about.”

But it’s also important “to generate that enthusiasm among our student base,” he said. 

UW-Madison College Democrats has hosted events with prominent Madison-area Democrats, like U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and state Rep. Francesca Hong, to get people excited about next week’s election, Wendtland said. The group has also hosted more casual events, including bingo nights and bracelet-making events, to provide a forum for students to gather and get energized about the Democratic ticket.

Democrats are also hoping to make inroads on campuses that haven’t been front of mind in past elections. A College Democrats chapter was formed last spring at Madison Area Technical College and now has around 50 members, according to Kai Brito, a founding member of the student organization.

In previous election cycles, Brito said, he and other students at MATC felt like they had been forgotten and that they didn’t have a voice in politics.

“But now we’re saying, ‘No, we do.’ And I think it’s really important when you have someone taking the lead and saying, “Yeah, we have a voice, and we’re going to use it,’” he said. “I think we’re going to have hopefully a much higher turnout than we would have if we didn’t exist, because we’re keeping the conversation alive on campus.”

College Republicans push forward, face hurdles

Even during a busy afternoon on the campus, few students approached the College Republicans table at UW-Madison, an overwhelmingly liberal campus. A pair of students snagged Trump signs, and others accepted fliers for an upcoming event with U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde. One student, who said he studies nuclear engineering, stopped to talk about Trump’s nuclear policy.

Getting students to vote Republican is more of an uphill battle on typically liberal college campuses. Undeterred, conservative student groups on campuses like UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire press on with their efforts to appeal to young voters.

“A lot of the voters that we’re trying to get aren’t people who typically vote Democrat, but people who just typically don’t vote,” said Tatiana Bobrowicz, president of the UW-Eau Claire College Republicans.

In Madison, the student group has set up a table on campus nearly every day in the weeks leading up to the election. Thomas Pyle, a college senior and chair of the UW-Madison College Republicans, said their efforts have been greeted by glares and even protesters in years past. Bobrowicz said students passing by their table on UW-Eau Claire’s campus have flipped them off and harassed them. 

“Among Republicans, it’s more difficult, especially here at UW-Madison,” Pyle told Wisconsin Watch. “Having your voice heard, feeling comfortable in your vote and what you believe is really difficult when you’re surrounded by people who disagree with you.” 

Turning Point Action, College Republicans of America, Young Republicans, the American Conservation Coalition and Trump Force 47 are among the larger conservative groups that have been active across Wisconsin’s campuses this year. Student groups also draw funding and support from their county GOPs, the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Tommy Thompson Center on Public Leadership. 

“It’s really the lose by less mentality,” Hilario Deleon, 23, chair of the Milwaukee County Republican Party, said of college voters. “We’re not going to win areas like Milwaukee outright, we’re not going to win Dane County outright, but if we increase our voter percentage even by a few points, we win the state.” 

Young people are concerned about jobs and the economy, making Trump an attractive candidate, according to Pyle. The Democratic Party “demonizes” young men, and they don’t feel welcome, Deleon said, adding that Trump’s message resonates with college students in the workforce.  

“I think it’s gotten the attention of a lot of students, especially those who work in the service industry with the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime,” Deleon said, referencing Trump’s proposals. “That’s huge. That’s a huge win for young voters.”

Bobrowicz said she and her colleagues are trying to make Republican politics more fun, akin to how young women have engaged with the Harris campaign through the vice president’s appearance on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast and Charli XCX campaign merch. From  friendship bracelets to catchy stickers, the GOP Eau Claire campus group is trying to make its conservative message appealing to young women. 

Meanwhile, Trump appeals to young men on his own, Bobrowicz said.

“(Trump’s) personality is a personality that attracts young men. He has that business-like personality,” she told Wisconsin Watch in an interview. “You can tell he was a former celebrity and has that catchy type personality that I think young men look up to in a sense, and find kind of fun.”

The UW-Eau Claire College Republicans also recently started a podcast called “Right on Campus” to attempt to reach young listeners. They discuss current issues and what it’s like to be conservative students on a liberal campus.

The student groups have also hosted events with Republican speakers, including former Gov. Thompson, Hovde, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, to get young voters engaged and energized. 

Finally, given the competitive nature of Wisconsin, Bobrowicz said, College Republicans often encourage out-of-state UW-Eau Claire students to vote in Wisconsin instead of in their home states, and they even try to get in-state students to vote in Eau Claire instead of their hometowns. 

Swirling political environment

The 2024 race comes at a politically unique time among young voters, who have exerted meaningful influence in recent high-profile elections in Wisconsin.

In 2022, young voters helped fuel Gov. Tony Evers’ reelection, which, at 3.4%, was a landslide by Wisconsin standards. Wisconsin had the highest young voter turnout in the country in 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, with 48.7% of 18- to 24-year-olds casting a ballot in the election.

In April 2023, during a nationally watched Wisconsin Supreme Court race, turnout on certain college campuses exploded, according to a Washington Post analysis. The energy among young voters that spring, at least in part, helped fuel Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s commanding 11-point victory — which flipped the high court to liberal control.

But this year’s contest between Harris and Trump could feature a twist: America’s youngest voters, 18- to 24-year-olds, report being more conservative than voters even just a few years older than them.

In a Harvard Youth Poll released in September, 23% of 18- to 24-year-olds identified as conservative compared to 29% who identified as liberal. By comparison, just 19% of 25- to 29-year-olds identified as conservative while 33% identified as liberal.

There’s also a growing gender gap among young voters, according to a Gallup analysis. Between 2001 and 2007, 28% of women and 25% of men ages 18 to 29 identified as liberal. Jump ahead to the period between 2017 and 2024, and a 15-point gap appears: 40% of young women identify as liberal while just 25% of young men say the same thing.

The shifts could mean campaign messages from past cycles might not resonate on campuses the same way today. 

The 2024 campaign is unfolding as many Wisconsin Republicans have become increasingly hostile toward the UW System and college students. 

During the state’s most recent budget negotiations, Republican lawmakers cut the system’s funding by $32 million in an escalation of a fight over diversity, equity and inclusion programs and sendings on college campuses. They set funding aside for programs aimed at growing the state’s workforce and eventually provided it to the UW System in February 2024.

Late last year, some Republican lawmakers also signaled they didn’t want out-of-state students to vote in Wisconsin: They proposed legislation that would have required the UW System Board of Regents to provide first-year out-of-state students with an application to request a ballot to vote in their home states.

When asked whether Republican policies affecting the UW System impact students’ votes, Pyle and Bobrowicz, the College Republicans leaders, said most students likely aren’t aware of it. Deleon agreed, adding that he spoke out against the party’s attempts to discourage out-of-state college voters from voting in Wisconsin because it sends a bad message to young people. 

“These hostilities are happening because of their love for the state and because of their love for this institution,” Pyle said. “I think they’ve seen some issues with it in the past, and they want to do more to protect it, ensure our institution remains a world class institution… and that our taxpayers aren’t being stuck with a burden.” 

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‘Margin of victory’

In the waning days of the campaign, the focus on Wisconsin campuses has increased.

During a recent trip to Wisconsin, Harris held two events on UW campuses. First, she and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban met with a class of UW-Milwaukee business students to discuss the vice president’s proposed economic policies. Then, later that day, she and Cuban held a UW-La Crosse rally that drew a crowd of 3,000, according to an estimate from her campaign.

Earlier this month, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic candidate for vice president, made a campaign stop at UW-Eau Claire with U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota.

Walz, who spoke to a group of students, was introduced by Kirsten Thell, president of the UW-Eau Claire College Democrats. Standing in front of a wall of “BLUGOLDS FOR HARRIS-WALZ” signs, Walz declared, “We need you. This is not a hyperbole. I think it’s very realistic to believe that this race will be won going through Wisconsin and going through some of these counties.”

On Wednesday, Harris will hold a get out the vote rally on UW-Madison’s campus, a campaign official confirmed to Wisconsin Watch. She’ll be joined by Gracie Abrams, Mumford & Sons and other musicians.

Prominent Republican voices have also zeroed in on college campuses. Conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk made a fiery visit to UW-Madison in September on the first stop of his “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour. He made another appearance over the weekend with the NELK Boys, a right-wing influencer group on YouTube. 

Kirk said 120 new voters were registered in just two hours during his first visit to the UW-Madison campus.

On Tuesday, Hovde will join American Conservation Coalition Action on UW-Madison’s campus for a campaign event focused on energy policy and the economy. Tony Wied, a Republican businessman who is running for the U.S. House in the Green Bay area, will hold an early voting event on the campus of St. Norbert College, a small Catholic college in De Pere.

And while the approach from both sides is different — a centralized, coordinated effort from Democrats while Republicans rely on grassroots and allied organizations — the flurry of recent campus events underscores how valuable the votes of college voters can be.

“College students will be the margin of victory in 2024,” Lehner, the UW-Eau Claire student and College Democrats leader, predicted. “So I think young people are enthusiastic about making their voice heard.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Khushboo Rathore contributed reporting to this story.

College students could determine who wins Wisconsin — and the White House is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin is home to more than 1.2 million Medicaid recipients and an estimated 310,000 people who lack insurance.  

• Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have said little about Medicaid policy on the campaign trail, but their records paint drastically different possibilities for the program after the election.  

• Trump’s earlier administration increased scrutiny over eligibility for recipients, allowed states to add work requirements and proposed trimming around $1 trillion over 10 years from the federal Medicaid budget — cuts that Congress did not pass in 2017.

• Harris in 2019 cosponsored the failed “Medicare for All” bill, which would have granted Americans universal coverage to replace private-pay insurance and Medicaid. She has since distanced herself from the proposal and touted record-high coverage levels during her administration with President Joe Biden.

A family stood outside the doors of St. Francis Community Free Clinic at 4:55 p.m. on a recent Monday, five minutes before it was set to open. 

A volunteer receptionist switched on the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, clinic’s “open” sign and welcomed them inside. Within minutes, more patients filed into the waiting room. Volunteers called people back to see Dr. Weston Radford on a first-come, first-served basis.

The clinic technically closes at 7 p.m. on Mondays, but Radford, who volunteers here weekly, said he often stays to treat patients past 8 p.m. — 14 hours after starting his workday as an internal medicine doctor at a private clinic nearby. 

Still the free clinic in its limited hours can’t reach everyone who needs it, including many who lack adequate health insurance.   

“Health care is still a big need that we’re not really filling,” Radford said. 

Health care is on the minds of plenty of Wisconsin residents ahead of the November election. 

More than two dozen people who responded to WPR’s America Amplified project said they want politicians to prioritize health care access. Eight called for expanding access to Medicaid, the joint state and federal aid program to help low-income residents afford care.

Wisconsin is home to more than 1.2 million Medicaid recipients and an estimated 310,000 people who lack insurance.  

Voters weighing their options for president have heard little from former President Donald Trump, a Republican, or Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, about Medicaid policy. Still, their past records and party affiliations paint drastically different possibilities for the program after November, according to the health policy research firm KFF.

“Medicaid and its future, whether it faces existential threats, will depend on the outcome of this fall’s federal election,” said Edwin Park, a public policy professor at Georgetown University.

Trump previously pushed Medicaid cuts 

Residents could lose Medicaid access, experts say, if Trump as president successfully revives his past proposals to shrink the size of the program — leaving more low-income adults reliant on busy clinics like St. Francis.

Project 2025, a plan for a second Trump administration published by the far-right Heritage Foundation, including chapters written by former Trump administration officials, proposes major cuts to federal Medicaid spending and toughened eligibility requirements. 

Those proposals align with Trump’s track record. His administration increased scrutiny over eligibility for recipients, allowed states to add work requirements and proposed trimming around $1 trillion over 10 years from the federal Medicaid budget — cuts that Congress did not pass in 2017.

Nevertheless, Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025.    

“Only President Trump and the campaign, and NOT any other organization or former staff, represent policies for the second term,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser for Trump’s campaign, wrote in a statement to WPR and Wisconsin Watch.

The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Trump supports Project 2025 proposals to limit state Medicaid funding through block grants and impose lifetime limits on benefits. 

“President Donald J. Trump is unwavering in his mission to lower costs for seniors and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” Jacob Fischer, a Wisconsin spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, told WPR and Wisconsin Watch.

A 16-page Trump policy plan promises protections for Medicare, the government health coverage for seniors and adults with disabilities, but never mentions Medicaid.

Harris touts high Medicaid enrollment with few specifics

Meanwhile, an 82-page Harris campaign document touts record-high coverage levels during her administration with President Joe Biden, but it doesn’t articulate specific Medicaid policies. 

A Harris campaign spokesperson did not directly answer when asked about specific Medicaid proposals.   

“Donald Trump is campaigning on a promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and would spike costs under his extreme Project 2025 agenda, a stark contrast from Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to take on Big Pharma and bring down health care costs for families across Wisconsin,” Brianna Johnson, the campaign’s Wisconsin spokesperson, responded via email.

Harris pushed a more dramatic health care overhaul in 2019 while running in the Democratic presidential primary. She cosponsored the failed “Medicare for All” bill, which would have granted Americans universal coverage to replace private-pay insurance and Medicaid. 

Harris has since sought to distance herself from Medicare for All. Trump has attacked Harris for having “flip flopped” on what his campaign calls a “socialist” proposal, and he has spread misleading claims about what it would have meant for immigrants who entered the country illegally. 

Harris does not mention Medicare for All in her current platform. She instead describes plans to bolster Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare” — a law Trump has repeatedly pushed to repeal. 

What does Medicaid policy mean for Wisconsin?

Wisconsin has a smaller proportion of uninsured residents than most states, but it remains among just 10 that haven’t expanded Medicaid to cover adults below 138% of the federal poverty line, around $20,800 a year for a single adult. 

Adopting expansion would allow Wisconsin to extend government coverage to up to 90,900 additional adults and reap a net benefit of $1.7 billion over two years, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum estimate. 

Trump’s Affordable Care Act repeal efforts would have ended Medicaid expansion nationwide. The federal government can’t force states to expand coverage, but Congress during the Biden-Harris administration approved financial incentives to encourage expansion.

Wisconsin’s Republican-led Legislature rejected the most recent expansion proposal. Legislators have argued it would cause more residents to overly rely on the government, increase private insurance costs and burden future taxpayers.

Republican expansion critics point out that of the states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, Wisconsin is the only one without what some call a coverage gap. 

That’s because the state’s Medicaid program covers low-income adults making up to the federal poverty level — the same point at which they qualify for subsidized plans on the federal Health Insurance Marketplace.

But Medicaid is seen as more comprehensive coverage than Marketplace options. Wisconsin’s Medicaid program covers dental care. But a Marketplace enrollee may need to pay an extra premium for dental coverage.

Two-thirds of respondents in a KFF poll of non-expansion states, including Wisconsin, said they favored expansion.

While voters in six Republican-led states approved Medicaid expansion through ballot initiatives since 2020, Wisconsin voters lack the ability to put referendums on the ballot.

Some experts see Wisconsin’s new electoral maps as a potential path for expansion.

This is the first election after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to draw new state Assembly and Senate district boundaries. The new maps create the possibility of Democrats gaining a majority in the state Assembly due to more competitive districts. 

While a Democrat-led Senate remains unlikely, control over one chamber could still move expansion debates forward, said Philip Rocco, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University.

“Even if there’s not a victory immediately, it might create some political momentum for one to happen eventually,” Rocco said.

Radford isn’t sure why Wisconsin hasn’t expanded Medicaid, but he remains hopeful.

It would ease some of his work at his day job at the private clinic. Having more people on Medicare or Medicaid could decrease worries about denials or big out-of-pocket costs.

“It’d be nice just to be able to treat the people what we think medically is the best for them,” Radford said.

Even under expansion, plenty of Wisconsin residents will still need to visit free clinics like St. Francis. 

‘We just take care of them’ 

Each week Radford sees patients who lack adequate private insurance, are in between coverage or can’t qualify for Medicaid because of their citizenship status.

Such needs aren’t new. Radford’s dad volunteered at St. Francis for around 30 years, spanning several  presidential administrations.

While health care policies have changed over time, the clinic’s mission hasn’t. No one at the front desk asks questions about insurance or other types of payment. No one gets turned away.

“People got to be seen,” Radford said. “So we just take care of them.”

Medicaid covers 1.2 million in Wisconsin. The election will determine its future is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wausau Pilot & Review

Social media posts that appeared to make a threat against Wausau and D.C. Everest schools have circulated widely since late last week, though investigators say there is no credible threat to student safety.

Part of a nationwide wave, threats are turning up on Snapchat and TikTok. Some include lists of schools while others warn students to hug their loved ones. Both platforms are apps popular among teens as a way to communicate with many friends at once.

The posts continued to get shared and reshared, creating a self-perpetuating echo chamber that became increasingly difficult to dispel.

In the Wausau area, students were concerned about a potential threat Friday morning on a viral Snapchat posting. Wausau Police and the FBI investigated the threat and determined there was no danger to students, school officials said.

In an email sent out to D.C. Everest families, Superintendent Casey Nye said several middle school students reported what they saw, prompting an investigation.

“We immediately worked with local law enforcement and our School Resource Officers and discovered that in recent weeks multiple reports of similar Snapchat threats have occurred nationwide,” Nye’s email reads.

“Similar incidents also were reported at multiple school districts in our area today and earlier this week, and were deemed non-credible. The Mountain Bay Metro Police Department has determined today’s incident is not a credible threat to any D.C. Everest school and will continue to investigate.”

When dealing with the unsettling trend of false threats to schools posted on social media, parents can play a pivotal role in ensuring their children’s safety and emotional well-being. Experts recommend that parents maintain an open line of communication with their children about their online activities and the content they find.

Encouraging children to speak up about any threatening or suspicious posts they see online and reassuring them that it’s safe to report these concerns to a trusted adult can help mitigate fear and confusion. Additionally, parents should stay informed about the digital platforms their children use and collaborate closely with school administrators to understand their protocols for handling such threats.

This proactive approach not only helps in managing the immediate risks associated with false threats but also contributes to fostering a secure and supportive environment for students both online and offline.

School and police officials urge students to report any such messages they receive to ensure a thorough investigation.

by Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest, Investigate Midwest
September 11, 2024

The farmworkers scattered.

There was a union representative in the workers’ employer-provided housing, on an orchard in upstate New York. Their employer, major apple grower Porpiglia Farms, had hired them on H-2A, or temporary labor, visas. That day in August 2023, according to the workers’ union, United Farm Workers, the orchard’s owners burst in. The farmworkers ran or hid in their rooms.

Following the incident, the UFW filed a complaint with New York state, alleging the orchard prevented workers from exercising their rights. Porpiglia Farms disputed the UFW’s account and said it is working with the UFW. However, on that day, the UFW organizer had “trespassed” in an effort to “gin up a controversy,” Anthony Porpiglia, the owner, said in a statement provided to Investigate Midwest by his attorneys. The workers “asked her to leave and she refused,” he said.

The following summer, workers arrived for harvest season. Near the orchard’s entrance, workers, whose union has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, noticed a new sign: “Farmers for Trump.”

The scuffle in the orchard epitomizes the division on immigration between the two presidential candidates and what could be at stake for immigrant workers, who have underpinned the agriculture industry for decades. While Donald Trump’s rhetoric targets its workforce, the industry, writ large, has favored the former president. President Joe Biden’s administration, with Kamala Harris as vice president, has instituted protections paving a path to more farmworker unionization, while also cracking down on border crossings.

A Harris victory would likely mean a continuation of Biden’s efforts — and renewed hope for a path to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers. She’s publicly supported one for years. But farmworkers, who are essential to the U.S. economy, will still fear being uprooted regardless of who is president, said Laurie Beyranevand, director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

“At the end of the day, many farmworkers still fear deportation,” she said. “Obviously, that fear, I think, is more pronounced with a policy agenda like the Trump administration, but it’s not as though it’s not present with the Biden administration either.” 

Neither campaign responded to a request for comment on their immigration stances.

If re-elected, Trump has promised to deport upwards of 20 million undocumented people, many of them agricultural workers who perform the dangerous jobs most Americans don’t want. Trump supported the use of the H-2A program, which farmers said is necessary to fill labor shortages. But the former president’s close allies have recently proposed eliminating it.

Agriculture corporations have lavished Trump and Republicans with campaign cash. The disparity in spending on conservatives and liberals, in conservatives’ favor, increased during the Trump administration. Rural areas, a proxy for farmers, largely voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

In an interview with The New York Times, Stephen Miller, who led Trump’s immigration efforts during his administration, said the Trump campaign’s goal was to upend industries that rely on immigrant labor. 

“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said.

Some research suggests deportations, especially at a large scale, could backfire on U.S. workers. In 2023, University of Colorado researchers estimated that, for every 1 million unauthorized workers deported, 88,000 native workers would lose jobs. When companies lose their labor forces, the researchers concluded, they find ways to use less labor, not replace their lost workers.

A historical example is the end of the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican workers into the U.S. for seasonal jobs. Instead of hiring more U.S. workers when their labor force was suddenly gone, farmers turned to heavy machinery, according to 2017 research. There was no corresponding increase in employment or wages for native workers.

Temporary labor visa programs have exploded in popularity. In 2023, the government granted about 400,000 H-2A visas. But America’s farms still depend on an undocumented workforce. Out of about 2 million farmworkers in the U.S., government surveys show about 44% are undocumented. (Hundreds of thousands of other workers in the food supply chain — meatpacking plants, grocery stores, restaurants — are also undocumented.)

“If we lost half of the farmworker population in a short period of time, the agriculture sector would likely collapse,” said Mary Jo Dudley, the director of the Cornell Farmworker Program. “There are no available skilled workers to replace the current workforce should this policy be put into place.”

Antonio De Loera-Brust, a UFW spokesman, said deporting millions would be nearly impossible logistically. The point of Trump’s rhetoric, he said, was to instill fear in farmworkers so they don’t demand their rights.

Farmers who support Trump are “voting basically to try to deny their workforce labor rights and to try to reduce their workforce’s wages,” De Loera-Brust said. “I don’t think you need to psychoanalyze it that much further beyond, ‘This is in their economic interest.’”

Investigate Midwest requested interviews with several industry groups to discuss the candidates’ stances on immigration and the potential impact on agriculture. The Meat Institute, which represents the meatpacking industry, said the immigration policy it supported was expanding the visa labor program to include its industry.

“Continued labor problems in the processing sector will hamper production and drive-up costs, hurting both upstream producers and downstream consumers,” Sarah Little, the group’s spokesperson, said in an email. “Efforts to address the labor needs of agriculture must consider both the production sector and the processing sector.”

However, most either didn’t respond or declined to comment. For example, the American Farm Bureau Federation, which positions itself as the voice of agriculture, said it does “not endorse candidates nor engage in election politics.” 

However, through political action committees, the bureau’s state affiliates endorse candidates. The federation’s current administrative head, Joby Young, was a high-ranking official in Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Farm labor is dangerous. In fields, workers risk pesticide exposure, which can cause skin rashes. Long-term exposure can cause cancer or contribute to developmental issues in offspring. Tractors have crushed limbs. Workers have died falling into grain bins.

The pay is also unappealing. Agriculture is exempt from federal overtime laws. Sometimes, workers are paid “piece rate,” meaning their earnings depend on how much they harvest in a day.

In meatpacking plants, workers perform the same motion, over and over, with sharp knives. Workers have suffered tendinitis, lacerations and amputations. Because it’s so difficult, plants sometimes gradually increase newbies’ hours: It’s called “break-in pain.” And, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, plant workers were forced to return to their jobs, exposing themselves and their families to the virus.

Many U.S. citizens do not want jobs like this, Dudley said. Sometimes, farmers feel they have no choice but to overlook suspect IDs.

“These are valued employees,” an anonymous farmer told Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after he suspected U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were surveilling his employees. “We get their IDs and everything. Do we know if they’re legal or illegal? Well, we’re going to say we’re open on that. We don’t know that they are, we don’t know that they aren’t. But they are employees and they are the most hard-working people that you can find.”

One of those workers, for decades, was Gloria Solis. In 1998, she left Mexico, where she struggled to afford food and rent, and began picking cherries in Washington state. When Trump was in office, she tried to stay home as much as possible, fearing an interaction with authorities that might lead to deportation. She mostly risked it for her job and for medical appointments for her two sons, who are U.S. citizens, she said in Spanish through an interpreter. Each time, she prayed.

Some of her employers seemed emboldened by Trump, and the employers made it clear that, if she and her coworkers didn’t work hard enough, they could be easily replaced. When Biden was elected, she said, there was a noticeable change. Workers with legal status and workers who were undocumented were treated much more fairly, Solis, now 47, said.

“We know that (Biden) is no longer in it, but there is his partner,” she said. “Hopefully nothing will change (as far as administration policy) because it’s perfectly fine. We are afraid that Trump will be elected. If he gets elected, then we won’t know what to do.”

Trump raids included ag job sites; Biden secured worker protections

Throughout Trump’s administration, immigration authorities raided farms and food processing plants. When Biden was elected, he reversed Trump’s directives. Instead of targeting workers, Biden focused on exploitative employers.

Under Trump, some of the most prominent agriculture companies in the U.S. dealt with immigration raids. In 2018, Christensen Farms — which owns two of the largest pork processing plants in the U.S., Seaboard Foods in Oklahoma and Triumph Foods in Missouri — was caught up in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement action. In 2019, raids in Mississippi rounded up about 700 undocumented workers. Some worked for Koch Foods, which supplies much of the poultry at Wal-Mart.

While the raids barely made a dent in the agricultural workforce, they had an effect. Many farmworkers feared speaking up about workplace abuses, said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition advocacy coordinator who previously worked as a Florida farmworker advocate.

“They felt like they couldn’t raise their voices about concerns they had on safety or wage theft or any kind of labor violation,” he said. “They just felt like it made them a target and they could easily be replaced.”

Many farmworkers who have been in the U.S. for decades travel north from Texas and Florida each year to work in Midwestern fields. But, with Trump in office, some in Florida decided to forgo the annual pilgrimage to avoid running into ICE, Xiuhtecutli said. Some took housekeeping or landscaping jobs to make ends meet. 

“I don’t think it was necessarily a positive change for them because it wasn’t steady work,” he said. “It was still seasonal.”

Once in office, Biden announced crackdowns on employers in the food supply chain that used migrant child labor, following a New York Times expose. Children worked in factories that processed or produced products for Walmart, Whole Foods and General Mills, the cereal giant.

In 2023, Biden also announced that workers who were in the country without documentation could be granted deferred action — i.e., not immediate deportation — if they witnessed or were victims of labor violations. The change would help hold “predatory” employers accountable, the administration said.

UFW’s De Loera-Brust said the deferred action rule was a “game changer” for unions. A couple dozen members of his union, which represents workers with a variety of legal statuses, have been granted stays under the new rule, he said.

“We’re actually able to tell workers not just that you will get better wages, better protections, better conditions through unionization,” he said. “We can actually also help protect you from deportation.”

Solis, the worker in Washington state, benefited from the new rule. In 2023, she was fired from her job on a mushroom farm. According to the state attorney general, the farm discriminated against female workers, including firing them, and was fined $3.4 million. Because of the incident, Solis was officially allowed to remain in the U.S. When she received the paperwork in the mail, she cried out of happiness all night, she said.

Another Biden rule, implemented this year, allowed H-2A farmworkers to invite union representatives into their employer-owned housing. It also banned employers from retaliating against workers trying to unionize. The state of New York allowed H-2A workers to unionize starting in 2020, which facilitated the unionization effort at Porpiglia Farms. The Biden rule codified the right for H-2A workers nationwide.

In late August, though, a judge temporarily blocked the rule, after 17 Republican-led states sued the Biden administration over it. The administration asked the judge to narrow the breadth of the injunction, which would allow some other farmworker protections to be enacted, according to Bloomberg Law. The request was denied.

Beyranevand, at the agriculture and food systems center, said the rule would be an important step for farmworkers. But the challenge would be enforcing it, and having workers believe they won’t face retaliation.

“I don’t know that a lot of farmworkers are going to invite in labor representatives or anyone that is putting their job in jeopardy if the farm owner is able to catch a whiff of that,” she said.

“I don’t know that a lot of farmworkers are going to invite in labor representatives or anyone that is putting their job in jeopardy if the farm owner is able to catch a whiff of that.”

Laurie Beyranevand,
director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School

Trump and his allies promise hard-line immigration policies

Deporting millions of farmworkers could have far-reaching consequences, experts and advocates said.

If the agricultural workforce were suddenly gone, the U.S. would likely have to rely much more heavily on imported food, said Dudley, of the Cornell farmworker program. That could lead to higher food prices, especially if another Trump proposal — replacing the income tax with tariffs on imports — is enacted. In turn, that could put more price pressure on individual consumers, particularly ones in food insecure families, Dudley said. (Some research suggests that more immigrants and H-2A workers in the food system leads to less inflation at the supermarket.)

Relying on imported food could become a national security issue. It could be easier for a foreign adversary to destabilize the U.S. if its food supply was prevented from reaching its shores. (The Biden administration said in a 2022 memo it was looking into how to bolster the security of the food system.)

Another consequence of mass deportation would be the gutting of the social safety net, Dudley said. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid almost $100 billion in taxes, and about a third went to Medicare and Social Security, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. 

“If you transition away from an undocumented labor force in agriculture, construction, restaurants, and other service sectors,” Dudley said, “there would be a significant financial loss to those systems, affecting all beneficiaries including the growing number of ‘baby boomers’ who are increasingly reliant on those programs for their financial well-being.”

The dairy industry relies heavily on undocumented labor, and it can’t use the H-2A program because milking cows is not a seasonal job. When asked to discuss the potential impact of a Trump presidency, the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents the dairy industry, said it had no one on staff “whose expertise aligns with the story you’re writing.” The Dairy Business Association, which represents Wisconsin dairies, said it is not commenting on the election.

Instead of undocumented labor, Trump signaled his support for the H-2A program, an increasingly popular program bereft with labor abuses. In a 2018 press release, Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture called the program a “source of legal and verified labor for agriculture.”

While in office, Trump made it easier for employers to hire H-2A workers, including eliminating some red tape. He also sought to change how visa workers were paid, which would have limited their earnings.

But close allies of Trump have proposed eliminating the program altogether. They’ve also recommended ending its sister program, the H-2B visa, which the meatpacking industry has latched onto. Both visa programs are intended to address seasonal labor shortages.

The influential conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is behind the proposals, known as Project 2025. Trump has distanced himself from it, but The Washington Post reported he flew on a private jet with its leader in 2022, and CNN found at least 140 people who worked in Trump’s administration are involved in the project.

Actually eliminating the visa programs would likely be incredibly unpopular among farmers and industry lobbying groups, especially without a viable alternative, Beyranevand said.

The visa system “provides a really stable workforce for the agricultural sector,” she said. “Without the stability, I would imagine that farm businesses would be really opposed to something like that.”

The number of meatpacking plants that use H-2B visa workers has increased six-fold since 2015, according to federal labor department data. Little said her organization, the Meat Institute, would continue to ensure the H-2B visa was open to the meatpacking industry. Also, the industry supported reforming the H-2A program to “include meat and poultry processing and to recognize the year-round labor needs of the industry,” she said.

Tom Bressner, the executive director of the Wisconsin Agri-Business Association, said his organization wants to see the use of the H-2A program expanded, as well. It also supports streamlining the application process and removing some red tape.

“It’s a good program, but it really needs some major tweaking to make it work more effectively,” he said. “You talk about a nightmare to try to qualify for that program. You’ve got people out there wanting to work and we need them.”

The National Corn Growers Association, which represents an industry that hires H-2A labor regularly, said it did not comment on presidential elections. 

De Loera-Brust, with UFW, said he thinks Trump’s campaign rhetoric is not intended to translate into actual, on-the-ground policy. He made similar comments as a candidate in 2016 and as president, but deportations on the scale Trump promised did not occur.

“What I think the mass deportation slogan is really about is scaring workers,” De Loera-Brust said. “It’s about making immigrant workers feel like they cannot count on tomorrow, so they better keep their heads down and not say anything if they’re getting screwed out of their wages.”

Harris has voiced support for a path to citizenship 

In general, top Democrats have cracked down hard on illegal immigration while offering some relief. The Democratic president before Biden, Barack Obama, was often called the “deporter-in-chief” by his critics as he deported more undocumented immigrants than Trump. However, he also instituted the deferred action for childhood arrivals, or DACA, policy.

At the Democratic National Convention, Harris continued walking this line. In her speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination, she promised to sign bipartisan border security legislation into law.

“I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants — and reform our broken immigration system,” she said. “We can create an earned pathway to citizenship — and secure our border.”

As president, Biden has cracked down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. In early September, the New York Times reported he was considering making it tougher to enter the country without a visa by permanently blocking most asylum claims. This year, the numbers have dropped to their lowest point in years. (Because of the economic importance of immigration, some experts also worried about how Biden’s policies could impact the economy, Politico reported.)

Biden tasked Harris with addressing immigration. In 2021, she visited the Northern Triangle, the area of Central America where many recent immigrants originate. She spearheaded the Biden administration’s attempt to address poverty, violence and corruption in the area, the so-called “root causes” of immigration. When she visited Guatemala, Harris told those looking to journey to the U.S.: “Do not come.”

In his 2025 budget, Biden said he’d address immigration by hiring more than a thousand new border patrol agents and about 400 immigration judges to reduce the case backlog. In the Democratic Party platform, released for its convention, party leaders said it would “explore opportunities to identify or create work permits for immigrants, long-term undocumented residents, and legally processed asylum seekers in our country.”

Xiuhtecutli, with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the Biden administration probably eased concerns for undocumented immigrants who had lived in the U.S. for decades, mostly because the population was not a near-constant target of powerful politicians.

“There was some relief, at least in the sense that it wasn’t being talked about as openly,” he said, “but, in the community, there’s still the perception that the border was still going to be a hot zone, that it was difficult to cross, still.”

Some farmworker advocates are hopeful for what a Harris administration could mean. When it endorsed Harris, UFW, the California-based farmworker union, said Harris was the “best leader to defeat Donald Trump and to continue the transformative work of the Biden-Harris administration.” Biden, it added, had been the “greatest friend” the union had.

Solis, who is a UFW member, said she hopes Harris continues the policies Biden implemented and possibly goes further. Trump’s rhetoric stigmatized her and her family, she said, particularly when he said he’d end the birthright citizenship of her sons. 

“I would tell him — with all due respect because he was president — he does not know how much he has hurt them with the way he expresses himself,” she said.

Mónica Cordero and Jennifer Bamberg contributed to this story.

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Several right-wing billionaire megadonors, like the Uihleins, Diane Hendricks of ABC Supply and the co-founder of Kwik Trip, made big donations to the Republican incumbent.

By Maggie Zale, THE BADGER PROJECT

Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) is far ahead of Democratic challenger Kyle Kilbourn in fundraising. The incumbent has $736,000 on hand, while Kilbourn has $24,000, according to their most recent campaign finance reports to the Federal Elections Commission.

See a list of Tiffany’s top donors in this election cycle below.

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Donations to candidates for federal offices from individuals are capped at $3,300 per election, so a person can give a candidate for Congress a max of $6,600 per election cycle, as it includes both a primary and a general. Political Action Committees that give to multiple candidates can donate up to $5,000 per election, for a total of $10,000 per election cycle.

When a candidate or committee receives contributions that exceed the legal maximum, they have 60 days to refund the overage, according to federal law. And campaigns and committees sometimes make errors on their campaign finance filings with the Federal Elections Commission, which can be amended.

Important note: the PACs of businesses cannot take money from their own coffers, per federal law. They must raise the money, which often comes from their executives and other employees.

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The top donors to Tiffany’s campaign in the 2024 election cycle (so far)

KLONDIKE CHEESE COMPANY, CHEESEMAKER	NOTES	AMOUNT
RONALD BUHOLZER MONROE, 53566	KLONDIKE CHEESE COMPANY, PRESIDENT	$13,200
GREG NICKLAUS ARBOR VITAE, 54568	INCREDIBLE BANK, VICE CHAIRMAN	$13,200
SCOTT MAYER FRANKLIN, 53132	QPS EMPLOYMENT GROUP, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD	$13,200
Automotive Free International Trade PAC		$10,000
WILLIAM HILGEMMAN STRATFORD, 54484	RETIRED	$9,900
National Beer Wholesalers Association PAC		$8,000
PATRICIA OLYNK PLOVER, 54467	MARK TOYOTA, VP	$6,600
GRANT E NELSON PRESCOTT, 54021	RETIRED	$6,600
GLENDA BUHOLZER MONROE, 53566	KLONDIKE CHEESE COMPANY, CHEESE MAKER	$6,600
DIANE HENDRICKS AFTON, 53501	HENDRICKS HOLDING COMPANY, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD	$6,600
House Freedom Fund PAC		$5,000
JOHN R ANDERSON ROCKFORD, 61107	SPRING CREEK PARTNERS, FOUNDER	$4,000
DAVID R CHARLES FRANKEN, 54229	CASH DEPOT, PRESIDENT	$3,500
RAMONA HILGEMMAN STRATFORD, 54484	RETIRED	$3,300
DARCEY NICKLAUS WOODRUFF, 54568	MARK TOYOTA, VP	$3,300
SUSAN BUHOLZER MONROE, 53566	RETIRED	$3,300
MARC GOLDMAN BOCA RATON, 33432	RETIRED	$3,300
RUTH SCHUETTE WAUSAU, 54401	RETIRED	$3,300
SUSANNE MAYER FRANKLIN, 53132	HOMEMAKER	$3,300
NANCY MASTERSON NAPLES, 34102	RETIRED	$3,300
OBERT B REINGOLD MONTECITO, 93108	ROBERT B REINGOLD INC, PRESIDENT	$3,300
JOE MASTERSON NAPLES, 34102	RETIRED	$3,300
JOANNE R ORR VILLAGE OF GOLF, 33436	RETIRED	$3,300
THOMAS C GARDNER PITTSVILLE, 54466	FARMER	$3,300
RICHARD H PFISTER HAYWARD, 54843	RETIRED	$3,300
JAY SCHUETTE SUGAR GROVE, 60554	WAUSAU HOMES, CEO	$2,800
JORGE WOLDENBERG BAL HARBOUR, 33154	CORPAC GROUP, CEO	$2,500
JEANNE MARK BASEHOLDER, 66007	ATTORNEY	$2,500
KEITH MARK BASEHOLDER, 66007	ATTORNEY	$2,500
MARLENE JANAY HIGHLAND BEACH, 33487	GAD AND MARLENE JANAY FOUNDATION, BOARD MEMBER	$2,000
LAMMOT COPELAND JR. WILMINGTON, 19801	ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, CEO	$2,000
JEFFREY R LAVERS HUDSON, 54016	ETC GIFT SHOP, OWNER	$2,000
BERNARD KOETHER DEERFIELD BEACH, 33441	RETIRED	$2,000
CHAD L SHUMWAY MAPLETON, 84664	4C HOME HEALTH, VICE PRESIDENT	$2,000
RICHARD W WOLDING NELSONVILLE, 54458	RETIRED	$2,000
RICHARD M CONNOR JR. LAONA, 54541	PINE RIVERSIDE CO, PRESIDENT	$1,500
WILLIAM B HOPPER SCOTTSDALE, 85262	RETIRED	$1,500
CAROL G TAYLOR WAUKESHA, 53186	RETIRED	$1,500
MARK D EMMERSON REDDING, 96049	SIERRA PACIFIC INDUSTRIES, CFO	$1,500
MARSHA PITLIK EAGLE RIVER, 54521	PITLIK + WICK INC, OWNER	$1,500
TZIPORA COHEN ENGLEWOOD, 07631	MARKETING	$1,112
JAMES L JEMERLING WAUSAU, 54403	RETIRED	$1,000
JAMES G VAN WYCHEN WARREN, 54666	WETNERBY CRANBERRY CO, CRANBERRY GROWER	$1,000
TIM REILAND, SCOTTSDALE, 85258	RETIRED	$1,000
DAVID MATHENY LEANDER, 78641	HILL COUNTY CLASS 3 LLC, HEAD OF HR	$1,000
DAVID J BARTLING MANITOWISH WATERS, 54545	BARTLING’S MANITOWISH CRANBERRY CO, OWNER	$1,000

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The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

The post Top Donors to Rep. Tom Tiffany in the 2024 election cycle (so far) appeared first on The Badger Project.

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Top Donors to Rep. Tom Tiffany in the 2024 election cycle (so far) was first posted on September 16, 2024 at 12:57 pm.