Wisconsin Right Now

The Wisconsin GOP debate got pretty pointed. Republican gubernatorial candidates Rebecca Kleefisch, Kevin Nicholson, and Timothy Ramthun took the gloves off, slamming businessman Tim Michels for skipping a candidate debate in Green Bay and raising questions about his residency and ties to organizations that worked to raise the state's gas tax. The candidates also made news on other issues in the first full debate in the GOP primary; the three candidates were asked if they would remove pro-abortion district attorneys who won't prosecute Wisconsin's abortion law, like Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. All three said they would fire them. Asked whether they thought the 2020 election in Wisconsin was stolen, only Ramthun said yes. Host Joe Giganti said the candidates needed to answer with a yes or no or they could not answer that question. Kleefisch would not answer yes or no but said the election "was rigged from the very beginning." Nicholso

Republicans have more enthusiasm, and most voters think the state is on the wrong track, which puts Tony Evers on shaky ground. But it will be a battle to defeat him. Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is in the margin of error against Democratic Gov. Tony Evers - a fact that Evers' campaign was highlighting in a furiously written fundraising email within minutes of the new Marquette Poll reporting it, calling the race a "pure tossup." You wouldn't know that from some of the media. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Evers had an "advantage" over all Republican candidates for governor in the poll, which was released June 22. The other Republican candidates for governor were behind Evers in the poll, outside the margin of error of 4.3%. It's the first 2022 Marquette poll to measure Evers against the Republicans in head-to-head match ups. However, the numbers also show that the Republicans have their work cut out for them: Here's h

By Rebecca Kleefisch On Tax Day, millions of Wisconsinites will again be asked to pay too much by a government that is still too big. While the prices of everyday necessities put our checking accounts in crisis, the heavy hand of government wants to force us to pay for an overgrown bureaucracy we don’t need and can’t afford. Wisconsin has a history of over-taxing – we’re home to the nation’s first progressive income tax. Thankfully, Republicans have also made history by cutting our taxes over the past decade, giving Wisconsin families needed relief. But it’s clear that more needs to be done to let Wisconsinites keep more of their own money during the inflationary times in which we live. Let’s be clear: Tony Evers wants to raise your taxes and make things even less affordable. He doesn’t care that your family’s cost of living is rising. He wants to take more of your money to fund a government he wants to grow. One of his first acts as governor was to veto an income tax cut targe

By U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany Back in 2010, the economic future of our state was deeply troubling. Red tape and regulations were crippling businesses. Taxes were too high. Wisconsinites were losing their jobs, and our state had multi-billion-dollar deficits. It was clear that our Wisconsin way of life and the ability for our families to prosper was under attack, so I stepped up and ran for public service. It wasn’t easy to turn our state around. Democrats fled the state, conservatives faced recall attempts, some had paramilitary-style raids on their homes, and our Capitol saw protests unlike ever before. But I wasn’t alone in that fight. Rebecca Kleefisch and Scott Walker stood shoulder to shoulder with me and my Republican colleagues in the Legislature to pass some of the boldest conservative reforms ever seen in our state. As Lt. Governor, Rebecca worked alongside Governor Walker and the Republican Legislature to cut taxes by $13 billion and get more Wisconsinites working tha

With homicide exploding to unprecedented levels in his state's largest city, Gov. Tony Evers revealed that he can't remember whether he met in-person with any Milwaukee homicide victims' families. Looking like a proverbial "deer caught in the headlights," Evers blamed his "busy schedule" and then brought up meeting with victims of the Waukesha parade attack. We would state the obvious and note that the Waukesha Christmas Parade attack did not occur in Milwaukee. There have been 33 homicides in 2022 in Milwaukee year-to-date, according to the City’s crime dashboard , compared to 16 in 2021. That’s a 106% increase, and it comes after two-years of historic highs. Furthermore, Evers dodged a question about whether he supports eliminating cash bail, like his Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate against Sen. Ron Johnson. Here's the video of Evers' comments, which occurred under questioning by reporter A.J. Bayatpour, Capi

Perhaps they remember Tony Evers dawdling while Kenosha burned and throwing law enforcement under the bus. ... Republican gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch has received the endorsement of the majority of Wisconsin's sheriffs. In a press release, her campaign called her "the tough-on-crime leader Wisconsin needs to clean up our streets. That’s why today she’s pleased to announce the endorsement of the majority of Wisconsin’s Sheriffs, further cementing her position as law enforcement’s choice for Governor of Wisconsin." (Note: we previously explained how Evers failed the community of Kenosha. But he's never missed a chance to rush to judgment against police...) “I am humbled to have the support of the majority of Wisconsin’s Sheriffs in our fight to take back Wisconsin," Kleefisch noted. "Unlike Tony Evers, I’ll support law enforcement and ensure that the brave men and women who protect our communities have the tools they need to keep Wisconsi

UW-River Falls, a publicly funded university, posted articles that carried the headlines, "Black Lives Matter & Why 'All Cops are Bastards'" and "Why Riots Work," and compared police to slave patrols. The page with those links was first highlighted in a video by former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is a presumptive candidate for governor. Kleefisch has previously called for a ban on critical race theory in schools. The content of the page has now been deleted , but it was preserved via screenshots and the Wayback Machine, which you can see below. "Critical Race Theory and anti-police rhetoric have no place in taxpayer-funded classrooms. Check out what we found at one UW system school," Kleefisch wrote on Facebook. We received this response from UW-River Falls: "UW-River Falls regrets the posting of a link on one of its webpages to an editable document from a third-party source which, after being posted, was edited at the source

"No family should be excluded. Options must be available to every child growing up in Wisconsin," a major report on universal school choice says. The drumbeat for universal school choice in Wisconsin is growing; three of the most prominently mentioned Republicans who may run for Wisconsin governor and the one declared candidate told Wisconsin Right Now that they support giving all Wisconsin parents the right to choose the best school for their children. Their comments come on the heels of a new report released by Common Sense Wisconsin; it was co-authored by Bill McCoshen, a veteran lobbyist who was former Gov. Tommy Thompson's Commerce Secretary. McCoshen has said he's considering a run for governor. Specifically, the plan urges the state to "expand school choice to all areas of the state and eliminating the income limits for participants." We asked Jonathan Wichmann, Rebecca Kleefisch, and Kevin Nicholson whether they also support universal school