Voters wary of a return to culture wars and personality politics at the Wisconsin polls this November should buckle up.
With former election denier Tom Tiffany vying for governor and a self-appointed “MAGA activist” in secretary of state candidate Jay Schroeder, top Republicans running for office in the state have shown continued support for President Donald Trump—even as the latest Marquette Poll shows the President’s approval ratings are at an all-time low of 38%.
In the meantime, Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, said Tiffany seems to be trying to balance polarizing national politics with the old-school charm of Gov. Scott Walker, whom Chergosky described as “unapologetically conservative.”
“In order to win this election, (Tiffany’s) going to need to win over some voters who have concerns about Trump or might be at least somewhat disapproving of Trump,” Chergosky said.
Lockstep with Trump
In 2020, when he first won the race for US Congress in Wisconsin’s 7th District, Tiffany came out swinging for Trump and against Wisconsinites’ votes by voting against certifying the state’s 2020 election results.
“There’s a certain symbolic importance to that being one of the first acts that Tiffany did as a member of Congress, how he’s elected in 2020 and then immediately casts a vote pertaining to the legitimacy of the 2020 election outcome,” Chergosky said.
Tiffany has since back-tracked, agreeing that former President Joe Biden won the election. Meanwhile, Tiffany has voted in lockstep with Trump policies, voting against measures that would have repealed tariffs and ended costly conflicts with Iran.
In recent months, Tiffany—a US Congressman now running for state office—has begun to distance himself from national politics. Chergosky suggested that Tiffany is toeing the line by balancing his endorsement from Trump and his appearance on the campaign trail alongside Vice President J.D. Vance with trying to emphasize a focus on Wisconsin.
“One way that he can do that is by trying to create some daylight between him and the president,” Chergosky said, citing three recent examples.
As Wisconsinites push back against AI and data centers, Tiffany has jumped on the bandwagon by integrating promises to repeal tax incentives that draw developers to the state in his campaign speeches. Meanwhile, an UpNorthNews investigation found that he’s got a record of support for data center construction and AI technology that many voters may find hard to square with his promises.
Read More: Tom Tiffany’s record vs. his data center attacks on Crowley
Tiffany has also recently sided with Wisconsinites on the issue of renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
And when Trump began importing beef to lower meat prices, Tiffany spoke out against the idea. However, there’s been no Tiffany-supported measure, amendment, vote, or signed letter seeking to halt or reverse import expansion. In fact, Tiffany has voted to keep Trump’s tariffs on Canada despite agricultural groups’ warnings that the trade conflict raises farm costs and threatens Wisconsin farmers’ sales and prices.
Tiffany’s Trump alliance could hurt him
The September Marquette poll showed Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a record low, while registered voters currently favor Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a Democrat, in the race for governor by a narrow 1% margin.
Despite Wisconsin’s state-specific issues—including inflation, the rising cost of living and grocery prices, and the question of data centers and who should foot the bill for their required infrastructure—Chergosky said voters often conflate national and state races come election time.
“Trump’s approval rating is going to have a profoundly important effect on the election outcome because although Trump is not on the ballot, many voters approach midterm elections as an expression of approval or disapproval of the president,” Chergosky said. “They almost approach it as a referendum on the sitting president.”
For Tiffany, that means his alignment with Trump over the past six years is likely embedded in the minds of voters.
“The Marquette Law Poll shows that many Wisconsin registered voters view Tiffany as being part of the MAGA movement, and I think votes like this reinforce that,” Chergosky said.
The Marquette poll showed that among Republican voters, 99% of those favorable to MAGA support Tiffany. Among Republicans who don’t favor MAGA, Tiffany’s support falls to 73%, and 20% favor Crowley. About 7% of Republican voters said they remained undecided.
The link between national and local politics is not unique to Wisconsin. Chergosky blames news deserts across the country for leaving voters without enough information about local candidates to make decisions. Meanwhile, Trump’s influence looms large in unprecedented ways.
“Trump dominates American politics in a way that not even most presidents do. He is this central figure that drives the political conversation above and beyond what is typical for an American president,” Chergosky said.
The landscape in Wisconsin
When former Gov. Walker led the state, the Republican oversaw the redrawing of voting maps, and his party enjoyed new success for about 12 years. But in 2024, the maps were reversed after a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision ended what it deemed gerrymandering—changing the landscape for Republican candidates.
Now both Crowley and Tiffany will have to navigate a statewide election that’s very different from the more localized races that gave Crowley his seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly and Tiffany his seat in the US House.
“Going from a deep-red House district to a statewide election in a purple state can be a real challenge,” Chergosky said. “But David Crowley has a similar challenge, going from a deep-blue county and making the leap to a statewide campaign.”
What do Tiffany’s friends tell us?
Along the campaign trail, Tiffany has appeared in public with some polarizing figures.
He made national headlines in September when a personal plane he was on crashed into Lake Wausau. The pilot, Leonard Boltz, is an outspoken Republican and has been giving Tiffany free rides as he campaigns. The two have been seen at multiple campaign events together, and Boltz has said that if Tiffany loses in November, it will be because of “cheating” by Democrats.
Boltz is a noted election denier who’s said he wants to drive Assembly Speaker Robin Vos out of office for not doing enough to overturn the 2020 election results. In fact, CBS 58 reported that Boltz was among Republicans recommended for felony charges in a case involving alleged campaign-donation funneling to a 2022 primary challenger to Vos.
Boltz also gave a speech in June in front of a poster celebrating Harry Wait, the Wisconsin activist convicted of impersonating other people to request absentee ballots.
Last year, Tiffany attended a Charlie Kirk memorial event in De Pere where he spoke, saying “Faith, family, freedom, that’s what he talked about whenever he went on college campuses. He so emphasized that freedom part. That we should have good discourse as Americans, that free speech should be respected.”
Kirk was a leading figure in Trump’s MAGA movement who promoted disproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen, while Kirk’s Turning Point network worked to oust Republicans who upheld the results. This led to election workers facing a wave of harassment and threats after the 2020 election.
Crowley, for his part, called Tiffany out in election ads for supporting Trump at the expense of Wisconsinites, saying, “Tom Tiffany’s only loyal to Trump—not us, Wisconsin.” In the meantime, current Gov. Tony Evers has endorsed Crowley.
“The Evers endorsement was absolutely central to [Crowley’s] party nomination,” Chergosky said. “I think he would not have become the nominee without the endorsement and vocal support of Gov. Tony Evers.”
Other candidates in the state have leaned into the MAGA movement as part of their platform, including secretary of state candidate Jay Schroeder, who calls himself an “authentic MAGA activist.”
Schroeder, who lost two nominations for the seat in recent years, has been endorsed by Veterans for Trump and two anti-abortion groups in Wisconsin. He previously ran for the seat in 2018 and lost.
“The striking thing about the secretary of state role is that, for all the rhetoric about the 2020 election, the office has nothing to do with that,” Chergosky points out.
Schroeder has campaigned, however, for the secretary of state’s office to take control over state elections. This move would shift oversight away from the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, established in 2016.
