Vukmir, Nicholson court GOP grass roots in U.S. Senate race
Both candidates crisscross state; most primary voters undecided
Leah Vukmir and Kevin Nicholson are out to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate a vote at a time.
For months now, they have barnstormed across the state, courting the party grass roots at caucuses and dinners, trying to show they have the right stuff to take on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in the fall.
On Saturday, they planned three stops each, beginning at Klemmer’s Banquet Center in Greenfield, where they met around 50 Milwaukee County Republicans gathered for a breakfast caucus over scrambled eggs and fluffy pancakes.
Then it was on to an 8th Congressional District caucus in New London, followed by a dinner with Dane County Republicans in Madison.
Vukmir has put 52,000 miles on her car in pursuit of the nomination, hitting more than 60 of the state’s 72 counties. To make the Milwaukee County event, she came fresh off an airplane after seeing her son, Nicholas, graduate from U.S. Army Ranger School in Georgia. “You want to know what the pulse of the people truly is,” said Vukmir, a state senator from Brookfield.
Nicholson is also keeping a busy travel schedule across the state, often accompanied by his wife and their three young children.
“We’re not the biggest state in the union, but we are a big state,” said Nicholson, a Delafield businessman and U.S. Marine veteran.
The candidates are trying to gather support ahead of the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention May 12 in Milwaukee.
At stake is a party endorsement, if a candidate can get 60% support from the delegates. With the endorsement would come a huge organizational boost heading into the Aug.14 primary.
Another candidate may yet jump into the race. Madison businessman Eric Hovde, a runner-up for the 2012 GOP Senate nomination, is mulling a run.
In their pitches to caucus-goers, Nicholson and Vukmir went right at Baldwin, criticizing her on social, economic and foreign policy issues.
“I am not going to bend, I’m not going to break, until we take Tammy Baldwin out of the United States Senate because she’s not looking out for the future of you or your families,” Nicholson said.
“Tammy Baldwin doesn’t represent Wisconsin values, she doesn’t represent our American values,” Vukmir said. “She stands so far to the left she makes Chuck Schumer (the Senate minority leader from New York) look like a moderate.”
In his speech, Nicholson vowed to make the case for conservative issues in Milwaukee County. He brought up his well-known past as a one-time president of the College Democrats of America, adding, “I’m a conservative today because these policies work better.”
“Now, we’ve all seen in the news that some members of my family are still frustrated about that, and that’s life,” he said, referring to his father, mother and brother donating to Baldwin’s campaign.
“We have plenty of members of our family who are thrilled, who are on board with our team and intrinsically involved in our lives,” he said. “We want to get American politics back to a point where families aren’t being split over these differences.”
Nicholson said his message is winning, pointing to a Marquette University Law School poll that showed him with 28% support among Republicans who said they’re likely to vote in the primary, compared with 19% for Vukmir.
Nearly half of those polled hadn’t made a decision. Around 8 in 10 voters don’t know enough about the GOP candidates to form an opinion on them. Vukmir responded:
“What that poll shows is that it’s way too early. And it also shows that voters are not engaged. And this is the warning cry and the wake-up call” that Gov. Scott Walker gave state Republicans after Democrats staged an upset in the 10th District State Senate race in January.
In her speech, Vukmir aligned herself with Walker and vowed to bring the “Wisconsin Way” to Washington.
Vukmir told the audience she was a “proven consistent conservative, someone who has stood with you through all we have been through together to accomplish great things.”
Brad Bainum, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said Saturday:
“Leah Vukmir and Kevin Nicholson are campaigning on a wildly unpopular right-wing, corporate special interest-friendly agenda that includes stripping away health care access for 30 million Americans, ending protections for Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions and gutting programs like Social Security and Medicare.”