Vos changes mind, endorses Trump
Assembly speaker called nomination ‘stupid’ in ’23
MADISON - After calling the nomination of Donald Trump as the GOP presidential candidate a “suicide mission” for Republicans, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos now says he believes the former president can win the Badger State this fall.
Vos has been a target of Trump since 2021 when the Legislature’s top Republican refused to take steps to overturn Trump’s loss in Wisconsin and withstood a primary challenge Trump helped fund, leading Vos to pledge to try “as hard as I can” to ensure Trump did not secure the GOP nomination.
But now, after Trump has prevailed in the GOP presidential primary, Vos is endorsing Trump and says he believes the former president can win Wisconsin again.
“It’s going to be a choice between two men. It’s not going to be a choice between what do I think the president should be? What do I think the president shouldn’t be?” Vos told reporters following an event in Madison hosted by Wispolitics.com.
“It’s going to be, do you think the policies that Joe Biden has put in place over the course of the past four years are better for the country, or were times better under Donald Trump, when we actually had low inflation, low taxes, more control at the border?”
Vos told reporters in May 2023 he did not believe Trump could defeat President Joe Biden in a rematch of the 2020 election that rocked the country. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes − a victory Trump sought to overturn and in part prompted an attack on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
His comments were made after Trump had spent months badgering Vos to take illegal steps to overturn his legitimate loss in Wisconsin. Trump’s efforts lit fires under discontent already brewing among Republicans in the party’s base who at times didn’t like the state party’s approach and emboldened beliefs among some that Trump did actually win in 2020 and Vos could do something about the perceived injustice.
Trump then endorsed and helped fund a primary challenger to Vos, whom the Assembly Speaker easily defeated in 2022.
“I do not believe Donald Trump can win the state of Wisconsin ... I don’t want to nominate people who can’t win. I do not want to nominate losers,” Vos said at a May 2023 event hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club. “Why would Republicans pick the one person that Joe Biden can beat? That is stupid.”
In a separate May 2023 appearance on the Capital Times’ Wedge Issues podcast, Vos said, “I don’t know why we would go through a suicide mission.”
On Tuesday, Vos changed course and said he “definitely” thinks Trump can win in 2024. Vos had previously floated the possibility of voting for Trump if he became the nominee.
“I think most Wisconsinites are going to look and say, they long for the times when we maybe had somebody who tweeted too much, but had better policies for the country,” Vos said.
Jessie Opoien of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.