Stakes high in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary
MAZOMANIE, Wis. — The most memorable part of Scott Walker’s run for president in 2016 was how he ended it: by dissing Donald Trump, his chief rival in a crowded race.
Walker, Wisconsin’s two-term governor, said he was bowing out to help “clear the field” so a “positive, conservative alternative” could emerge to Trump. The remark was self-serving — the Walker campaign was broke — but he had a point: Republicans never coalesced around an opponent to Trump, who went on to become the first Republican presidential nominee to carry Wisconsin since 1984.
Walker is still Wisconsin’s governor, still harboring national ambitions, and Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans have only grown more divided over Trump and the state’s place in national politics. Those dynamics are now on display as Wisconsin prepares for a major primary election Tuesday: Walker’s bid for a third term is at stake; Wisconsin Democrats’ desire to deal blows to Trump Republicanism is intense; Republicans are deeply concerned about their future hold on state government; and the very identity of the state, which swings between progressivism and conservatism, feels up for grabs.
Wisconsin has veered sharply to the right under Walker and in the Trump era after a long history of widely varying ideologies and leaders: Robert La Follette, the famed progressive leader; Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day; William Proxmire, the crusader President Donald Trump participates in the June 28 groundbreaking for a $10 billion Foxconn factory complex in Mount Pleasant, Wis. With him were, from left, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Foxconn chairman Terry Gou and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
against government waste and corruption; but also Joseph McCarthy, who led the anti-communist hunt of the 1950s. Where else could Ron Johnson, the conservative tea party senator, hold office at the same time as Tammy Baldwin, the liberal senator and that chamber’s first openly gay member?
Republicans say Walker’s record, powerful state political operation and disciplined campaign style could help completely shut out Democrats in Wisconsin if the Republicans hold their current offices — and seize Baldwin’s Senate seat in November. Two Republicans are vying in Tuesday’s primary for the nomination to challenge Baldwin.
Losing Baldwin’s seat would mark an end of any real sense that Wisconsin remains purple. On the flip side, the prospect of regaining some measure of influence — if not the governor’s job, then control of the state Senate — would give Democrats a stake in state policy that they have been all but excluded from since Walker arrived.
Unemployment in
Wisconsin has fallen below 3 percent. Walker has boasted of the expansion of high-tech manufacturing and job training and apprenticeship programs. The governor has also pushed efforts to keep young, graduating Wisconsin residents from leaving for places like Chicago, and to lure millennials Midwesterners to Wisconsin.
Ground has been broken on building a massive campus for Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company for which state and local officials have agreed to a total of more than $4 billion in tax credits and other inducements. The Foxconn project is described as the largest economic-development project in the state’s history. Plans call for eventually employing as many as 13,000 workers.
Democrats face a dizzyingly long list of candidates (eight) to be the nominee to take on Walker. Residents here complain that the list is both too long and too uninspiring, and a question lingers: Can any of these people actually beat Walker?