Delegates decline to endorse candidate for governor at Wisconsin GOP convention

Wisconsin’s most ardent members of the Republican grassroots declined to endorse a candidate in the party’s gubernatorial primary, leaving the field wide open as the Aug. 9 primary approaches.

More than 1,500 delegates, candidates and activists gathered Saturday for the party’s annual state convention in Middleton — about 10 miles from the state Capitol, in the heart of deep-blue Dane County. Candidates made their cases to the party faithful — some seeking the endorsement themselves and others urging delegates to choose no one.

Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch received the most votes among the candidates, at 54.6% — just shy of the 60% needed to earn the party’s endorsement.

Construction business owner Tim Michels and businessman Kevin Nicholson each received about 3% of the vote on the first ballot, which took them out of the running for the second vote. State Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, got 5.6% of the vote on the first ballot and 2.6% on the second. The percentage of delegates supporting the “no endorsement” option rose from 36.4% on the first ballot to 42.8% on the second.

“What we saw in (the convention) is just the beginning,” Kleefisch told reporters immediately after the vote. “And you'll have to remember that in 2010, the last time I stood on that stage and asked the delegates of the Republican Party for their support, I was the first one voted off of that endorsement. To see the support in here today was nothing short of amazing to me.”

When Kleefisch first ran for lieutenant governor in 2010, she vied for the party’s endorsement with three other candidates — none of whom met the endorsement threshold. In the same convention, then-candidate Scott Walker won the endorsement for governor with 91.3% of the vote.

Walker, who is backing Kleefisch, introduced her at the convention on Saturday.

Nicholson — who lost a GOP Senate primary in 2018 — led the push for a “no endorsement” vote, encouraging delegates to do that rather than vote for him. In 2018, the party endorsed his opponent, former state Sen. Leah Vukmir.

He told reporters after the vote that it was a “win for the people of Wisconsin” and a “solid rejection” of Kleefisch.

“At the end of the day, we shouldn’t have conventions impact primaries like this; there’s no two ways about it,” Nicholson said. “Stop the insiderism, stop the manipulation, allow people to actually have their voice heard.”

Chris Walker, an adviser to Michels, said the results won’t change anything about their campaign strategy.

“We came into today expecting Rebecca Kleefisch would win this vote of her delegates on the first ballot,” he said. “It’s going to take an outsider with the resources and the right experience to unite the party, bring in new voters and beat Tony Evers, and that candidate is Tim Michels.”

Michels, a multimillionaire, has deep pockets to fund his campaign and has shown a willingness to spend heavily on advertising as he seeks to introduce himself to the electorate.

But Kleefisch said she “won’t be outworked” in the race, and said her next campaign finance report will show the campaign doing “extraordinarily well.”

"We're going to continue to be on a tear,” she told reporters. “I'm familiar with the path of being an underdog and I know as a challenger to Tony Evers, who has more money than Midas, I will be exactly that.”

Evers — who won an eight-way Democratic primary in 2018 — and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes defeated Walker and Kleefisch by about 30,000 votes in 2018. The Democratic governor had a 49% approval rating in the last Marquette University Law School poll released about a month ago.

“Given the knives-out, unholy shambles of a GOP primary that we’ve seen so far, it is not a surprise that the Republican Party could not unite around a candidate. The vicious personal attacks between their candidates will continue to tear the GOP further apart,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler in a statement.

None of the party’s lieutenant governor candidates cleared the threshold to secure an endorsement, either.

The Republican candidates vying for the nomination warned their voters not to underestimate Evers.

Prevalent themes throughout the speeches included election integrity, support for school choice expansion, supporting Second Amendment rights and opposing abortion.

Michels introduced himself as “pro-family, pro-life, pro-education reform and pro-Second Amendment.”

Those policies can only become realities by defeating Evers, Michels said, arguing he’s the best candidate to do so.

“I will never stop pursuing closure for truth and transparency to get it right so we can feel comfortable about what we do when we go to the ballot (box),” Ramthun said, vowing to conduct forensic audits of the August primary and November general elections.

Nicholson pledged to work with the Legislature to prevent future governors or local officials from “arbitrarily” issuing mandates “that shut down industry, that kick kids out of schools or that fire employees (who refuse to be vaccinated).”

Kleefisch recounted a list of accomplishments from the three terms during which she and Walker were in office, including passing Act 10 (which effectively eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public employees), concealed carry legislation, “castle doctrine” legislation and funneling state funding away from Planned Parenthood.

“Now, I’m not a biologist, but I am a woman, and I will not let a man like Tony Evers tell me how I am supposed to feel about Roe,” Kleefisch said, referring to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s likely to soon be overturned.

Kleefisch, Michels and Nicholson have all voiced support for moving the party’s primary from August to April to avoid dragging out intra-party disputes. But for now, they’ll continue to fight it out — on the airwaves, in the press and in front of GOP voters throughout the state — until August.