The biggest news out of Tuesday’s primary wasn’t necessarily construction company executive Tim Michels’ win over former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in the Republican gubernatorial primary. I think the bigger story might have been that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos just barely escaped with his political life, defeating his Donald Trump-backed challenger by about 260 votes.
The question now is how will Vos react? Will he move further into the Trump camp or will he take some measure of revenge on Trump and on former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who also endorsed Vos’ opponent? It was Vos who hired Gableman to do the bogus, partisan “investigation” into the 2020 election, but Vos quickly lost control of the situation. A probe that was supposed to be completed last October is only on “pause” 10 months later. Vos has made several attempts to end Gableman’s antics without success.
But on election night Vos called Gableman, “an embarrassment to this state” and said he would meet with the Republican caucus to discuss Gableman’s future. That’s encouraging, though it follows a pattern. Vos did nothing to clamp down on Rep. Timothy Ramthun (R-Campbellsport) in his attempt to decertify the 2020 election until Ramthun criticized Vos himself. Then Vos stripped Ramthun of his staff. In this case, Vos didn’t go after Gableman until Gableman endorsed his opponent. Vos’ rule seems to be that you can undermine American democracy, just don’t try to undermine the speaker. Still, we need to take what we can get.
For his part, Trump had a good night. Not only did he come close to knocking off the long-time speaker, but his chosen candidate for governor, Michels, defeated Kleefisch, who had been endorsed by Trump’s now rival, his former Vice President Mike Pence, and by his 2016 primary opponents Sen. Ted Cruz and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
I had thought that the Michels camp might have made a mistake by bringing Trump to Waukesha County just days before the election. Trump isn’t all that popular in the Milwaukee suburbs, which were Kleefisch’s base. I thought Michels’ move might backfire. But instead Kleefisch underperformed there, suggesting that Trump may have more pull in the suburbs than I had thought.
On balance, Michels might be just a little bit better for incumbent Gov. Tony Evers to face in November. Kleefisch was much smoother on television and, while she didn’t perform as well in the Milwaukee suburbs as she needed to in the primary, she still won there overall. That suggests that Michels might not hold suburban voters as tightly in the fall as Kleefisch might have. If I were Evers I would prefer to go up against Michels, but it’s a close call.
But back to Vos. Had he lost, an already grim scenario might have become very dark. A few weeks ago I wrote about the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a case next year that would establish the independent state legislatures doctrine. That could give the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to award our electoral votes to the Republican presidential candidate in 2024 even if the popular vote goes against that candidate. In another piece I wrote that Vos has shown at least some indication that that would be a bridge too far for him and that he might step into the breach and save democracy. If he were gone — defeated by Trump — whoever would become speaker would almost certainly do the national party’s bidding.
With Vos presumably back as speaker, there’s some chance that that awful scenario could be short-circuited, unless his political near death experience wipes out any last vestiges of courage that he has left. His reactions to Ramthun and Gableman suggest that somebody needs to attack him directly before he’ll act. To Vos it seems to be less about principle and more about personal revenge.
In any event, we live in a world where we should be relieved that Robin Vos is still likely to be Assembly speaker, but we can’t be too sure about how relieved we should be. It’s come to that. ‘
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. Both his reporting and his opinion writing have been recognized by the Milwaukee Press Club. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos. He’s the author of Light Blue: How center-left moderates can build an enduring Democratic majority.