LAKE DELTON, Wis. — The top two Republicans on the ballot this November, Tim Michels and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, touted their positions on immigration and crime during a campaign event Saturday at a resort near the Wisconsin Dells.
For Michels, he said Gov. Tony Evers’s failings on crime were a key reason why he should replace the incumbent governor this fall. He slammed the governor, who had previously campaigned on cutting the state’s prison population by half.
“Do you know that he has done an early parole release on nearly 1000 convicted criminals here in the state of Wisconsin,” Michels said. “Just to put that in perspective, do you know how many [former Republican Gov.] Scott Walker let out early? Zero.”
He also touched on election integrity and education — common pillars of his stump speech.
“Those test score numbers continue to get worse — if Tony Evers can’t make education work well in Wisconsin, how can he make anything work well?” Michels said.
Before becoming governor in 2018, Evers served as the elected head of the Department of Public Instruction.
Johnson is defending his seat this fall against Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, and tied Barnes to what he called failing policies of the Biden administration on the border. He said those policies effectively make Wisconsin a border state.
“[Human traffickers] these are some of those most evil people on the planet, and Biden’s border policies are facilitating their practically $18 billion business model,” he said.
Johnson rejects ‘torches and pitchforks’ language, pushes to correct the record
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Johnson rejected Michels’ comments that people should take up “torches and pitchforks,” which were made after a story was published about Michels in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Michels decried the story, which described a series of donations Michels and his wife made to churches and religious groups that have taken anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ stances, as an attack on his religion.
“No,” said Johnson when asked if he believed that language should be in the campaign. “I didn’t hear the comments, but you don’t hear that type of rhetoric out of me.”
A Las Vegas official was arrested earlier this week in connection with the stabbing death of an investigative reporter who worked for the Las Vegas Journal Review.
Johnson also pushed to correct the record on his stance on Social Security and Medicare. Last month, the Republican senator proposed making the two programs part of the federal discretionary budget instead of mandatory spending.
“They’re saying I want to cut, or end, or put on the chopping block Social Security — nothing could be farther from the truth,” Johnson said. “I want to save Social Security, I want to save Medicare.”
He added that overrun government spending was mortgaging the country’s future.
Campaigns continue to battle neck-and-neck
As the campaigns head into the final two months, polls continue to show a close race for both governor and U.S. Senate. Evers and Michels are statistically tied, and Barnes has a slight edge over Johnson.
Michels pointed to polls in 2016 that showed Johnson and then-candidate Donald Trump losing their elections, saying he believe Republicans perform better than those polls suggest.
“I really believe that we are up three or four or five points right now,” Michels said. “But we have to keep working hard.”
A Marquette Law School poll from August showed Evers and Michels in a statistical tie, 45%-43%. A Trafalgar Group poll released in late August showed a closer race, with Evers at 48% to Michels at 47.5%.
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