Can Tom Tiffany survive ties to toxic Donald Trump?

It is still weeks until the Nov. 3 midterm, but the early returns are in for Donald Trump, who wants voters to pretend he is on the ballot.  

Trump is at his lowest point ever in Wisconsin, with 60% of registered voters disapproving of him, 53% strongly, Marquette University polling says. 

Yet Tom Tiffany, Trump’s endorsed candidate for governor and a 100% supporter of his policies — which almost all poll even worse than Trump himself — is virtually tied with Dem David Crowley.  A good chunk of the electorate has not yet made the Tiffany-Trump connection. That may be the deciding factor over the home stretch.

Trump’s Iran war and its impact on skyrocketing gasoline and diesel prices are widely unpopular, and Tiffany has repeatedly voted to support the war and to leave  Trump unchecked.  One new Crowley TV spot takes Tiffany’s voting record  head-on, calling Tiffany “loyal to Trump, not Wisconsin.”  Trump is toxic.  Crowley is not just  running against “three billionaires” who have bought Tiffany with over $45 million — the majority of the money raised by the Republican gubernatorial  campaign.  Diane Hendricks, along with Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, are Trump’s billionaires. 

When Trump lost the 2020 election, the Uihleins provided millions of dollars to political groups that helped organize and promote the events of Jan. 6, 2021. And prior to the violent insurrection that day, Trump accomplice Tiffany  signed on to a brief to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, voted against certifying the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and said he would have opposed the will of Wisconsin voters and invalidated our state’s electoral votes, too.

This week, in an interview with WLUK in the Fox Valley, Tiffany was asked if he’d be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. Tiffany’s response: “They should check Tom Tiffany’s record.” 

Tiffany’s record in Washington is one of rubber stamping everything Trump has done to make things worse for Wisconsin. One hundred per cent of the time. Tiffany has supported Trump’s chaotic trade wars and reckless tariffs that have devastated farmers and raised the cost of groceries. He voted for healthcare cuts and rising insurance premiums for working families to pay for…you guessed it — tax breaks for Trump’s billionaires. 

Craig Gilbert, longtime Journal Sentinel political reporter who analyzes, interprets and explains polls, put it this way in his piece based on the latest MU poll: “Trump disapprovers” — those who disapprove of Trump — are a key voting bloc.

Tiffany now gets 11% of those voters.  Gilbert says he needs 15 to 20% to get to a majority on Nov. 3.  Crowley has a big lead among independent voters, but Tiffany is chipping away at that with his negative TV onslaught funded by the Trump billionaires. 

The MU poll shows 81% of independents disapprove of Trump, and even 62% of non-MAGA Republicans disapprove.  Those voters will be the target audience as Election Day approaches. 

As I was writing this, as if to underscore my point,  the Crowley campaign just launched a hard-hitting TV spot that makes the connection between Tiffany and Trump.  The subject line on a Crowley fund-raising email today is “100 percent of the time.” You can expect to hear a lot more about Tiffany and Trump between now and Nov. 3.

Voters don’t need to pretend Trump is on the ballot. For Wisconsin voters who will decide the outcome of the governor’s race, he is.