How ‘Project 2025’ could influence Wisconsin voters

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) --There are continued efforts by some Democrats and others to link Former President Donald Trump to what they call an extreme political agenda: Project 2025.

Mike Wagner, a UW-Madison journalism professor, said Project 2025 is a document that outlines plans for the Trump administration should they be successful in the 2024 election.

“There are lots of elements in the plan that many people find undemocratic,” Wagner said.

Wagner said it was put together by many top-level Trump staffers and people at the Heritage Foundation. That organization is a sponsor of the RNC and there are multiple speakers with connections to the organization.

Notably, the document advocates the dismantling of the Department of Education, bringing the Department of Justice under presidential control, criminalizing abortion drugs and abolishing the federal reserve.

“It calls for a dismantling of the administrative state and replacing staff members with partisan loyalists to do the party’s bidding as part of government rather than using expertise to make decisions about implementing governing,” Wagner added.

Former President Trump has said he is not affiliated with the agenda, but reportedly at least 140 of Former President Trump’s administration officials were in some way involved with project 2025.

Wagner says even though Former President Trump is saying he is distancing himself from Project 2025, that’s up to the voters to decide his ties to it.

“I think it’s appropriate to be skeptical when staff members write up a document and then people at the top of the tickets say, 'It’s not mine.’"

Wagner said it’s likely Project 2025’s greatest impact will be on persuading democrats to show up and vote, even if they aren’t huge fans of President Biden.

“It’s probably more likely that Project 2025’s greatest impact will be on persuading Democrats to show up and vote, even if they aren’t wild about President Biden, but to play more of a defensive role in trying to stop some of those ideas being implemented from their point of view,” Wagner said.

Wagner added that normally policy documents with hundreds of pages don’t impact an election too much. However, in a state like Wisconsin where elections come down to just a few thousand votes, it could matter.

“If you can reach 10, 15, 20 thousand voters with a particular kind of message, maybe one about the continued push to make abortion illegal, or maybe one to dismantle the current administrative state, those are things that might be persuasive to some small set of voters who will start to pay attention to the election in the coming weeks and months,” Wagner said.

Trump will speak to his party as they gather for the Republican National Convention Thursday evening at Fiserv Forum.