Republicans to launch new early voting push in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- A new Republican effort encouraging conservatives to cast their ballots before Election Day will get its first state-level push in Wisconsin.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Congressman Derrick Van Orden and Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming discussed the Wisconsin push in Republicans' "Bank Your Vote" campaign on a call with reporters Monday morning.
The full-throated endorsement of early voting marked a drastic shift in tone, since former President Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to throw out more than 200,000 Wisconsin absentee ballots in 2020, and less than a decade ago, Wisconsin Republicans enacted restrictions on early voting.
Schimming said he hopes more recent court rulings -- and recent election results -- will get more conservative voters on board with absentee and early, in-person voting.
"In my mind, it's just accepting reality," Schimming said. "There are laws on the books. I'm not into playing checkers when the game is chess, and so, we're gonna play it, and we're gonna do it well."
Schimming said he believed a powerful political chess move in 2024 would be encouraging Republican voters to cast their ballots early, allowing GOP activists to focus on a smaller pool of voters in the final push before Election Day.
He said Democrats' current edge in absentee ballots was making it harder for the party to win statewide contests.
The state is famously competitive during presidential races; since 2000, only two presidential elections were decided by more than one percentage point.
However, Governor Tony Evers won re-election in 2022 by more than three points, and this past spring, progressive Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the state Supreme Court by 11 points, giving liberals control of the court.
"Look, I'm not into being 100,000 votes behind on Election Day and trying to make it up in 13 hours," Schimming said. "I think it's a political reality. It's the law in Wisconsin, so I'm dealing with it."
After the 2020 presidential election, Trump's campaign sought to have more than 220,000 absentee ballots from Milwaukee and Dane counties invalidated. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, ruled against Trump.
McDaniel told reporters Monday Trump was on board with the RNC's embrace of early voting.
"So, I have spoken with President Trump and several other candidates for president, as well as many of the stakeholders in the state of Wisconsin," McDaniel said. "He has indicated to me that he is supportive of this, that he understands the importance of this."
In a statement, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin called the GOP campaign "a hypocritical and deeply cynical ploy."
Ben Wikler, chair of the state Democratic Party, said the damage was already done, and he suspected many conservatives will remain leery of early voting.
"Their own activists have been repeatedly told by their leaders that early votes and absentee votes are illegitimate," Wikler said. "This seems like a trainwreck waiting to happen."
At the state level, Wisconsin Republicans enacted restrictions on early voting in 2014, including a ban on weekend early, in-person voting.
The author of that bill in the state Senate was Rep. Glenn Grothman, who now represents Wisconsin's 6th congressional district, which includes Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Oshkosh and Beaver Dam.
Grothman's office did not respond to an interview request Monday, but the RNC listed him as one of the state officials on the Wisconsin "Bank Your Vote" effort.
A federal judge struck down the ban on weekend early voting in 2016.
Schimming said more recent court rulings, including the state Supreme Court upholding a ban on unattended drop boxes, would make conversative comfortable with absentee and early, in-person voting.
Last week, a national Democratic law firm filed a lawsuit seeking to reinstate drop boxes in Wisconsin. The state Supreme Court's new liberal majority could potentially hear the case, as Protasiewicz will be sworn in on Aug. 1.