Matt Neumann, one of the hosts of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ private fundraiser in Milwaukee last week, says the event had “good turnout” that included some prominent Wisconsin Republicans.
“I’m not here to drop names, but yes, there were a number of people that I’ve seen at other fundraisers from other campaigns around the state in prior cycles,” Neumann said on WISN’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “It’s exciting. The momentum is building, and we’re just excited to see where the campaign goes.”
The Thursday event was hosted at The University Club of Milwaukee. An invite obtained by WisPolitics listed Kim and John Schlifske as main hosts with tickets ranging from $1,000 for an individual up to $23,000 for a host couple.
“It was exciting, a really good turnout,” said Neumann, the son of former GOP U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann. “Gov. DeSantis is always fun to see, especially in a small setting where he can be truly open and transparent. You can ask him any question.”
DeSantis is trailing Trump by 20 points in Wisconsin in the latest Marquette Law School poll and nationwide. That’s a point of confusion for DeSantis backers when voters also signal they do not want a Donald Trump-Joe Biden rematch, Neumann added.
“It makes no sense, does it? You’re asking me, I don’t know. It really doesn’t make sense to me,” Neumann said. “It’s actually the same on both parties right now, and it’s creating a lot of confusion. Inside a primary that doesn’t exist on the Democrat side, at least doesn’t exist yet, and inside a primary on the right we’re talking about here, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Neumann said it’s “a great question” if Trump could win Wisconsin in 2024 if he’s the nominee, but added he and other DeSantis supporters in Wisconsin would vote for Trump if he’s the eventual nominee at next summer’s RNC convention in Milwaukee.
“Yes,” Neumann said. “Yes.”
Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for the group No Labels, which is considering launching a third-party ticket, says the group plans to seek ballot access in Wisconsin when organizations can start circulating petitions Jan. 1.
“It’s ballot access, getting signatures,” he told “UpFront.” “We’ll be doing that soon in Wisconsin. We’re already on the ballot in 12 states, and we’ll ultimately be getting access in about 34 states by next spring.”
That’s when Clancy said the group will determine whether to launch a third-party presidential ticket.
“The scenario is if we see a path to victory and when we look at the numbers today, Trump-Biden, there looks like there’s a path there,” Clancy said. “But if the parties make some different choices, and that closes off the opening for an independent ticket, we won’t force it.”
Oral arguments are scheduled Tuesday before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a case challenging the state’s legislative maps.
“The goal certainly isn’t ultimate chaos, and I don’t think it really does create a lot of chaos,” said Jeff Mandell, board president of Law Forward, the organization that filed the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks the current maps be thrown out and all 132 members of the state Legislature in both the Senate and Assembly face reelection next year. Usually only half the 33-member Senate is up for reelection in even-numbered years.
“I think the main point is that democracy demands that we have new maps because the maps that we have are not constitutional, and they’re not constitutional for two different reasons,” Mandell told “UpFront.” “One is that most of the districts in the Assembly and Senate are not contiguous. That means they’re not all made up of one interrupted chunk of land, and that is in conflict with the words of the constitution.
“The second is the way these maps were drawn violates the separation of powers and is completely inappropriate, and therefore we need new maps,” Mandell said.
The suit was filed just days after Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in, flipping control of the high court from conservative to liberal.
“The issue was not really about who’s in control of the court,” Mandell said. “The question of whether the maps are contiguous or not is not a partisan question.”
Meantime Luke Berg, deputy counsel with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which intervened in the case, told “UpFront” the case will have “significant consequences” if the court replaces the legislative maps.
The group will argue Tuesday the lines should remain as is.
“I think a lot of the discussion is going to focus on remedy in part because there is a very simple remedy to the contiguity problem and the separation of powers claim, which is to simply absorb the existing islands into their surrounding districts,” Berg said. “So there’s something between 200 and 300 islands in the current map, everybody agrees on those numbers roughly. But a third of those islands have zero people in them, another third have less than 10, another third have less than 100 and there’s only a handful that have more than 100 people in them.
“So if you were to simply take the islands and put them in the districts that surround them, it would eliminate the contiguity problem, and you wouldn’t have any population problems in the existing map.”
Democrats are hoping new maps are drawn before the 2024 election.
“We’ll see what the court does,” Berg said. I’m not going to make predictions about what the court is going to do in this case.”
A WisPolitics event on Nov. 30 in Madison examines the redistricting controversy. Register now:
https://events.humanitix.com/wispolitics-luncheon-panel-discussion-on-wi-legislative-maps
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl says he had a difficult time getting Wisconsin Republicans on the record for his new book “Tired of Winning,” which focused on Trump and his attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election.
“I spoke to many. In Wisconsin, there weren’t as many who were willing to go on the record even after that, and that should tell you something,” Karl told “UpFront.” “It’s pretty interesting, even though Republican leaders in Wisconsin knew as well as anybody in the country because it had been such a focus for Trump.”
Karl details a moment before the 2016 election when then-RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was “horrified” after David Duke endorsed Trump.
“Trump did not want to upset any of David Duke’s followers,” Karl said. “As he told Chris Christie, you know they vote, too. But eventually, he did. Trump came around, and he renounced the endorsement of David Duke largely because of Christie, at the urging of Reince Priebus, told him he absolutely had to.”
“Fast forward to just last year,” Karl said. “Trump announces he’s running for president, and he has dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.”
Karl said the book explores what a second Trump term would look like.
“There’s nobody around Trump to do what Christie and Priebus did,” Karl said.
See more from the show:
https://www.wisn.com/upfront
