(The Center Square) – Two donors said they had never before made a political donation. Another said “look where I’m living” when asked if he made 7,878 donations worth $93,168.
And many more Wisconsin seniors confirmed they had not donated nearly as much as had been claimed in federal donation filings to ActBlue with the Federal Election Commission.
All of this came from multiple reports from a group of private investigators led by Kyle Corrigan of Brightline Investigations into Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue’s political donations in Wisconsin that were shared with The Center Square.
Corrigan said the two reports – one in 2023, another in 2025 – were updates on an ongoing look into a practice referred to as “smurfing,” where the group is accused of attributing more donations and higher dollar amounts to individual donors than they actually gave in a process that can shield other donors from transparency.
Corrigan wrote in his report the donations could be qualified as both identity theft and money laundering in the state. He wrote that prior claims were sent to the Door County Sheriff’s Office in 2023 but were not investigated.
“Many of the donors have a high frequency of donations, but low donation amounts,” Corrigan wrote. “These types of financial transactions are often used in money laundering and identity theft crime rings to not arise suspicions with high dollar amount transactions. The victims are chosen carefully because their information is publicly available, and Act Blue already has it.”
ActBlue did not respond to a request for comment on the Wisconsin investigation. The reports were funded and sent back to several groups, including a 2023 report sent by Corrigan to Election Watch and Peter Bernegger and a second report that was sent to Daniel Eastman of Wisconsin Center for Election Justice, Stephen Einhorn with an informal group of five that called itself the voter integrity group, and now-U.S. Inspector General March Bell, who was then senior counsel to Republicans on the House Administration Committee working with Wisconsin Congressman Bryan Steil while working on an investigation into ActBlue.
Eastman’s group is a 501(c)4 that files lawsuits related to voter issues in the state. He has separately represented Bernegger as a private lawyer.
Eastman said that his concerns with smurfing are wide-ranging, including how foreign influence could be involved in Wisconsin elections with foreign money funneled into ActBlue alongside donations attributed to Wisconsin seniors who did not actually donate the money.
Eastman wanted to find out if Wisconsin candidates are being chosen and funded by out-of-state and foreign interests.
“They’re so blatantly camouflaging candidates,” Eastman said. “We don’t really know who the money is coming from.”
Bernegger has testified about voting abnormalities in the state in front of a state committee related to the group’s findings and was convicted of bank and mail fraud in 2009.
Bell was confirmed in his role in the Trump administration on Dec. 22.
ActBlue donations have been the subject of several congressional hearings into both donations and the potential that foreign funds are being filtered into the organization, something the group initially denied in a hearing and then later declined to answer questions after a New York Times report about how the group filters foreign contributions.
The House Administration Committee has been investigating the group since 2023 and most recently requested documents from the organization’s Board of Directors in early June.
“This is a legitimate investigation,” Corrigan said. “These are publicly available records that you can go corroborate on your own and we encourage people to do this.”
The FEC report for Appleton’s Mark Jennerjohn shows repeated small-level ActBlue donations but, when Corrigan said he interviewed Jennerjohn at his door, he scoffed and said “look where I’m living” about his small apartment and said that he donates $5 from time to time but the FEC numbers showing more than $90,000 in donations over a seven-year span were not something he could afford.
Corrigan said that, when explaining the potential issues, he tells donors not to trust him but to look at the FEC data as proof.
Corrigan said that he started with analysis of the data for all Wisconsin voters, including Republican donors.
“From what I’ve discovered over the years of doing this, the Republicans were involved with it as well on a small level as far as I understood these are donations that are being returned,” Corrigan said. “But they were 10-12 years behind Democrats with ActBlue and this entire scheme.
“It was a pretty ingenious thing to figure this out. So far we’re still sitting here talking about DOJ referrals and we have yet to see one and I’ve been working this case for the last three years.”
Henry Timm is a playwright living in Sister Bay who told Corrigan that he had never made a political donation, yet his name is on repeated ActBlue donations amounting to nearly $20,000.
“It is the perfect crime,” Corrigan said. “These people don’t check these records. Most people don’t check their FEC records. They’re not losing any money out of their bank accounts.”

(The Center Square) – Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jefferys resigned from her post just four days before the state’s Aug. 11 primary.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Jefferys broke the law by mailing 152 duplicate ballots before the spring election.
That ruling led to a challenge from the Brown County Republican Party.
The office then sent duplicate ballots to an unknown numbers of voters in late June.
Jefferys had been on leave during an investigation into the duplicate ballots by the WEC.
While the duplicate.ballots were not legal, there is no punishment prescribed for the offense.
“[Jefferys] discusses her duty to prevent more than one ballot from any voter being counted in an election, and the Commission agrees that this is a duty of the Respondent. The Commission disagrees only to the extent the [Jefferys] appears to argue that this is the only relevant duty concerning these allegations. Multiple checks and redundancies exist within the election administration system to prevent duplicate ballots from being either issued or counted. Clerks are required to track each request made, each ballot issued, each ballot returned, and each ballot counted. In this case, there was an error and violation in ballot issuance, but procedures to track, review, record, and, on Election Day, count valid returned absentee ballots appear to have been properly carried out,” the WEC wrote in a memo.

(The Center Square) – Nearly two dozen state attorneys general banded together as early as April 2024 to plot litigation against President Donald Trump long before he was reelected, according to a confidential document obtained by The Center Square.
The document was signed approximately three months before President Joe Biden exited from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president. It was signed nearly seven months before Trump was reelected by 2.3 million more votes than Harris, almost nine months before he was inaugurated.
State attorneys general have sued the Trump Administration nearly 100 times since January 2025. The coordinated effort appears to have a nickname: the “Project for Federal Accountability.”
Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who was a Republican when he was in office but now often votes for Democrats, said he believes the timing was unusual. He described signing similar documents during his tenure from 2001 through 2013, but not for any hypothetical lawsuits planned so far in advance of government action.
“That’s not normal at all,” Shurtleff said. “It’s a big selling point now. I get lots of emails from people running for attorney general, lots of texts and emails saying, ‘We’ve got to stop President Trump’ or ‘We’ve got to work together as state attorneys general. That’s why you need to give me money!’ and vice versa. It goes both ways… I don’t think that’s the best use of an attorney general’s time.”
Not all of the lawsuits have been joined by each attorney general, and some offices take the lead on different cases. At last count, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has participated in 82 lawsuits. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined at least 75 lawsuits. Washington State Attorney General Brown has joined 70 lawsuits. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined 46 lawsuits.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Bonta stated the lawsuits are “apolitical.” He announced the lawsuits have cost California taxpayers $19 million and that he will continue to file them as needed.
“If (Trump) doesn’t want to get sued, all he has to do is follow the law,” Bonta said. “I don’t think our cases are likely to be dismissed… Trump shows no sign of slowing down, so we will continue to sue him.”
So far, 11 cases have been closed in favor of the plaintiff and four cases dismissed in favor of the federal government, according to Just Security — a nonpartisan digital law and policy journal at New York University.
The document, titled “PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT,” also incorporated plans to withhold some information from the public surrounding the lawsuits, indicating the parties “wish to pursue their common interest concerning Federal Accountability issues and litigation(s) addressing such issues, while avoiding any waiver of the confidentiality of those privileged materials.”
At least 22 Democratic attorneys general appear to have signed the common interest agreement. Zero Republican attorneys general appear to have signed it.
Three Democratic attorneys general — in Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin — have declined to say whether they signed the agreement. The Virginia Attorney General’s Office flipped from red to blue in January 2026.
One year earlier, Pennsylvania went the opposite direction. Voters elected a Republican to succeed a Democrat in January 2025. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has not responded to questions asking whether his state remains part of the common interest agreement.
When attorneys general have sued prior administrations, it was typically after the administration took action — not before. For example, Shurtleff pointed to a 2012 lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) after its passage in March 2010. He was one of 22 Republican attorneys general who signed onto the case, which ended with a partial victory and partial defeat before the United States Supreme Court.
‘Nothing particularly significant’
Seven attorneys general signed the common interest agreement on April 28, 2024, with District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s signature appearing first. California’s signature was left undated, and 13 other attorneys general joined in May or June 2024. Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez was the last known signatory on Nov. 12, 2024 — seven days after Trump won a second term.
Trump secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Republican nominee in March 2024.
The majority of attorneys general who signed the agreement have declined to comment or answer questions. Some have downplayed the timing of the agreement or otherwise minimized the extent to which they had been preparing for litigation against the Trump Administration.
“There is nothing particularly significant about that date,” wrote Richie Taylor, communications director for the Arizona Attorney General Mayes’ office. “The office has common interest agreements with Republican AG’s as well as Democratic AG’s depending on the litigation.”
Former Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is now the state governor, announced one day after the election that his office had already been preparing potential litigation against Trump for “months.”
“We knew from our extensive experience during his first term that we would need to be prepared from day one if he was reelected,” Ferguson said at the time. “My team has gone line-by-line through Project 2025 and has been tracking remarks by Trump on the campaign trail… A concern I have is that Donald Trump, I believe, and his administration, may well be better prepared on their end.”
The Center Square reached out to Ferguson’s office requesting an interview for this story but did not receive a response.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said the planning began “as soon as it was clear that Trump was going to get the nomination.”
“We’re pleased that we responded before January 2025,” Brown told The Center Square in an interview. “We talked through a host of possibilities, and we wanted to be prepared, not to get caught off guard.”
Brown said none of the lawsuits were filed before the 2024 election, and the attorneys general were not circumventing the will of voters.
“I don’t think we were going after him, or any AG was, because he hadn’t been elected (yet),” Brown said in an interview.
Prominent Democrats who were not state attorneys general have supported the actions.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, described the planning efforts more simply and with more partisanship.
“Look where we are now,” Kaine told The Center Square in an interview at the Capitol. “(The Democratic attorneys general) did what Republican attorneys general did with President Obama’s stimulus plan in 2009: ‘everything he’s for, we’re against.’”
A shared banner
The “Project for Federal Accountability” nickname led directly to The Center Square’s discovery of the confidential document at the center of this report.
Additional records obtained by The Center Square show New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy added an additional $1 million to his state’s budget in fiscal year 2026 related to the Project for Federal Accountability. Budget records indicate the money was “essential” to fund two positions and to “provide critical support… to protect our residents from reckless and illegal actions by the federal government that harm New Jerseyans.”
New Jersey budget records indicate the previous costs of the lawsuits “have been negligible” because the Attorney General’s Office had been “relying on preexisting resources.”
Allison Inserro, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, declined an interview request from The Center Square.
After Trump’s election, New Jersey media reported on the state funding. Until now, no outlet has been able to uncover the national plan among attorneys general to sue Trump over hypothetical policies discussed during his campaign.
A bill passed last year in California, SBX1-1, authorized the California Department of Finance to appropriate $25 million for “federal accountability litigation.”
The Center Square first learned about the Project for Federal Accountability nickname from public records released by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. Documents showed coordination between Democratic attorneys general through a “Rule of Law Working Group” and the “Project for Federal Accountability.”
Most of those records – hundreds of pages – were released entirely redacted by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office due to varying types of attorney work-product exemptions. The Center Square successfully appealed redactions showing the names of people on the original email and is continuing to appeal redactions.
Brown, the attorney general in Virginia, denied having any knowledge of the Project for Federal Accountability nickname in his interview with The Center Square.
The Republican Attorneys General Association has not commented.
O.H. Skinner, a former Arizona solicitor general and current executive director of Alliance for Consumers, has been critical of lawfare against Trump. He believes the timeline is “very revealing.”
“Whatever they said in public, they privately had at least a solid amount of confidence that Joe Biden was never going to win that election,” Skinner said. “They didn’t have a concern about federal overreach until they thought the other team was going to be in charge… They needed to plan ahead and endeavor to build a juggernaut if they wanted to have any hope of slowing down the president’s agenda.”
Common interests, independent states
Legal experts across the United States have started to question whether records related to hypothetical lawsuits and hypothetical policies should be withheld from the public.
“Parties with the same interests need to be able to speak with their lawyers confidentially,” said Thomas Moukawsher, a retired judge in Connecticut. “But what is their common interest? We can’t establish what their common interests are. I don’t like it. If I was sitting as a judge on the case, I’d say you need to have something a little more specific. That’s just a little strange. ‘Federal Accountability?’”
Shurtleff said common interest agreements can be a standard way for attorneys general to try and prevent their litigation strategies from being made public when they coordinate across states. He believes attorneys general became significantly more partisan throughout his 12-year tenure in Utah.
“We would take on bipartisan issues all the time,” Shurtleff said. “But it became more combative over time, which I hated… I left in early 2013, just when it was starting to get nasty.”
State attorneys general filed 122 multistate lawsuits against the Biden Administration during his four years in office, according to data previously collected in 2025 by Marquette University. Not all of them were launched by Republicans. Six of the lawsuits were launched by Democrats and two were bipartisan.
Shurtleff believes the sheer number of lawsuits on both sides have gotten out of hand.
“It’s just horrible. It’s a big, huge waste of attorney general time and the good things that you could accomplish together,” he said. “It’s a shame. It’s way too much. I think it’s ridiculous.”

(The Center Square) – Low- and middle-income Wisconsin students fared better after multiple years in private school choice programs than comparable public-school students, according to a new peer-reviewed study.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found students fared better on the English/language arts portion of the Wisconsin Forward Exam in the schools with voucher funding that cost $5,000 less per K-8 student and $2,500 less per high school student in public funds.
“This groundbreaking research provides some of the clearest evidence yet; school choice is a win for students,” WILL Research Director Will Flanders said in a statement. “Our peer-reviewed analysis focuses on low-and-middle-income Wisconsin students who are the sole participants in Wisconsin’s unique choice programs. Our research should serve as a fire alarm for states evaluating new limitations or even repealing their choice programs. Make no mistake, those students will suffer due to their misjudgment.”
The study looked at the results for 100,000 students between 2018-19 and 2022-23 and found that students in the Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Racine programs advanced further with those in the Milwaukee and statewide school choice programs for four or more years gaining the equivalent of one additional year of education.
“Our research was subject to rigorous academic scrutiny during the peer review process,” Scott Niederjohn, the Director of the Free Enterprise Center at Concordia University-Wisconsin. “The result was clear: the longer students participate in the ‘Choice Program’ the better their academic results, on average.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin is in need of statewide legislation that ensures large-scale AI data centers in the state all have to follow the same rules and pay for their energy infrastructure, according to a new report.
“America will not outbuild China by copying its model,” the report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy concludes. “It can compete through private capital, abundant energy, enforceable contracts, and faster construction. Wisconsin has the manufacturers, workforce, land, and industrial experience to compete on those terms.”
The report argues that sales tax exemptions for data centers are reasonable because neighboring states provide the same exemptions, and sales taxes are intended for end use sales, not suppliers like data centers where the product would then be subject to sales tax multiple times.
The report entitled ‘Winning the AI Race: Who should pay for Wisconsin’s data center boom’ detailed how the terms for providing energy to the state’s largest AI data center projects are different and therefore is not durable regulation since the protections in the Public Service Commission’s April 2026 order on costs are not extended statewide.
“The order gets the central allocation right: customers that require dedicated generation must pay for it,” the report said. “But it covers only one utility, leaves part of the transmission exposure unresolved, and can be revisited by a future commission.”
The report cites reporting from The Center Square on the amount of exempted sales tax for the state’s AI data centers along with a Legislative Audit Bureau analysis that showed $1.5 billion in forgone state sales tax during construction and $369 million annually once four certified projects are fully operational.
The report then identified supplying data centers as a large opportunity for the Wisconsin economy to succeed.
“Wisconsin’s larger opportunity may be as a supplier,” the report says. “The state already makes the motors, drives, generators, cooling systems, enclosures, and modular infrastructure the buildout requires. Three Wisconsin manufacturers report at least $1.6 billion in data center orders and backlog, while several others report substantial activity without disclosing a dollar value.
“Wisconsin can benefit twice – by hosting data centers and by supplying them. But the first opportunity should not raise the power costs of the firms already selling into the second.”

(The Center Square) – A new lawsuit is challenging the Wisconsin law that will allow for mobile sports wagering to be legal across the state.
The Brown County Taxpayers Association and Citizens Defending Liberty sued stating that the law is unconstitutional because of Wisconsin’s ban on the Legislature “authoring gambling in any form” and stating that Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to negotiate tribal gaming pacts violates the Equal Protection Doctrine by allowing for this benefit based upon race.
The lawsuit was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
“Thirty-three years ago, Wisconsinites expressed through a constitutional amendment that the Legislature may not expand gambling in any form,” WILL Associate Counsel Kirsten Atanasoff said in a statement. “Neither lawmakers nor Governor Evers are allowed to flout that constitutional limit. This lawsuit ensures that elected officials remain accountable to the people of Wisconsin by upholding the constitutional limits the people, themselves, called for.”
The lawsuit was filed in circuit court in Waukesha County.
“Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is a radical, right-wing entity that is actively working to undermine the sovereignty of the Tribal Nations in Wisconsin, and @GovEvers will fight that effort every step of the way,” Evers Communications Director Britt Cudaback wrote on social media.
WILL questioned the legality of the law while it was being discussed, including issuing a memo to lawmakers on its belief that the law would violate Wisconsin’s constitution.
Lawmakers, however, claimed that the bill did not authorize wagering but instead expanded what the tribes are already allowed to do by having servers on tribal lands to operate the mobile sports wagering.
At the time, WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber told The Center Square that the cleaner way to avoid legal challenges would be to create a new constitutional amendment to allow for sports wagering. But that would have to pass two different Legislatures and then go to a statewide vote.
Wisconsin gaming compacts negotiated in 1991 and 1992 by Gov. Tommy Thompson were previously challenged but allowed to state because they were signed before a state constitutional amendment that banned most gaming in 1993.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin state senate candidate says she is a Wisconsin resident and her husband’s primary residence is in Georgia, making her eligible for a Wisconsin tax credit and her husband eligible for one in Georgia, she said.
The tax credits at the two residences led Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein to call for Michele Magadance Skinner to drop out of the Senate District 31 race against incumbent Jeff Smith to represent all of Eau Claire County and parts of Chippewa, Dunn, and Trempealeau counties.
“My opponent is trying to win this election with insinuations instead of facts,” Skinner said in a statement. “Here’s the truth: I am a Wisconsin resident. My husband is a Georgia resident, and a 100% VA disabled veteran – that may be a source of confusion, but is not evidence of any wrongdoing.
“We asked an independent certified public accountant to review our tax records. He found nothing illegal. The accusation that we improperly claimed tax benefits in more than one state is simply false. The accusation that I ‘cheated taxpayers out of thousands of dollars’ is nothing more than a lie designed to distract voters.”
Hesselbein said that the allegations make Skinner “unfit for elected office.”
“Michele Magadance Skinner should drop out, end her campaign today, and pay back the taxpayers of both Wisconsin and Georgia she’s taken advantage of, and if she does not take those actions of self-accountability, we’ll be working with attorneys and the proper authorities to seek to compel her to do so,” Hesselbein said in a statement.
Skinner said that the Senate race should instead be focused on issues such as a budget surplus deal that would have sent portions of the surplus back to Wisconsin taxpayers, a bill that Smith voted against.
“I believe taxpayers deserved the state’s budget surplus back, and I would have supported returning that money to Wisconsin families,” Skinner said. “Jeff Smith did not, and that’s the difference in this race.”
Wisconsin Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, came to Skinner’s defense as the leader of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, saying the story defames Skinner.
“An elected Senator falsely accusing an upstanding citizen of our state of a crime for political gain should shock and appall us all,” Testin said in a statement. “Governor Evers said Hesselbein has Democratic Senators (like Jeff Smith) ‘wrapped around her finger.’
“I hope members of her caucus are willing to draw the line at falsely accusing their political opponents of crimes. If this witch-hunt is how Minority Leader Hesselbein is leading her caucus, I’m deeply concerned for the future of our state.”

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin group is taking aim at another state race-based program as the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty wrote a letter asking Gov. Tony Evers to end the Wisconsin Minority Teacher Loan Program.
The program offers loans to students enrolled in a program that would lead to a teacher’s license in a discipline that is defined as a teacher shortage area.
Part of the eligibility criteria includes that the teacher is part of a “minority population,” defined as a Black American, an American Indian or Alaskan native, a Hispanic, a person of Asian or Pacific Island origin, or a “person whose ancestry includes two or more races.”
“Wisconsin cannot decide who receives taxpayer-funded educational opportunities based upon the color of their skin. The Wisconsin Supreme Court just unanimously struck down a nearly identical race-based program,” WILL Deputy Counsel Rebecca Furdek said in a statement. “Governor Evers and HEAB should follow the Constitution, end this discrimination, and ensure these opportunities are available to all Wisconsin students, regardless of race.”
The request from WILL comes after the group fought for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule in June that a Wisconsin college grant program that sent financial aid to students based on specific race, national origin and ancestry cannot legally operate.
WILL then sued the state of Wisconsin over a $250 million supplier grant program that has criteria based upon race.
Most recently, the group filed another lawsuit over 20 race-based scholarships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin taxpayers will send $250,000 to WisconsinEye in monthly installments through the end of the year to keep the live-streaming network operational until a new legislative session begins.
The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization approve the $50,000-per-month funding for the network with a 9-1 vote this week.
“We view today’s vote as a strong statement of support by the legislative body as a whole – both houses and both parties – for unfettered citizen access to state government proceedings,” WisconsinEye president Jon Henkes said in a statement. “They’ve put action to their words that transparency is essential to our democracy, and we are extremely grateful.”
The network said that it will use the funding to provide campaign coverage heading into the Aug. 11 primary and Nov. 3 general election along with coverage of study committees.
Previous legislative attempts to fund the network’s operations stalled after the network was not able to raise the long-term funds necessary to receive $10 million in matching funds from the state to go toward an endowment that would fund WisconsinEye into the future.
“WisconsinEye remains hopeful that when the new legislature convenes in January 2027, both houses will come together in bipartisan fashion to accomplish what the Senate and Assembly attempted in the previous legislative session – a level of continuing, partial funding that helps to maintain WisconsinEye as a trusted and independent window into our State Capitol,” the network said in a statement.

(The Center Square) – Five days after a powerful EF-3 tornado ripped through Menasha, Wisconsin’s National Guard is being sent to help.
Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday mobilized the guard.
“By activating the Wisconsin National Guard, we’re ensuring every available resource is deployed quickly and effectively to support cleanup, restore essential services, and keep folks safe as recovery efforts continue,” the governor said in a statement.
The governor did not say why he waited to activate the guard.
WGBA in Green Bay reported it took some time for local leaders in Menasha and other Fox Valley cities to work “through the approval process.”
The governor was in Menasha on Thursday. He said the storm leveled some parts of the town and did likely millions of dollars in damage.
“What I’ve seen from the maps, it’s unbelievable. Having so much of [of the damage] be in urban areas, it’s really quite extensive,” the governor told reporters.
One of Menasha’s elementary schools took an almost direct hit.
“It’s going to be tough to bring that building back,” the governor explained. “They’ll certainly do it, but it is also a truism that school districts don’t have a lot of money. No matter what the insurance pays it’s going to be difficult.”
The governor did not say just how many National Guard troops will be sent to the Fox Valley.
Local leaders say they hope the first batch of troops will arrive some time Friday. They are not saying just how long the guard will stay.
We Energies, the power company for customers in Menasha and the Fox Valley, said as of Friday morning that more than 1,000 people in the storm zone still do not have electricity.

(The Center Square) – Mandela Barnes, former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, is the latest Democrat to drop out of the race on Thursday.
“Last night I had a very difficult conversation with my staff,” Barnes said in a social media video. “Now we’re incredibly proud of all that we have accomplished and all the resources that we have raised to spread our message, but it’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be.”
Barnes was referring to a pair of polls including a Marquette Poll that showed the lead in the race is widening for state Rep. Francesca Hong of Madison. Hong held 38% support from Democratic primary voters in the newest Marquette poll, ahead of 16% for Barnes, 7% for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and 2% each for former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys.
Crowley recently reentered the race with Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out following campaign finance issues.
“To everyone who backed Mandela: there’s a place for you in what we’re building,” Crowley wrote in response. “It’s going to take all of us to beat Tom Tiffany. Let’s get to work.”
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel said Thursday it was preparing to publish accusations against Barnes.
“Mandela Barnes leaves the guv race after receiving questions from the Journal Sentinel about allegations from sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity who said Barnes used his role in the party to seek out sexual encounters with young adult women,” MJ-S reporter Molly Beck wrote on social media. “Barnes has not been accused of any crimes.
“The state Democratic Party in 2025 hired a law firm to look into similar claims. The internal review and outside probe found nothing actionable because the allegations they received were anonymous and unspecific, according to a source familiar with the party’s actions.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Act 10, in its 15th year, was again upheld against a challenge in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals but will next likely head to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty defended the law, which allows certain public employee non-union members to avoid union payments, called “fair share” payments.
WILL said that it is ready to make its case again when the law is challenged in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
“WILL has fought to protect Act 10 since its enactment because of the substantial benefits provided to taxpayers and local governments,” WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said in a statement. “For 15 years, various legal challenges have been unsuccessful, because ultimately this is a law signed by the Governor and passed by a duly elected legislature which meets all constitutional requirements. As this case likely heads to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, we stand ready to make the case once again.”
The current case was originally brought to the Dane County Circuit Court, which found that the law’s classifications of certain employees violated the Wisconsin Constitution’s equal protection clause, declaring that nearly all of the law was unconstitutional.
WILL represents teacher Kristi Koschkee, who it says supports the Act 10 requirement that unions must recertify themselves annually through a vote requiring a majority of employees’ approval.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin voters cannot revote on their absentee ballots and Democrats prefer state Rep. Francesca Hong more than ever, according to new polling.
Hong held 38% support from Democratic primary voters, ahead of 16% for former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, 7% for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and 2% each for former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys in the newest Marquette Poll.
The poll came as a judge ruled not to allow Wisconsin voters to recast absentee ballots that are already submitted after upheaval in the Aug. 11 race, which will likely lead to a matchup with Republican frontrunner and congressman Tom Tiffany.
Various polls have shown a potential close race between Tiffany and whoever emerges from the Democrat primary.
The Marquette Poll was conducted July 22-27 with 407 registered voters who say they will vote in the Democratic primary with a margin of error of +/-6.6 percentage points.
Hong polled best with those ages 18-29, with 66% support along with 51% support from those ages 30-44. Barnes, meanwhile, led amongst voters 60 or older with 24% support.
That’s a jump from 43% support for Hong in the youngest age bracket in a poll conducted between July 8-16. Barnes also led the 60 and over voters with 17% support compared to 9% for Hong in the earlier July polling.
The Marquette Poll showed similar results to a State Navigate poll that showed Hong with 44% support followed by Crowley and Barnes at 14% then Roys and Brennan at 4% support. That poll was of 1,085 likely Democratic primary voters conducted from July 23-26 that had a 3.0% +/- margin of error.

(The Center Square) – There are no surprises at the top of the latest poll in Wisconsin’s race for governor, but there are some new insights that show what matters to voters.
The Institute for Reforming Government released its latest poll Thursday. The poll shows that affordability is far and away the most important issue for Wisconsin voters.
“Eighty-two percent of voters call inflation and the cost of living ‘very important’ from the provided issues, and 38% name it their single most important issue — more than double the next-highest answer,” the poll states.
But it goes further than that according to IRG’s Chris Reader.
“When we ask ‘What is the main thing that would help you in your affordability’…the main thing is food costs,” Reader explained. “[But] lower taxes is number two.”
Reader said the cost of housing is also quickly becoming a huge concern.
“There is a differentiation of ‘What is the biggest affordability topic by age.’ And we’re starting to see young, 18-34-year-old voters, moving housing back up,” Reader said. “That’s their number one issue.”
The poll’s other top headline is a general, statewide lack of support for socialism and Democratic Socialist candidates.
“[The] free market economy has a net +48 favorability with voters, outperforming every party and ideology brand tested, left or right,” the poll states. “A Democratic Socialists of America affiliation costs a candidate a net 18 points statewide — and that penalty nearly triples among independents, to –52.5.”
However, Reader said young voters, particularly Democrat voters, support the idea of socialism.
The poll also shows that 73% of voters want to eliminate Wisconsin’s personal income tax by 2030, and another 48% want to see state spending cut.
The poll did ask voters about the candidates in the race, including hypothetical head-to-head matchups.
Democrat frontrunner Francesca Hong has the narrowest lead over Republican candidate Tom Tiffany. She beats him in the IRG poll 44%-43%. Tiffany also trails the second and third place Democrats. The poll says David Crowley has a 46%-43% lead, and Mandela Barnes has a 47%-42% lead.

(The Center Square) – Home prices in Wisconsin rose nearly 6% in June, according to a report from the state’s realtors association.
“Existing home sales increased 5.9% in June compared to June 2025, while the statewide median home price rose 5.9% over the same period to $360,000,” the Wisconsin Realtors Association wrote. “Year-to-date, existing home sales were up 3.7%, and the median price climbed 6.3% to $340,000 compared to the first six months of 2025.”
Home prices in the Milwaukee and Madison areas were higher than those statewide norms in June.
The media price for a house near Madison, in south central Wisconsin, was $415,000 in June. The median price for a home in southeast Wisconsin was $375,000. Homes in northeast Wisconsin had a median price of $331,500. Homes in central Wisconsin had the lowest median price in the state at $278,000.
Realtors say those higher prices are not slowing sales.
“In a typical year, June is the strongest month for closings, so it was good to see a healthy bounce in June sales, which led to a solid first half for the year,” Realtors CEO Tom Larson said.
The report shows 7,768 homes were sold in June of this year.
And there are more homes for sale.
“Although months of inventory remained static, there were more new listings of homes on the market, which resulted in more total listings than last year,” association Chairwoman Amy Curler said. “This led to a solid increase in sales for the month of June.”
The report said 24,463 homes were on the market in June.
Larson said steadily increasing prices make it hard for some people to buy a home.
“While affordability remains a challenge for first-time buyers, higher inventory helps grow sales and also helps moderate price appreciation,” Larson said. “Hopefully these trends continue throughout the second half of 2026.”

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit in Dane County on Friday asking the court to allow Wisconsin voters who believe their absentee ballots won’t be counted by Election Day to vote using a provisional ballot.
The lawsuit, filed by Law Forward, said that delays from the U.S. Postal Service can interfere with delivery of ballots by the deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day.
“Wisconsin voters who have reason to believe that their mailed absentee ballots will not arrive in time to be counted (“Impacted Voters”) are prohibited by Defendants from remedying this issue by going to the polls to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” the lawsuit states. “This rule risks denying Impacted Voters their right to vote – the right most preservative of all others.”
The lawsuit also lists League of Women Voters member Barbara Feeney as a plaintiff.
The lawsuit came the day after Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin sent a joint letter to U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner and the USPS Board of Governors asking that postal delays are corrected to prevent the delay of absentee ballots.
“Hundreds of absentee ballots received by the Postal Service before Wisconsin’s spring election were delivered after Election Day, preventing them from being counted,” the letter said. “Now, USPS is rushing to implement President Trump’s unconstitutional executive order that would, at best, significantly delay Wisconsinites’ mailed ballots from reaching election officials and, at worst, allow the USPS to prevent a Wisconsin voter’s fully legal, timely ballot from being counted at all.
“We call on the Postal Service to immediately resolve the issues that delayed ballots during Wisconsin’s spring election, withdraw the rule that will add significant additional delays in ballot delivery, and ensure preparations for Wisconsin’s fall elections prioritizes timely delivery of election mail.”
The letter says that 500,000 Wisconsinites used mail-in ballots in 2024, accounting for 15% of all votes cast. There were 218,000 mailed absentee ballots for the 2026 spring election.