Wisconsin

Voting in Harmony: A Wisconsin township sets itself apart and has a knack for picking winners

Published

2 years ago

June 8, 2024

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Voting in Harmony: A Wisconsin township sets itself apart and has a knack for picking winners

HARMONY, Wis. (AP) — It’s hard living in harmony during these politically divisive times.

But residents of a tiny Wisconsin town say they have the simple answer: actually live in Harmony.

Residents of Harmony Township — spread out on rich farmland and residential subdivisions on the outskirts of Janesville — tend to live up to the name of the 24-square-mile town near the Illinois state line. They also offer a reliable barometer of the political leanings of the swing state of Wisconsin.

Since 2000, Harmony voters have sided with the winner in all 13 presidential and gubernatorial races.

“I do believe that the country is quite divided,” said town board Chair Jeff Klenz, sporting a long white goatee and wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt. “I don’t believe that same thing in Harmony Township. You don’t get the feeling of people being against each other.”

Klenz repeats a saying heard frequently around the town of 2,500: “Everybody lives in harmony in Harmony Township.”

Demographically, Harmony has the same percentage of white people as the state — about 86%. Almost 12% identified of Harmony residents identified as multiracial, above the statewide average of 2.2%. But there’s no Black population to speak of, in a state that’s 6% Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Still, given Wisconsin’s recent political volatility, Harmony’s knack for picking winners is uncanny. Four of the past six presidential elections in the swing state of Wisconsin have been decided by less than a point. The only other of Wisconsin’s 1,800 towns, villages and cities that share the distinction is Merrimac, a village of about 500 people roughly 75 miles (121 kilometers) from Madison, according to research by Marquette University professor John D. Johnson.

What to know about the 2024 Election

Donald Trump carried the town of Harmony by just 36 votes in 2016 on his way to winning Wisconsin by 22,748 votes and becoming the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to take the state. Four years later, President Joe Biden won the town by 78 votes and carried Wisconsin by just under 20,682 votes.

Retired General Motors worker and 53-year Harmony resident Loren Hanson, 79, voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 but doesn’t know if he can stick with him a third time this November. He’s having a hard time coming to grips with Trump’s felony conviction.

“I think our politics are a mess, quite frankly,” Hanson said. “And really bad this year. I’ve never been a solid Republican or Democrat. And sometimes you vote for the lesser of two evils, and this year I don’t know which is which.”

Hanson said he’s hesitating on Trump because of his personal troubles, calling him an “outlaw.”

“It would be really hard for me to vote for Mr. Trump right now,” he said, referring to his hush money conviction.

But Hanson has reservations about Biden as well.

“I think he’s old,” Hanson said. “He’s got some problems this way or that. Personally, I’d like to see both of them booted out and I’m disappointed that the parties can’t come up with someone younger.”

Klenz, a 68-year-old retired police officer, said after voting for Trump twice before, he’s sticking with him despite the conviction.

“Being in law enforcement for over 30 years, I never had a problem with our judicial system, but as I’ve gotten older and maybe wiser, I’ve seen that we certainly do have some problems,” Klenz said. He said the Trump conviction showed that the judicial system “has been used really different than it should be used.”

Despite the deep divisions in Harmony, both Republicans and Democrats say they don’t let politics drive how they treat one another.

“There are roots here that go down very deeply and they are roots of acceptance, respect and cooperation,” said 85-year-old retired nurse and Biden voter Lucille Vickerman, seated next to Trump voter Klenz.

“We vote almost half and half,” Vickerman said. “But we don’t hate each other. We don’t get into massive to-dos.”

But why?

For starters, people talk to one another to understand where the other is coming from, Klenz said.

Politics isn’t a driving force in Harmony “because most of the people around here are used to taking care of themselves,” Klenz said.

And when people do talk, it doesn’t tend to be about national politics, Vickerman said.

“They talk about what’s going on in the school system or what’s going on with the road repair,” she said.

Town clerk Tim Tollefson, whose job is to run elections, said politics just doesn’t divide people in Harmony the way it seems to in much of the rest of the state and country.

“I don’t think people take that part of politics and put it into whether people can be friends or not,” Tollefson said. “The signs out in the yard? You don’t see that many in Harmony Township.”

Vickerman said she was struck last fall after seeing a plethora of signs, including some painted on the sides of barns, during a drive through northern Wisconsin.

“Coming from here it was a little unnerving, to be honest,” she said.

Hanson said he avoids talking politics in Harmony “because I have friends on both sides and some are pretty extreme.”

Harmony is in southeastern Wisconsin, about a 15-minute drive from the Illinois border. It consists of farms that the town boasts are on “some of the best farmland in the U.S.” and houses built by people who work in the adjacent city of Janesville.

That’s the home to former House Speaker Paul Ryan and also the former home of the country’s oldest General Motors plant, built in 1919.

But when the plant shut down during the Great Recession in 2008, the city and region went through an economic and social upheaval, forced to readjust without a longtime major employer.

Harmony was established in 1848, the same year Wisconsin became a state. It carries the distinction of being one of the first in the country to construct its own town hall building.

Built in 1876, the building was moved about 30 miles northeast and is now part of the living history museum Old World Wisconsin.

Coincidentally, the presidential election in 1876, the year Harmony residents set about building their town hall, was one of the most contentious in U.S. history. Taking place during post-Civil War reconstruction, there were widespread allegations of electoral fraud, violence and disenfranchisement of Black voters.

Rutherford B. Hayes won Wisconsin by 6,141 votes, or just over 2 percentage points, in 1876.

There are parallels between that period and the present day, including “intense polarization with a shrinking kind of middle ground and a high level of rhetorical violence,” said Stephen Kantrowitz, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in the reconstruction era.

In this time of deep division, Kantrowitz said it was “wonderful” that both sides in a place as evenly divided as Harmony can get along.

But the larger question, he said, is what happens when communities like Harmony are presented with questions that cut to the heart of people’s sense of security, dignity and fairness.

“It sounds like Harmony is not in the middle of such a struggle,” he said. “It behooves the people who say politics aren’t top of mind to think about what they will do when suddenly an issue arises that is not so easily finesse-able.”

Vickerman, who moved to Harmony in 1960 when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, didn’t vote in 2016. But she cast her ballot for Biden in 2020. This year she’s soured on him and Trump: “I wish neither of them was running.”

“I’m not a Biden fan but I can’t bring myself to be a Trump fan,” she said. “I’m fearful that Trump will refuse to leave office if elected. There’s a part of me that does worry about our democracy surviving.”

Klenz voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 and said he will vote for him again. He thinks the Republican is better on the economy than Biden.

And true to form for people from Harmony, Klenz adds, “I’m not too concerned with how other people are voting.”

Tollefson, who has lived in Harmony since 1998, said other communities can learn from how people there deal with political differences.

“Chill out,” he said. “Deal with the cards you were dealt and be happy. We’re only here a short time. Why waste your time being miserable?”

___

Associated Press writer Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

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Wisconsin

8-year-old dies in hospital after icy Wisconsin crash

Published

6 hours ago

December 10, 2025

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8-year-old dies in hospital after icy Wisconsin crash

RICHMOND TOWNSHIP, Wis. (FOX 9) – A crash in western Wisconsin killed an 8-year-old boy and seriously injured a 27-year-old Wednesday morning.

Fatal crash in Richmond Township, Wisconsin

What we know:

According to St. Croix County, just before 10 a.m., deputies responded to a crash on the 1500 block of County Road A.

Authorities say that a 27-year-old woman was driving a van southbound, and lost control on an icy curve and collided with another vehicle.

The woman suffered serious injuries from the crash and was taken to the hospital to be treated, law enforcement said. The boy was critically injured, and was also taken to the hospital, where he later died.

Both were wearing seat belts during the crash.

The driver of the other vehicle was treated for minor injuries at the scene and was released.

This is the 10th traffic fatality in St. Croix County.

What we don’t know:

The current condition of the woman is unknown.

The Source: A press release from St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office.

Road incidentsWisconsin

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Wisconsin

Judge refuses call from Trump’s former Wisconsin lawyer to step away from fake elector case

Published

1 day ago

December 9, 2025

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Judge refuses call from Trump’s former Wisconsin lawyer to step away from fake elector case

A Wisconsin judge has denied a request from former Trump attorney Jim Troupis to step down from his felony forgery case.
Troupis, along with Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman, faces felony charges for his alleged role in the 2020 fake elector scheme.
The charges stem from an alleged attempt to create and deliver false elector paperwork claiming Donald Trump won Wisconsin.

MADISON – A Wisconsin judge is refusing calls from President Donald Trump’s former campaign attorney to step down from a case accusing the attorney of felony forgery charges over his alleged role in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election result.

Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland on Tuesday rejected a motion from Jim Troupis, a former Dane County judge who represented Trump’s 2020 campaign in Wisconsin, to step down from the case. Troupis alleged judicial misconduct.

Hyland also rejected a motion to postpone a Monday hearing in the case, according to court records.

Troupis argued Hyland should step aside because Troupis believed retired Dane County Judge Frank Remington actually wrote a previous order in the case, according to the Associated Press. Troupis alleged that Remington had ill will against Troupis. Hyland said Remington did not help write the order and rejected the motion.

In 2024, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony charges against Troupis, Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and lead architect of the 2020 elector scheme, and former Trump aide Mike Roman, who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s slate of false elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.

The three face 11 charges relating to felony forgery and forgery meant to defraud the Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump, even though Joe Biden, a Democrat, won the state’s presidential election. Each of the 11 charges against the men carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine.

According to the complaint against Troupis, Chesebro and Roman, most of the Trump electors said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won the state without a court ruling saying so. The complaint also describes how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman allegedly created a fake document that said Trump won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver it to Pence for certification.

Federal prosecutors have said the fake electors plot originated in Wisconsin.

Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case.

Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.

At the same time, the Republican fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won.

They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Chesebro was in the room during the meeting.

At the time, the fake electors said they held the meeting only to ensure the state’s electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state.

In efforts to have the case dismissed, Troupis claimed the electors met and cast their ballot only to preserve their legal options, in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump the winner of Wisconsin, arguing no crime was committed.

The 10 electors have not been criminally charged related to the fake documents. The group settled a lawsuit in 2023 filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the false electors acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

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Wisconsin

NCAA women’s hockey power rankings: Wisconsin overpowers Ohio State

Published

2 days ago

December 9, 2025

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NCAA women’s hockey power rankings: Wisconsin overpowers Ohio State

Ian Kennedy
| The Hockey News

The University of Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team might have the best goaltender, best defender and best offensive depth in the nation right now. They proved it this weekend, sweeping their series against No. 2 Ohio State.

Princeton was the biggest climber in this week’s NCAA women’s hockey power rankings, finding its way into the top 10 after beating a pair of nationally ranked programs, while Cornell dropped both of its games.

North America’s top players will head to Edmonton, Alberta, this week for the Canadian leg of the Rivalry Series, while NCAA players from Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Czechia are headed overseas to compete in the Women’s Euro Hockey Tour, their last chance to perform internationally ahead of the 2026 Olympics in February.

Here are the top 10 NCAA women’s hockey programs this week.

Women’s college hockey power rankings

1. University of Wisconsin (WCHA)

After sweeping Ohio State 2-1 and 6-1, Wisconsin entrenched its claim to the top spot in the nation. Ava McNaughton stopped 60 of 62 shots and was perhaps the biggest difference between the teams. Right now, the only thing between Wisconsin and back-to-back titles is their ability to weather the Olympics, where as many as six members of their lineup will be in action.

2. Ohio State (WCHA)

Ohio State had its chance against No. 1 Wisconsin. The Buckeyes weren’t significantly outshot or outplayed but still got swept. Joy Dunne and Hilda Svensson, November’s WCHA forward and rookie of the month, respectively, were held without a goal. It was Ohio State’s only chance to show it can beat Wisconsin best-on-best, as the next time the teams face off in early February, they will be without their Olympians.

3. University of Minnesota (WCHA)

Whether it was Abbey Murphy, Josefin Bouveng, Sydney Morrow or Jamie Nelson, Minnesota’s seniors made the difference in a pair of conference wins over St. Thomas. Bouveng is tied with Wisconsin’s Caroline Harvey for the longest point streak in the nation, hitting the scoresheet in 17 consecutive games, while Murphy set a program record, scoring her 26th career game-winning goal.

4. University of Minnesota-Duluth (WCHA)

Eve Gascon stopped 50 of 51 shots she faced for the Bulldogs, which beat Bemidji State 4-1 and 4-0. Gascon’s 20-save shutout was her fourth of the season. She had something to prove after being left off Canada’s Rivalry Series roster for December. Offensively, Minnesota-Duluth has work to do after being outshot by Bemidji State in the first game of their series, but they looked much stronger in the second.

5. Penn State (Atlantic Hockey America)

Penn State doesn’t play again until Dec. 30, but their next three games will define their season, playing Cornell and a series against Ohio State. The Nittany Lions don’t face the same skill level in Atlantic Hockey America, so these upcoming games will be an important test ahead of the national tournament, which they’ll host at Pegula Ice Arena from March 20 to 22.

6. Northeastern (Hockey East)

It was an emotional weekend as Northeastern played its final game at the historic Matthews Arena. Captain Lily Shannon was Hockey East’s player of the month in November. Jules Constantinople was the top defender and forward Stryker Zablocki was the top rookie in November as well. They carried a hot streak over into this weekend’s series sweep of Boston College, helping lead the way for the Huskies.

7. Quinnipiac (ECAC)

After shutting out Cornell 3-0, the Bobcats lost 2-1 in overtime to Colgate in an upset. The Bobcats can find their way out of the ECAC logjam if they can consistently produce secondary offense. The team relies too heavily on Kahlen Lamarche as the primary goal-scorer. Right now, their best threats behind Lamarche are often defenders Makayla Watson and Zoe Uens.

8. Cornell (ECAC)

Cornell fell 3-0 to Quinnipiac and 3-2 to Princeton. Annelies Bergmann looked human in net, allowing three goals on 18 shots in both games. Cornell entered the weekend second in the nation in goals-against average at 1.64. That number rose this weekend, and after Cornell losses to Vermont, Syracuse and Union last month, teams believe they can beat the Big Red on any given night.

9. Connecticut (Hockey East)

UConn continues to quietly put together wins, including going 1-for-2 against Boston University this past weekend. They tied the first game but lost in a shootout. Scoring continues to be their challenge as some of their top players, including Claire Murdoch and Julia Pellerin, have yet to find their way this season. Tia Chan remains Connecticut’s biggest asset in net.

10. Princeton (ECAC)

Beating Colgate and Cornell this week, Princeton’s leaders were Mackenzie Alexander and 2026 PWHL Draft prospect Issy Wunder. It often takes Ivy League schools longer to hit their stride in NCAA women’s hockey as they start their season a month later than the rest of the nation. Princeton may still be scratching the surface of its potential this season.

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