Wisconsin
All eyes on battleground state Wisconsin as Republicans gather for national convention | CBC News
On Saturday evening in downtown Milwaukee, people were making their way to dinner reservations and drinks with friends near Water Street, the city’s nightlife district.
But some of them had the U.S. election on their minds, as news of gunfire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania spread and visitors descended on Wisconsin’s largest city for the Republican National Convention, which opens Monday.
“We were actually walking down and talking about how we’re really scared about these elections,” said 26-year-old Milwaukee resident Laura Hernandez.
Hernandez, who listed abortion rights, immigration and Israel’s war in Gaza as her top voting priorities, said she was first eligible to vote for president in 2016 — but she’s never liked her options.
“It’s been so exhausting. Every single year that I’ve been able to vote, I have to choose between two evils. And I feel like the same thing is happening this year, but even to a higher degree,” she said.
“So at the moment I’m indecisive. I’m not sure what I’m going to lean towards, come November.”
In the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Republican strategist Chip Felkel says it’s important the Trump campaign takes a measured and restrained tone as the Republican National Convention gets underway in Milwaukee. ‘In a weird, ugly way, this is of great benefit to the mobilization of Trump supporters,’ he says.
Wisconsin is one of the most critical battleground states in this year’s U.S. election. For three decades, the Midwestern state was a brick in the “Blue Wall” — a term for states that reliably went to the Democrats from the ’90s into the early 2010s.
That streak ended dramatically in 2016 when Donald Trump notched a shock win, helping him secure a marginal victory over Hillary Clinton. While President Joe Biden reclaimed Wisconsin during the 2020 election, his win was also remarkably slim: He won by less than one percentage point.
In fact, the last six presidential elections have each been decided by a difference of some 25,000 votes in Wisconsin, which has 10 votes in the electoral college.
“There’s no reason to expect the state is moving away from that swing-state status and from a very close electorate,” said Charles Franklin, a political pollster and director of the Marquette Law School Poll.
With the next election looming, each campaign is placing its bets on Wisconsin, where small voting blocs and swing counties have the potential to sway what is now considered a “purple” state — one that could determine who will sit in the Oval Office come January 2025.
Why the stakes are high
Four years after the Democrats staged their convention in the city — albeit with in-person events curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic — Milwaukee will host Republican party officials and delegates at its Fiserv Forum this week.
As the GOP works to wrestle the state back from the Democrats, the RNC’s setting is no coincidence, said Jonathan Kasparek, a political history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“It is very much to appeal to those sort of on-the-fence, independent voters that are perhaps reluctantly Republican,” he said. “It’s really [about] trying to court those votes.”
Many of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have flipped allegiances during the past few presidential elections, ultimately changing the state’s political balance.
More than a third of them (23 in total) voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — and they all flipped to Trump in 2016. Biden then won back two of those counties in 2020, securing the state for the Democrats.
In Milwaukee, voters who spoke with CBC News seemed to be reluctant about both of their options for this year. Josh Fager said that both Biden and Trump leave something to be desired.
“We need better candidates on both sides,” he told CBC News.
The urban, suburban and rural divide
Wisconsin has emerged as a purple state largely because “the dynamics set up between where the Republicans have strength and where the Democrats have strength [has] been shifting a lot in recent years,” said Kasparek.
Historically, Democrats have fared well in Wisconsin’s biggest cities, Madison and Milwaukee, while Republicans have done well in rural areas and suburban counties.
But some of the latter are becoming “less solidly Republican,” he said.
Trump had strong victories among voters in rural counties in 2016 and 2020. However, in some suburban counties like Ozaukee, Republican voters turned out in softer numbers during those two elections than they had in previous years.
Meanwhile, low voter turnout in Milwaukee and Madison can have wider implications at the state level, according to Franklin, the pollster.
Some attribute Clinton’s 2016 loss in Wisconsin to her not having visited the state at all in the run-up to the election. Biden has visited Wisconsin five times since January to shore up support, paying particular attention to urban areas.
As Franklin put it: “Who’s going to win is not a question at all in Milwaukee. But will it provide the extra votes that help tip the state to the Democrats?”
Brenda Hart-Richardson, a 74-year-old lifelong Milwaukee resident, said she’s sticking with Biden all the way.
She said she was embarrassed by Democrats who have called for the president to step aside due to concerns over his health.
“I would never go on a camping trip with them,” she said. “If I twisted my ankle, they’d leave me behind.”
The fight for Black voters
Nationally, Black voters still favour Biden to Trump overall, according to an Ipsos poll from June. But fewer Black voters say they’re absolutely certain that they’ll vote in this election, which could spell trouble for the Democrats among one of their key bases.
Biden has been losing steam with young Black voters in particular, according to a separate Ipsos poll from May.
While 2020 census data shows that more than 80 per cent of Wisconsin’s population is white, Biden has sought to reach Black voters in a state where voting-rights advocates have long said that people of colour encounter more hurdles at the ballot box.
Madison resident Isaac Montgomery, who was visiting Milwaukee with friends on Saturday evening, told CBC News that he didn’t vote in the last election and won’t vote in this one.
That’s because neither candidate is a good option for Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people, he said.
“People are always trying to use us as a trope. But they never really, at the end, do anything for us, so we’re always stuck in the same situation,” Montgomery said.
“Democratic, Republican, it doesn’t matter. Left, right, conservative, liberal. They’re all the same to me.”
Why turnout could be the deciding factor
Small voting blocs can make an outsized difference in a state with narrow margins, said Joe Paul, the executive director of Black Men Vote, a non-partisan organization that mobilizes Black male voters.
He pointed to the Black female vote in 2020, which helped tip the election in Biden’s favour.
“You saw them literally tip the scale. We’re talking about precincts — like, the last election came down to precincts,” Paul told CBC News. “This election will absolutely come down to precincts.”
Kasparek, the professor, noted that groups hit hardest by the economic woes of the last several years “might be discontented enough” to switch from Biden to Trump in the hopes that the economy will be stronger under the latter.
While the U.S. economy has recovered and unemployment is low, Americans have been worn down by years of high inflation. Most voters say the economy is their No. 1 issue, according to a national survey conducted by the Marquette Law School Poll in May.
Other priorities diverge along party lines; Republican voters list immigration as a high priority while Democrat voters emphasize abortion as a key issue, according to the poll.
The poll surveyed 1,033 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of +/-4.3 percentage points.
“I think the most important factor is actually going to be turnout,” said Kasparek. “Whichever party does a better job of getting its voters to the polls is going to prevail.”
Wisconsin
Wisconsin teen who killed prison guard in fistfight pleads guilty but claims mental illness
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin teen who killed a prison guard during a fistfight pleaded guilty to homicide Friday but contends he doesn’t deserve prison time because he was mentally ill and not responsible for his actions.
Javarius Hurd, 17, entered a plea of guilty/not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect to one count of second-degree reckless homicide in connection with Corey Proulx’s death, online court records show. He also pleaded guilty to one count of battery by a prisoner. Prosecutors dropped a second battery count in exchange for the pleas.
The next step for Hurd will be a February trial in which jurors will determine whether he should be sentenced to prison or committed to a mental institution. Jurors will be asked to determine whether Hurd was indeed suffering from a mental disease at the time of the fight and, if so, whether the mental disease impaired his ability to act within the law.
“Javarius entered into a plea agreement that partially resolves the case involving the sad and tragic death of (Proulx),” Hurd’s attorney, Aaton Nelson, said in an email to The Associated Press. “Javarius, who has had a life filled with trauma and suffering, realizes that nothing will compensate the victims for their loss and suffering. We hope that this agreement will help all those suffering with their healing.”
According to court documents, Hurd was incarcerated at the Lincoln Hills-Copper Lakes School, the state’s youth prison in far northern Wisconsin, in June 2024.
He grew upset with a female counselor whom he felt was abusing her powers, threw soap at her and punched her. Hurd ran into the courtyard and Proulx followed to stop him. Hurd punched Proulx several times and Proulx fell, hit his head on the pavement and later died. Hurd was 16 at the time but was charged in adult court.
Another inmate at the youth prison, Rian Nyblom, pleaded guilty to two counts of being a party to battery in connection with the incident and was sentenced to five years in prison this past August.
According to prosecutors, Nyblom knew that Hurd was upset with the female counselor and wanted to splash her with conditioner and punch her. About 15 minutes before the fighting began, he got extra soap and conditioner from guards and secretly gave it to Hurd. Nyblom told investigators that he didn’t see Hurd attack the female counselor but watched as Hurd punched Proulx.
Lincoln Hills-Cooper Lake is Wisconsin’s only youth prison. The facility has been plagued by allegations of staff-on-inmate abuse, including excessive use of pepper spray, restraints and strip searches.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in 2017 demanding changes at the prison. Then-Gov. Scott Walker’s administration settled the following year by agreeing to a consent decree that prohibited the use of mechanical restraints like handcuffs and the use of pepper spray.
Proulx’s death sparked calls from Republican lawmakers and from Lincoln Hills-Copper Lakes staff for more leeway in punishing incarcerated children, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers rejected those calls, insisting conditions at the prison have been slowly improving. A court-appointed monitor assigned to oversee the prison’s progress reported this past October that the facility was fully compliant with the consent decree’s provisions for the first time.
Legislators have been trying to find a way to close the facility for years and replace with it with smaller regional prisons. Those prisons remain under construction, however, and Lincoln Hills-Copper Lake continues to operate.
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – A proposal at the state Capitol would require Wisconsin schools to increase daily recess time for students in kindergarten through sixth grade, with supporters saying more opportunities for unstructured play could improve focus, behavior and overall well-being.
Assembly Bill 810 would require public schools to provide 60 minutes of recess each school day for K-6 students, doubling the amount many schools currently offer. The bill has been referred to the Legislature’s education committee.
The bill’s author, State Rep. William Penterman of Hustisford, said the proposal is based on research showing physical activity supports learning and child development.
“Especially younger kids, like our elementary kids, it’s so important that they get moving throughout the day,” Penterman said. “We’re trying to get our kids to learn and develop mentally, emotionally, but also physically.”
Penterman emphasized the bill is not intended to extend the school day or reduce instructional time. Instead, he said schools could restructure existing schedules to include more frequent movement breaks.
“We’re not looking to expand the school day. Absolutely not,” Penterman said. “It’s already set. We’re going to leave it at that. It’s about increasing efficiencies.”
The proposal would give schools flexibility in how the time is scheduled, allowing recess to be broken into multiple shorter periods throughout the day.
“But 60 minutes of play a day — it could be three 20-minute recesses. It could be two 30-minute recesses,” Penterman said.
Parents in the Madison Metropolitan School District say concerns about limited recess became apparent once their children came home from school.
“I saw that we only had 30 minutes of recess at our school, and I felt like that wasn’t enough,” said Victoria Carey, a parent with a child in elementary school.
Carey said she initially assumed recess policies were determined by individual schools or districts, but later learned minimum requirements are set at the state level.
“So I looked into — is that our school’s policy? Is that our district’s policy?” Carey said. “And then I realized that it wasn’t either of those. Really, it was the state.”
Ally Grigg, another MMSD parent and former teacher, said a lack of movement during the school day can lead to challenges with emotional regulation and behavior at home.
“If that need is not being met at school, they come home, and my experience is my child frequently has meltdowns as soon as she gets home,” Grigg said. “A lot of times they have a lot of energy and they’re bouncing off the walls because they didn’t get that out during the day.”
Grigg and Carey are part of a parent-led advocacy effort ‘Say Yes to Recess’, pushing for increased recess time statewide. They say their goal is not to burden teachers or administrators, but to recognize play as a meaningful part of the learning process.
“They are great tinkerers, little scientists, as they’re referred to often,” Carey said. “And they do that through play. I think recess is a great opportunity for play to practice what they’re learning in the classroom and with each other.”
Carey said parents they’ve spoken with, including some educators, often share similar concerns, even if there are questions about how additional recess would fit into already packed schedules.
“Most of the reaction is very positive,” Carey said. “Everybody agrees that kids need recess. It’s really about finding the balance between instructional time and what kids need developmentally.”
Penterman said the bill was shaped after an earlier proposal focused on increasing overall physical activity faced pushback over concerns about unfunded mandates.
“So we kind of revamped it and looked at it,” he said. “What’s something we already have existing in place now that we can just expand?”
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said it is in the process of analyzing the legislation and does not yet have an official position.
The bill is still early in the legislative process. Penterman said he hopes the proposal encourages broader discussion about how schools balance academic demands with students’ physical and mental health.
“Play is the work of a child,” Penterman said, quoting educator Maria Montessori. “And it’s so important to their development.”
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MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Health Services on Thursday reaffirmed its recommended childhood vaccine schedule after recent changes at the federal level.
Wisconsin vaccine guidance
Local perspective:
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced changes to its childhood vaccine schedule. The DHS said those modifications further stray “from alignment with America’s leading medical associations and organizations.”
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At this time, the DHS said it is not making changes to its vaccine recommendations – including no changes to Wisconsin’s school or child care vaccine recommendations.
The DHS said it continues to endorse the American Academy of Pediatrics schedule and has issued guidance to Wisconsin health care providers reaffirming that recommendation.
What they’re saying:
“The CDC’s new recommendations were based on a brief review of other countries’ practices and not based on data or evidence regarding disease risks to children in the United States,” DHS Secretary Kirsten Johnson said in a statement. “This upends our longstanding, evidence-based approach of protecting our children from the viruses that pose a risk in our country.
“Copying another country’s schedule without its health and social infrastructure will not produce the same health outcomes. It creates chaos and confusion and risks the health of Wisconsin’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens.”
Big picture view:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the CDC will continue to recommend that all children are immunized against 10 diseases for which there is international consensus, as well as chickenpox.
The updated schedule is in contrast to the CDC child and adolescent schedule at the end of 2024, which recommended 17 immunizations for all children. On the new schedule, vaccines – such as those for hepatitis A and B, meningitis, rotavirus and seasonal flu – are now more restricted. They are recommended only for those at high risk or after consultation with a health care provider.
What they’re saying:
“President Trump directed us to examine how other developed nations protect their children and to take action if they are doing better,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”
The Source: The Wisconsin DHS released information about its childhood vaccine recommendations. Information about the CDC changes is from LiveNOW from FOX with contributions from The Associated Press.
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