Wisconsin
Democracy on line? Swing state Wisconsin offers a test – Times of India
“Trump, I think, is an existential threat to democracy,” the 36-year-old said as he strolled through the bustling downtown of Appleton, one of the most politically diverse areas of one of the most closely divided US states.
He pointed to the “terrifying” people around the Republican mogul and to Project 2025, the governing blueprint written for, but publicly disavowed by, Trump that would ram through his hard-right policies.
“They aim to truly just bypass and circumvent checks and balances, and really neuter the efficacy of our political system,” Hovde said.
Not far away, past the verdant lawns and elegant Victorian homes in this comfortably middle-class city, Casey Stern, 58, sees the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris quite differently.
Above his neatly tended garden of corn and zucchini flies an imposing “Trump 2024” flag. Another banner calls for Biden’s impeachment and says, “We the People Are Pissed.”
If the message is in-your-face, so are the reactions. Stern recounts passers-by shouting profanities, while some critics jot down his address and send him letters.
He acknowledged that Trump’s “mean tweets in the middle of the night” can bother people but believes the country needs a “strong-willed” leader to address inflation, immigration and crime.
“Every time you go to the grocery store, you can’t even afford a steak,” Stern said.
He scoffed at Democrats’ charges that Trump puts democracy at risk, accusing President Joe Biden of stifling public debate over the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Biden has done more to harm democracy,” he said.
– State of tumult –
If there is one state where the Democrats’ message on Trump’s threat to democracy may mobilize voters, it is Wisconsin.
Once known for clean, polite, left-tilting politics, Wisconsin has become an epicenter of partisanship — an ultimate swing state that could tip the national .
Trump stunned complacent Democrats by winning narrowly in 2016. Biden then took back Wisconsin by another razor-thin margin in 2020.
A turning point had come in 2010 when Scott Walker, a young Republican who many presumed would respect Wisconsin’s mild-mannered political style, was elected governor and unleashed sweeping changes.
He stripped power from Wisconsin’s once-formidable labor unions, and his Republicans drastically redrew election maps, virtually guaranteeing party control of the state legislature.
Democrats hope Republicans will have their comeuppance in the November 5 election, fought on less partisan maps after a ruling by the state Supreme Court’s new liberal majority.
Kristin Alfheim, a Democrat who is seeking a state Senate seat, said competitive maps benefit democracy.
“It brings the opportunity for accountability from both sides, knowing they’re going to need to work together,” she said.
– ‘Democracy’ cuts both ways –
Biden and Harris have hammered away on the threat to democracy from Trump, who refused to accept defeat in 2020 and fired up the supporters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Arnold Shober, a government professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, said the democracy theme carried “special resonance” in Wisconsin after its experience with Walker, who was voted out in 2018.
But Shober said it cut both ways, with some Republicans still smarting over the boisterous, albeit nonviolent, protests that disrupted the state’s capitol when Walker pushed through his anti-union measure, known as Act 10.
“When you talk about January 6 in Wisconsin, folks on the right will instantly say, well, what about those Democrats with Act 10?” Shober said.
“They see it almost as an equity issue. You did it — we can do it, too.”
– Countering vitriol –
The historic home to giant paper mills and now the base for major white-collar employers, Outagamie County, of which Appleton is the seat, was dominated by Republicans and produced the notorious anti-communist witch-hunter Joe McCarthy.
But in a microcosm of the country, an urban-rural split has deepened, with Democrats gaining in an increasingly cosmopolitan Appleton.
Outagamie County Chief Executive Tom Nelson, a Democrat sympathetic to socialist Bernie Sanders, has kept winning since 2011 even as he has seen coarseness in politics rising with Trump.
“He has animated that vitriol, that contempt, that hatred,” he said.
Nelson said he has successfully reached across the divide on a more basic message.
Fundamentally, he said, people want “to be able to live in a community that is safe, that is healthy, that has a strong and vibrant economy.”
Wisconsin students enrolled in short-term, workforce training programs will soon be able to use federal grants to pay their tuition.
Millions of low-income students rely on Pell Grants to pay for college, including more than 70,000 in Wisconsin. The awards have long been limited to courses that span a minimum of 15 weeks or 600 “clock hours.”
The Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed into law this summer will extend Pell Grant eligiblity to include short-term nondegree programs as short as eight weeks beginning July 1, 2026. The expansion is the largest in decades, making programs previously paid out of pocket – from truck drivers to machinists to nursing assistants – more affordable to students.
These types of programs are mostly offered by community and technical colleges, which have long lobbied for the change. They are studying their programs and deciding which need adjustments ahead of the eligibility expansion.
“Opening up financial aid and making financial aid policy more flexible and relevant to how folks are accessing workplace today, I think it has the potential to be really exciting,” said Wisconsin Technical College System President Layla Merrifield. “How do we bundle these skills? How do we construct these programs and get students a credential that’s very relevant to their field that could potentially provide a great on-ramp to a further credential later on?”
Some education policy experts have reservations about the financial aid expansion and whether it will deliver for students. There’s concern about online training programs and for-profit institutions, some of which have a pattern of predatory practices and poor graduation outcomes. Research also shows short-term programs lead to less upward mobility and lower long-term earnings for students than associate or bachelor’s degrees.
“There is a big risk here,” said Wesley Whistle, the higher education project director at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “An eight-week program is really easy to crank out lots of people. You could have a lot of low-quality programs that don’t lead to much. Students could waste their time, exhaust their Pell eligibility and be left without the right skills to succeed in the workforce. That’s my worry.”
Short implementation timeline, outcome requirements among Workforce Pell challenges
Advocates say the proposed regulations approved Dec. 12 by the federal education department include accountability measures to prevent programs from taking advantage of students and wasting taxpayer money.
The programs must be run by an accredited institution of higher education, and be offered for more than one year before being approved. States must track outcomes, requiring programs meet a 70% completion and job-placement rate, and demonstrate they lead to in-demand, high-wage jobs.
The law includes no additional funding for states to take on the new role of approving individual programs, a worry of Whistle’s.
The tight timeline is also a concern to him. States could quickly throw together an approval process and never again look at it. Whistle advocated for states to start with a pilot approach and reassess in the coming years. He also suggested they creatively leverage state funding to target specific programs that serve high workforce needs.
“This could actually be a moment where we have laboratories for democracy,” Whistle said. “To see what works and what doesn’t.”
Merrifield said technical colleges are working closely with the state Department of Workforce Development on program approvals. She said she’d love to see the expansion in place for fall 2026 but it may realistically take a little longer than that.
Wisconsin technical colleges take stock of programs
State technical colleges already have some programs that will qualify for the expanded financial aid. But they are considering which ones to revamp.
Take the certified nursing assistant program, Merrifield offered as an example. Students pursuing their registered nursing degree earn their CNA as part of the program. But some students aren’t in the RN program and are seeking only their CNA.The program is 75 hours, which is not enough to meet the new financial aid criteria.
Do technical colleges keep the program short, meaning students continue paying out of pocket? Or do they overhaul it, add skills that hospitals and medical facilities may be looking for and allow students to qualify for Pell Grants?
“There’s potential to re-examine why is it that we package skills the way that we do,”Merrifield said. “What is it that employers are really loooking for in the marketplace?”
Merrifield said manufacturing and agriculture programs may also be ripe for revamp.
Milwaukee Area Technical College has identified eight technical diploma programs that will qualify for a Pell Grant under the expansion, said Barbara Cannell, the executive dean of academic systems and integrity. The programs include nail technician, office technology assistant, real estate broker associate, truck driver training, IT user support technician and food service assistant.
MATC has a number of other programs, mostly certificates, that are too short to qualify for the expansion, she said. College officials are deciding whether to keep the programs as-is or tweak them to allow students to qualify for Pell Grants.
Both Cannell and Merrifield see the Pell Grant expansion as a way to make work-force training more accessible to nontraditional students.
“This opens the door to populations of students who just never saw themselves in that way before,” Merrifield said.
Kelly Meyerhofer has covered higher education in Wisconsin since 2018. Contact her at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – A more than $4 million multistate settlement was reached with Menards Wednesday over deceptive rebate advertising and price gouging, Wisconsin officials announced Wednesday.
Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said the settlement resolves claims that Menards falsely marketed its merchandise credit check program, also known as the Menards’ 11% Rebate Program, and allowed price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wisconsin will receive $750,000 in the settlement, according to DATCP.
“Figuring out how much you’ll have to pay to buy something should be straightforward,” Kaul said. “It shouldn’t be an adventure.”
Investigators involved in the multi-state lawsuit, which included Illinois and Minnesota, reviewed several aspects of Menards’ sales practices.
Wisconsin officials said investigators reviewed allegations that Menards’ use of the 11% off rebate program falsely claimed a point-of purchase discount, when the home improvement chain only offered in-store merchandise credit for future use, among other advertising claims.
Officials also investigated price gouging on four-gallon bottles of purified water at two locations in Wisconsin, including in Johnson Creek.
As part of the settlement, Menards will need to follow several advertising and sales practices. The terms, noted by DATCP, are as follows (wording theirs):
- Not advertising or representing that any program that offers store credit for making purchases at Menards provides consumers with a point-of-purchase discount;
- Clearly and conspicuously disclosing material limitations of the rebate program and disclosing all applicable terms and conditions of the rebate program in a readily available manner;
- Investigating whether and to what extent it can offer a process by which consumers can safely and securely submit rebate application forms and receipts online;
- Investigating whether and to what extent it can offer a process by which consumers can safely and securely redeem their rebate for online purchases;
- Clearly and conspicuously disclosing that Menards is doing business as Rebates International;
- Allowing consumers at least one year from the date of purchase to submit a rebate claim;
- Updating their online rebate tracker with information about the rebate claim within 48 hours of the application being input into Menards’ system;
- Updating their online rebate tracker with additional information about the rebate, including updates about returns affecting the rebate; and
- Not engaging in price gouging during a period of abnormal economic disruption.
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Common Council 2026 budget
Union members and city workers gather at Milwaukee City Hall to demand higher raises for workers as the Common Council votes on the 2026 budget.
With consumers still concerned about affordability, nearly two dozen states across the country will raise their minimum wage next year.
The minimum wage will increase in 19 states and 49 cities and counties on Jan. 1, 2026, plus four more states and 22 municipalities later in the year, USA TODAY reported, citing an annual report from the National Employment Law Project.
Wisconsin’s minimum wage has not changed since 2009, when the federal minimum wage was set at $7.25.
But will it be one of the states raising its minimum wage in 2026?
Here’s what to know:
Is Wisconsin increasing its minimum wage in 2026?
No, Wisconsin is not one of the states increasing its minimum wage in 2026.
What is Wisconsin’s minimum wage?
Wisconsin’s minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s the same as the federal minimum wage.
What states are raising their minimum wage in 2026?
Here are the 19 states increasing their minimum wage on Jan. 1, 2026, according to USA TODAY:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Hawaii
- Maine
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- New York
- Ohio
- Rhode Island
- South Dakota
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
Alaska, Florida and Oregon will implement increases later in the year, according to the report. California also plans to enact a minimum wage increase specifically for health care workers.
Andrea Riquier of USA TODAY contributed to this report.
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