Wisconsin
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.
WEST ALLIS (WLUK) — The Wisconsin State Fair unveiled dozens of new menu items coming to the fairgrounds for the 175th fair.
80 new food and drink options were unveiled Friday afternoon. Many of the items will feature Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery cheese curds, as they were declared the official cheese curds of the state fair. However, Door County cheese curds will be featured on the cheddar garlic longanisa lumpia, according to the list. It isn’t clear which Door County cheesemaker is supplying the cheese curds.
Here are all the new items coming to the fair:
- Al Pastor Pizza
- Bayou Crunch Cup
- Big Pat’s Pit Stop Punch
- Birria Flamin’ Bombs
- Biscoff Hot Fudge Cup
- Bloody Mary Mac Daddy
- Blue Ribbon Watermelon Mint Julep
- Bourbon Deep-Fried Pecan Pie
- Bugged Out Frozen Cheesecake On-a-Stick
- Bunzel’s Hungarian Sausage Sandwich
- Candied Bacon Cheese Curds
- Caramel Apple Cheese Curd Tacos
- Cevapcici – Croatian Sausage Sandwich
- Cheddar Garlic Longanisa Lumpia with Banana Ketchup
- Chicken Cordon Bleu Sausage
- Chimi-Brat-Changa
- Chocolate Covered Strawberry Sipper
- Churro Dog
- Circus Peanut Spritz
- Cold Foam Berry Blast
- Color-Changing Swamp Juice
- Cookie Butter Coffee Float
- Cosmic Funnel Cake
- Cranberry Dream Bar
- Cream City Cone
- Cuban Fries
- Deep Fried Horchata Balls
- Deep-Fried Ranch
- Deep-Fried Top The Tater
- Bloody Mary Pickles & Dill-icious Pickles
- Dill-uxe Pickle Fries
- Egg Roll A-la-Mode
- Ellsworth Fresh Cheese Curds
- Freedom Brat
- Freeze Dried Cheese Curds
- French Onion Cheese Pull
- Fruit Roll-Up Remix
- Gluten-Free Chimichurri Cheese Curds
- Guac This Way Tots
- Hawaiian Pizza Slush
- Hot Honey Bacon Corn Dog
- Hot Honey Chicken Lemonade
- Hot Honey Heatwave Fries
- Ice Cream Nachos
- Lemon-Lime Spritz
- Little Smokies Campfire Meal
- Monkey Bread
- Monster Blue Hawaiian Dirty Soda
- Nitro Cheesy Puffs
- Orange Creamsicle Lemonade
- Patriotic Punch
- Peach Beary Boba
- Peaches n’ Cream Whipped Frozen Lemonade
- Peachy Keen Cooler
- Pineapple Pop Paradise
- Pop’s Kettle Me Squeeze
- Porky Puff
- Potato Chip Sundae
- Ranch BLT Dog
- Red, White, & Berry
- Redneck Brat
- Smoked Pork Pierogi Sliders
- Soft Serve Beer
- Spam Jerky Sampler
- Star-Spangled Bomb Pop
- Sweet Lemon Berry Cheese Curds
- Tanghulu
- The Blue Moo Lagoon
- The Dirty Dog
- The Wisconsinite Slush
- Tilt-a-Spritz
- Tinga Tango Chicharrones
- Toffee Tumble
- Triple Chocolate Mini Donuts
- Tropical Tide
- Vegan Cheesesteak Eggrolls
- Waffle Cone S’mores
- Why Not Tots
- Wild Grape Dirty Soda
- Wisco Short Rid Corn Dog
- Wisconsin Chocolate Barnyard Float
- Southwestern Chorizo Pasty
In addition, a few new vendors are joining the Wisconsin State Fair. All Family Concessions will be found on the Back Forty. Dale Z’s On Tour will be on Grandstand Avenue and Second Street. Lulu Tanghulu will be in the expo center. And the Yuengling Beer House will be on Central Avenue and Benno’s Micro Alley.
The original cream puff and the chocolate cream puff will be offered at the 2026 Wisconsin State Fair. The new ‘Fair-aschino Cherry Cream Puff’ will be available while supplies last each day. Unlike the original and chocolate puffs, they won’t be available for pre-order.
Some of the new food offerings at the fair are also up for the Sporkies and Drinkies awards. The options up for the awarded are bolded in the list above.
The Wisconsin State Fair runs August 6 through August 16.
Residents can attend the July 16 meeting in Sheboygan or submit written comments by email to NOAA.
Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary has 36 shipwrecks
Discover the history, shipwrecks and impact of the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary, established to protect maritime heritage in Lake Michigan. This video was created by the Wochit AI tool.
Wochit
SHEBOYGAN – Residents can attend or comment on an upcoming meeting of the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council scheduled for July 16 in Sheboygan.
The gathering will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Sheboygan County Museum, 3110 Erie Ave., according to a community announcement. Members of the public are invited to attend and observe discussions.
The agenda includes routine council business, updates from working groups, community reports and briefings from NOAA staff on sanctuary programs, research and upcoming events.
Public can provide comments during meeting
A public comment period is planned for about 7:50 p.m., giving attendees a chance to share feedback directly with council members.
Those unable to attend may submit written comments by email to jean.prevo@noaa.gov, according to the announcement.
Council shares updates on sanctuary programs
NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries will provide updates tied to the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary, including research initiatives and community engagement efforts.
More information about the council and its activities is available online at sanctuaries.noaa.gov.
This story was created by reporter Nida Tazeen, NTazeen@usatodayco.com , with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
Wisconsin
A Wisconsin family is suing Target after their 10-month-old died from swallowing a water bead
A Wisconsin family lost their ten-month-old daughter after she swallowed a water bead. They blame Target and the water bead manufacturer for her death.
This week, Taylor and Tyler Bethard filed a lawsuit against Target in Hennepin County, claiming that the company failed to warn them and other customers about the dangers of a water beads product that used to be sold exclusively at Target.
Water beads are marketed as toys that come with sensory kits or craft sets, but data shows the products are prone to injuring young children. The polymer material is extremely absorbent, allowing water beads – which are often colorful – to expand around 100 times their original size when they interact with water or liquid. This presents a hazard for kids; the United States Product Safety Commission states that between 2017 and 2022, there were 6,300 water bead-related ingestion injuries that required treatment from emergency departments across the country.
In 2023, a 10-month-old girl died. Her name is Esther “Jo” Bethard. According to court filings, Taylor Bethard found her daughter unresponsive in her crib on the morning of July 7, 2023, after she had suffered symptoms of a stomach illness overnight. Medical examiners told the family that her death was caused by swallowing a single water bead.
The Bethards had purchased a Chuckle and Roar water bead set in the spring of 2022 for Esther Jo’s older siblings, never intending for the infant to interact with the water beads.
Target and the Chuckle and Roar manufacturer, Buffalo Games LLC, mutually agreed to pull the product from the shelves in November of 2022. Court records show an email exchange between Buffalo Games and a product safety employee at Target where the manufacturer noted that while their water beads had met safety standards at the time, they wanted to “avoid any future unintended misuse of the product.”
That conversation was prompted after Buffalo Games was informed that an infant required surgery after ingesting a water bead from the Ultimate Water Beads kit. Target agreed to end sales, indicating that this would be classified as a “safety removal.”
The Bethard’s lawsuit alleges that Target clearly knew how dangerous these water beads could be, but failed to warn them or other customers. Target stopped selling the product about eight months before Esther Jo died. Daniel Mann, a personal injury attorney representing the Bethards in this case, said that Esther Jo would still be alive if Target had acted.
“With all this information Target didn’t do anything to reach out to the family or other consumers to let them know about this problem,” Mann said, “I think 10/10 people would say Target had a responsibility to do more than what they did, which was nothing.”
A spokesperson for Target said that they would not comment on ongoing litigation, but the company had already responded to an identical complaint filed by the Bethards in the State of New York. In 2025, the Bethards sued both Target and Buffalo Games in Erie County, N.Y., because that was where the manufacturer was based. In response to the lawsuit there, court filings show that Target denied the allegations that they knew of an extraordinary danger posed by the water beads and failed to notify customers.
The complaint was dismissed against Target in New York, Mann explained, due to jurisdiction. This lead to them refiling in Hennepin County this week.
In a statement to WCCO on the new legal action, a Target spokesperson said “We extend our deepest sympathies to those affected by this tragedy, and we worked closely with the manufacturer of the product at the time the incident occurred.”
Taylor Bethard, Esther Jo’s mother, has lead the charge to ban water beads entirely. Her efforts lead to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commision recalling the more than 52,000 Chuckle and Roar Ultimate Water Beads Activity Kits that were in circulation. The recall took effect in September of 2023. Target, Walmart and Amazon announced that they would stop marketing water beads to children.
Bethard is also working with Wisconsin U.S. State Senator Tammy Baldwin to establish federal legislation to permanently outlaw all water beads. This past spring, the CPSC established new legal guidelines that restrict the size of water beads to try to ensure high safety standards.
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