Several individuals who were deeply involved in the coordinated effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin hold leadership positions in the party. Brian Schimming, now chair of the Wisconsin GOP, met with Trump henchmen Ken Chesebro and Rudy Giuliani on December 12, 2020, to “allegedly discuss” the fake electors scheme to select alternate Trump electors even though Biden had officially been declared the winner in Wisconsin. The state GOP’s second vice chair, as well as its third, fourth, and eighth congressional chairs, all served as fake electors who met at the state Capitol to sign falsified documents to submit to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, Electoral College certification process.
In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, the Wisconsin GOP has continued to undermine confidence in the validity of elections. The state party formally supported and promoted two ballot measures that were passed in April 2024, one that banned the use of private funds in election administration and another that unnecessarily narrowed the number of people who could qualify as “election officials.” Schimming also called the June 2024 reinstatement of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state “a setback for both the separation of powers and public trust in our elections.”
The following are among the state GOP leaders who show unfettered loyalty to Trump and his ongoing claim that any election he doesn’t win is “rigged”:
- Brian Schimming | Chairman
Brian Schimming is cited by name in Georgia’s election interference case against Trump and 18 co-defendants. According to the Georgia indictment, two years before he became GOP state chair Schimming met with Trump co-conspirator Ken Chesebro on December 12, 2020, to discuss the fake electors plan, while Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani participated by phone. Two days later, 10 Republican fake electors from Wisconsin secretly met at the state Capitol to sign and submit false documents claiming to be electoral votes for Trump. - Kathy Kiernan | Second Vice Chairman
Kathy Kiernan is one of 10 fake electors in Wisconsin who attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting false Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, certification process. In December 2023, she and the other fake electors settled a civil case brought against them by the state’s Democratic electors. As part of the settlement, they acknowledged that President Biden had legitimately won the state and promised that they wouldn’t serve as presidential electors in 2024 or any other election with Trump on the ballot. - Van Wanggaard | Wisconsin Republican Labor Council
Longtime State Senator Van Wanggaard also holds a position as the head of the state GOP’s executive committee Labor Council. After the 2020 election, he cast doubt on the results in Wisconsin in a TV interview, saying Trump could have won because “there was [stet] some shenanigans that were pulled.” In October 2021, Wanggaard backed controversial voter fraud allegations made by the Racine County sheriff and called for mass resignations and prosecutions of Wisconsin Elections Commission staff and commissioners. In May 2022, he was the only state legislator at an event that promoted the widely debunked and inflammatory documentary 2000 Mules while purporting to depoliticize the topic of election integrity. Wanggaard includes “election integrity” as a campaign priority and has backed a bill that would enshrine a photo ID requirement for voters in the Wisconsin Constitution. He also voted in favor of two statewide constitutional amendments that he summarizes as follows: “Question #1 prohibits the use of ‘private donations and grants’ (e.g. Zuckerbucks) in funding election administration. Question #2 prohibits anyone not authorized by law to administer elections.” - Bill Feehan | Third Congressional District Chairman
Bill Feehan is one of 10 fake electors in Wisconsin who attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting false Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, certification process. In December 2023, he and the other fake electors settled a civil case brought against them by the state’s Democratic electors. As part of the settlement, they acknowledged that President Biden had legitimately won the state and promised that they wouldn’t serve as presidential electors in 2024 or any other election with Trump on the ballot. - Robert Spindell | Fourth Congressional District Chairman
As both a GOP district chair and vice chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Bob Spindell served as one of the state’s 10 fake electors who attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting false Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, certification process. He also spoke at a December 2020 Stop the Steal rally in Madison, sharing the podium with rally organizer and diehard Trump pitbull Mike Lindell, who claimed the ex-president lost Wisconsin because of issues with Dominion voting machines—a widely disproven conspiracy theory. In December 2023, Spindell and the other fake electors settled a civil case brought against them by the state’s Democratic electors. As part of the settlement, they acknowledged that President Biden had legitimately won the state and promised that they wouldn’t serve as presidential electors in 2024 or any other election with Trump on the ballot. - Jennie Frederick | Fifth Congressional District Chairman
In October 2021, Jennie Frederick, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Republican Women, pushed for a resolution in support of a legislative “election integrity investigation.” The resolution declared, among other things, that “whereas there were (in many states) discrepancies and questionable practices during the 2020 election, …leaving people to wonder about the validity of their votes,” those who signed the document “whole-heartedly support the efforts of Representative Janel Brandtjen in seeking a full and complete cyber forensic audit of the Wisconsin 2020 election and… demand accountability, resolution, action and/or prosecution based on the results of the audit.” - Kelly Ruh | Eighth Congressional District Chairman
Kelly Ruh is one of 10 fake electors in Wisconsin who attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting false Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, certification process. In December 2023, she and the other fake electors settled a civil case brought against them by the state’s Democratic electors. As part of the settlement, they acknowledged that President Biden had legitimately won the state and promised that they wouldn’t serve as presidential electors in 2024 or any other election with Trump on the ballot. - Brandon Maly | Dane County Chairman
In 2022 when he was in his early 20s, Brandon Maly moved to Wisconsin to work on the reelection campaign of Senator Ron Johnson, an election denier. He was elected chair of the Dane County GOP in 2023, and is a full-time field representative for Turning Point Action, the advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, which was deeply involved in the January 6 insurrection and continues to spread disinformation about voter fraud. On July 21, 2024, Maly posted on X that with Kamala Harris stepping into the race for president, “We are in deep trouble now” because “Trump is only up by 2% in WI which is not enough to overcome the margin of fraud.” - Richard Kucksdorf | Shawano County Chairman
A December 14, 2020, message posted to the Shawano County Facebook page suggested that the upcoming January 6 protest in Washington might be “biblical” and that Trump loyalists should anticipate violence that day. “(You might prepare yourselves for some temporary violence; Water, food, medications),” the post reads. Richard Kucksdorf claims to have no knowledge of who posted it, but questioned whether the people involved in the insurrection really were Trump supporters. He was also among the plaintiffs in a failed federal lawsuit that attempted to overturn Biden’s victory in Wisconsin and four other battleground states. At a May 2021 “voter integrity” rally sponsored by the Amistad Project, which challenged the 2020 election results in six states, Kucksdorf announced “the filing of a formal complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission accusing the City of Madison of inviting improper outside influence over its election process in 2020.”