The presidential primary is over, but Wisconsin’s election today still matters

Keep an eye on Wisconsin’s presidential primary Tuesday. The battleground state has a number of threads worth watching, setting the stage for the high-stakes general election in the state later this year.

Another opportunity for protest votes against President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Ballot initiatives that could change how November’s elections are run. A big stump speech from Trump.

Election 2024 Wisconsin: Here’s what to watch in Tuesday’s elections in the Badger State.

How strong will the protest vote be?

Organized efforts to cast protest votes against Biden are in full force, more than a month after the first major push to do so in Michigan. Around 13 percent of the Democratic primary electorate in that swing state voted for “uncommitted,” largely to register their dissatisfaction with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with most of the opposition coming from Arab-American communities and in college towns.

Wisconsin will be the next major test of that effort. While there have been protest campaigns in other primary states over the last month, Wisconsin is the latest general election swing state with an “uncommitted” option — or in this case, “uninstructed delegation.”

Biden won Wisconsin by less than 1 point, or just over 20,000 votes, in 2020. Organizers are aiming to get around that number of “uninstructed” votes Tuesday as a show of force — and a warning. (Democratic Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who has dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden, is also on the ballot.)

A handful of local elected officials have signed on to the effort in Wisconsin, although like the ones before it it’s had little buy-in from state and federal elected officials, many of whom have downplayed the impacts of these protest votes on the general election.

But Democratic Wisconsin state Rep. Francesca Hong, who has endorsed the campaign, sees it differently: “I think that should [Biden] be moved to change course quicker, that that's actually going to strengthen his chances and increase his chances of winning by a large margin in November,” she said.

Similar efforts are also underway in other states holding presidential primaries Tuesday, although they are states that Biden will assuredly win come November. “Uncommitted” is an option in Connecticut and Rhode Island, both deep-blue states. It’s not an option in New York, where there is also no write-in option in the primary, so organizers have encouraged voters there to cast a blank ballot. But that might not have the type of impact it has had in the other states, as the New York elections board doesn’t plan to report the blank totals in its unofficial results — just the official ones that come out weeks later. (Delaware was supposed to hold presidential primaries Tuesday, but they were canceled because they are uncontested.)

The “uninstructed” option is also on the GOP presidential primary ballots, although there is no organized effort to use that against Trump. Voters who aren’t sold on the former president could cast their ballot for that choice, or for the candidates appearing on the ballot who have already dropped out, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; businessperson Vivek Ramawamy; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Election administration is on the ballot

Two Wisconsin ballot measures could have a big impact on the swing state’s elections in November.

Question 1 puts to voters a ban on private grant funding of elections. The push here comes after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, provided hundreds of millions in grants — given through election nonprofits — to local election offices struggling with pandemic preparations in the run-up to the 2020 election. After Trump lost, Republicans alleged the grants were made to primarily benefit Democrats. (They went to jurisdictions of all political persuasions.)

In Wisconsin, state assembly leaders blessed former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for a wide-ranging, conspiracy-fueled look at the 2020 election that focused heavily on this private funding. They eventually disavowed his effort after he turned on them.

Bans on private funding spread like wildfire after 2020, with over two dozen states now blocking it. Republicans overwhelmingly back banning private funding of election administration. And some Democrats and nonpartisan officials aren’t outright opposed, either — with the huge caveat that private funding has been necessary because election offices are chronically underfunded and public spending should fill that gap.

Question 2 would add language to the state constitution that only “an election official designated by law may perform any task in the conduct of any primary, election, or referendum.” What this language would actually do is unclear, particularly because there is already state law (pre-dating 2020) that is similar to this proposal.

Bolts’ Alex Burness wrote that some election officials and voting advocates worry that it is “written so vaguely as to invite lawsuits over what constitutes a ‘task’ and what, exactly, it means to help ‘conduct’ an election” and could ultimately lead to a “chilling effect” in which election officials are unsure who can help with what.

There has not been any notable spending for either initiative. But the Wisconsin Republican Party supports both amendments, and their state Democratic counterparts oppose both.

Trump’s in town

Trump will be in town as voters are casting their ballots. He’s set to deliver remarks at a rally in Green Bay Tuesday evening. Trump won Brown County, where Green Bay is located, by around 7 points in 2020.

It will be the first time this cycle the former president gives his pitch directly to Wisconsin voters: He hasn’t been in the state for a high-profile event since 2022, when he rallied with gubernatorial hopeful Tim Michels.

Biden’s campaign has already made clear that Wisconsin is a top priority. The president or a top official from his administration has visited the state seven times since the beginning of the year, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Polls close at 9 p.m. EST.

A version of this story first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Pro.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misidentified the funding source of election grants from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan; they gave the money in their personal capacity.