The Curious Candidacy of Joan Beglinger

Somebody out there doesn’t like Tim Michels.

A shadowy organization called Wisconsin RINO Hunters spent significant money on ads to attack the Republican candidate for governor as a “RINO” or Republican In Name Only, and promote an independent candidate, Joan Beglinger, as the true conservative in the race. Beglinger got 1% of the vote, more than 26,000 votes, which clearly helped Democrat Tony Evers, though his winning margin — of about 85,000 votes — shows he still would have won even without this help.

Beglinger showed surprising strength: she was chosen by 7% of voters in the August Marquette Law School poll. She withdrew from the race on Sept. 4, reportedly after being urged to by the Michels campaign, but by then it was too late to remove her name from the ballot. The September MU poll showed her at 4% and she was still at 2% in final poll in late October.

Marquette pollster Charles Franklin, however, didn’t expect Beglinger to do very well. As he told Urban Milwaukee via email, “Independents rarely reach even 1% of actual votes. (Green and Libertarians get 2-3%). On the survey, people who are unhappy with both party candidates pick a third alternative if there is one. It doesn’t seem to be an ideological choice but one reflecting anti-partisan feelings or disinterest in politics.”

But in this case voters had an added reason to pick Beglinger. Ads were run, even though Beglinger was officially not a candidate, supporting her as a better choice than Michels. As a story by Wispolitics noted, the narrator in a digital ad running on Facebook let voters know that the mainstream media “says you have no voice. You’ve got to suck it up. They say vote for their hand-picked RINO Tim Michels. But that’s fake news.”

The ad said Beglinger is “actually pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Trump,” and played a clip of Beglinger saying, “If we don’t take back our state, we’re not going to live in a free country.”

The ad was purchased by Wisconsin RINO Hunters, which ultimately spent $624,541 on ads calling Beglinger “the true conservative choice” in the race. The group may have also been behind a fake campaign website created for Beglinger.

So who was behind this this group? Wispolitics was unable to find out. But others in the media looked closer. A story by Wisconsin Right Now traced the effort to an address at 122 C Street NW, Ste 540, Washington, DC. “The phone number is: (385) 202-7284. We called it, and it lists to McCauley and Associates; you can ask to speak with Mike, Steve or Kate.”

It must be a dirty trick by liberals, the story fumed. “The effort is clearly designed to help Gov. Tony Evers by tricking conservatives into throwing away their votes by casting their ballots for a candidate, Joan Beglinger, who is no longer in the race… The language of the fake campaign website and the Google ad are designed to appeal to conservatives, although the website reads like they were written by a liberal who has a stereotypical idea of conservatives.”

But Fox 6 dug deeper and found connections to Republicans. Its story connected Wisconsin RINO Hunters to another one called the Liberty Group, and found both had the same address and suite in Washington D.C. The treasurer listed on the campaign registration form submitted with the state of Wisconsin, the story noted, was listed as Mike McCauley of McCauley and Associates, a firm that says it offers “accounting and compliance services for political campaigns, political organizations, small businesses, and corporations since 2005.”

“McCauley’s bio states he worked for several state Republican parties, including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah. It also reports he served as the treasurer of the Utah Republican Party for 13 years. He lists clients including the senatorial campaigns of Republicans Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee,” the story noted.

So was this an effort by anti-Trump Republicans to defeat a Trump-endorsed candidate like Michels? Perhaps, but Fox 6 also found a third group at the DC address, called Patriots for Wisconsin, that had “business relationships with Democratic firms. Patriots for Wisconsin paid AL Media of Chicago, which helps Democratic candidates like Stacey Abrams and organizations like the Democratic National Committee and the progressive A Better Wisconsin Together.”

Meanwhile, how did Beglinger herself fit into this scenario? Her campaign website described her as “A lifelong resident of Wisconsin, married for 49 years to Brad, a retired engineer and Air Force veteran, a “registered nurse with a Master’s degree in Nursing and an Executive MBA,” who had “10 Years of clinical practice” as a “Clinical Nurse Specialist in Critical Care at St. Luke’s Hospital in Milwaukee” and went on to serve as “Vice President of Patient Care and Chief Nursing Officer at Aurora Sinai in Milwaukee.” As for her views, she is anti-abortion and very pro-freedom and certainly sounds like a conservative independent.

At the top of the website it notes that Beglinger withdrew from the race and endorsed Michels. But on her Facebook campaign page, that is less clear: at first glance it looks like she is still running and contains posts where she discusses the issues. Under the tagline “Beglinger for Governor” she posts a story “The closing arguments — it’s time to vote,” and goes on at length about her views before finally noting she has endorsed Michels.

As endorsements go, it’s a bit lukewarm, and probably left Michels steaming mad.