Mayor Johnson Offers VP Vance A Special Tour For His Milwaukee Visit
Offering a tour of city's election operations. Vance will speak at airport, host fundraiser.
J.D. Vance at the 2024 RNC. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Vice President J.D. Vance will hold multiple events in Milwaukee on Wednesday. Mayor Cavalier Johnson is hoping he will have time for one more.
Given the Trump administration’s continued discussion about alleged fraud in the 2020 election, Johnson is inviting the vice president to tour the city’s election operations to see how they operate.
“I want him to come and talk to our election officials,” Johnson said during a media briefing Tuesday afternoon.
Johnson sent Vance a letter in advance of the visit.
“The reason I sent the letter is because I anticipate that the vice president will hit on some of the same tunes that we’ve seen from out East over the course of this second term of the president, where in any place he didn’t win there was something nefarious going on — it was rigged or the like,” the mayor said.
Johnson said it was clear Trump won the presidential elections in 2016 and 2024, but lost in 2020.
“It’s been litigated time and again,” said the mayor.
Johnson, who was not mayor in 2020, has repeatedly defended the city’s 2020 election practices and subsequent elections. The FBI recently began interviewing Milwaukee Police Department officers related to the 2020 election. He said city officials have been “meticulous” in their attention to detail in administering elections in Milwaukee. “The administration should stop the FBI probe. This has been litigated for five years. There has been no credible evidence produced to say anything other than what we already know,” he said, referring to the 2020 election.
In May, Johnson extended a similar offer to U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor. Tiffany has not responded, Johnson said, nor did his campaign respond to a request for comment from Urban Milwaukee.
“Ongoing repetition of false allegations regarding election integrity has undermined faith in America’s democracy. Such inaccurate attacks are an affront to the honest and hardworking people who manage elections here in Milwaukee and across the country,” Johnson wrote in his July 7 letter. “I will not speculate about the motives for these falsehoods other than to say it appears to be an intentional strategy to damage a fundamental pillar of our government.”
Johnson’s letter says the FBI’s investigation is “intimidating honest public servants.”
The White House has not publicly released a full itinerary for Vance’s Milwaukee trip.
“On Wednesday, July 8, 2026, Vice President J.D. Vance will visit Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he will deliver remarks on the Trump administration’s work to combat fraud,” the White House said in a statement Monday.
Vance, as first reported by WisPolitics, is also expected to appear at a Republican National Committee fundraiser in Milwaukee with a $10,000-per-couple entry fee. The cost rises to $35,000 if the couple wants a photo with the vice president, according to the invitation.
The vice president was last in Wisconsin in February when he spoke at Pointe Precision in Plover following the State of the Union address.
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